Archives for January 2013

Welcome back!  We hope that the Tips that we’ve already given you have been helping you build and brand your small business.  We’ve got more great Tips today so let’s get right to it!

If you’re looking to build affinity for your brand and have the townspeople talking about how wonderful you are you should throw them a party!  Now, before you start thinking about dance floors and liquor budgets let’s get real.  This would be an afternoon affair that sees your entire staff at work talking to guests and light refreshments being served.  Put together a presentation for them and make sure that you serve the food and drink after instead of before so you don’t lose them.  Also, have your products ready and able to be purchased with a great price on them for those that purchase right there at the party.

Giving your clients some type of gift that they can actually use on a daily basis around the house, in the car or at the office is a great idea and will keep your logo in front of their eyes and your products in their mind all the time.  Mugs, letter openers, calendars, pens (good quality) and the like are great ideas and don’t cost an arm and a leg either.

Remember and use these 3 Marketing ‘Secrets’, 3 of the best that we know.

1. Be Committed.  Commit to the business, the plan and the products and don’t give up.
2. Be Consistent.  Constantly put something in front of your customers and your community without fail.  Promote, promote, promote.
3. Be Confident. Remember that most marketing plans take at least 60 to 90 days to start producing results and, in many cases, the results won’t be huge for a while longer. Be confident that your marketing will eventually pay off and be patient.

Don’t try to make money but instead offer your customers real value, excellent customer service and products or services that are of the highest quality.  This, more than anything else, will bring you the success that you seek. Doing something that you truly love doesn’t hurt either.

Take your best customers out to lunch and let them tell you the truth about your business. Heck, invite some of your biggest critics too if you can stand the heat and let them all have their say.  The feedback that you get from this can be tremendous and the insights and ideas invaluable.  For the price of one meal (make it a mid-range eatery) you can get more info than you would from a year’s worth of customer satisfaction letters or emails. Do this every 6 months.

Marketing and advertising are just two of the many talents a small business must possess to conquer the competition.  When looking for another advantage consider these leading VoIP Providers.

We truly hope that these Tips have helped open your eyes to some of the ways that you can grow, promote, market and advance your business. We’ll be back in the future with more so keep coming back.  Good luck.

Welcome back for Part 3 of our 4 part series on marketing and advertising tips for the small business owner.  We’re going to give you more excellent advice and tips that you can use right away so settle in, take note of everything that you’re not using yet and get started using them ASAP.

Today one of the most important online tools that you can use is a ‘landing page’ that, when people find it, can lead them directly to your business. You’ll want to use high-quality SEO to rank high on the search engines and, once they ‘land’ on your page, something enticing to persuade them to leave their contact info, phone number or email address. And seriously, you should give them something that has real value as the bait. Once you have their email or phone you can start sending them info about your company on a regular basis.

Using email to communicate is fine but, when it comes to special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries, sending an honest-to-goodness birthday or anniversary card signed by you is the way to go.  No, this won’t actually create a sale per-se but it will create a huge amount of affinity in the hearts and minds of your clients and tell them that you really do care.  Heck, send them a coupon or gift card and you’ll have them in the palm of your hands.

If you can find a business in your community that has a complimentary product or service to yours one of the best things you can do is team-up on advertising campaigns.  This will not only cut your advertising costs directly in half but, if you pair with a company that is well-liked in your community, could raise your likeability factor up a level as well. It could also be the start of a great business relationship.

When sending out marketing message s keep in mind this 1 statistic- it takes approximately 7 repeat views for anybody to remember your print ad.  TV takes even more, which means that repetition is the key to success with advertising and marketing. One of the biggest mistakes that small businesses make is to ‘try’ a form of advertising once and, when it doesn’t produce the results they expected, stop it completely before it has a real chance to pay off.

There you have them.  Now go out and use them and, when you’re ready for more, come back and join us for Part 4.