Masterful Marketing » Small Business Marketing

Social Media Revolution – Its Affect On Small Businesses

Debra — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:48:47 +0000

Erik Qualman, author of the book Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, created a video called the Social Media Revolution in August 2009. He updated the video less than a year later to demonstrate how quickly the social media landscape moves. Some of the statistics are definitely eye-opening as well as exciting for small business owners. You can read the entire list and credits on Erik’s post Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh).

“Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.”

What does this mean?

Social media is not a trend and its use is growing exponentially. The tools will evolve and may in fact change, but the need for businesses to incorporate the Internet in general, and social media specifically, into their overall marketing strategy in order to achieve their goals is not going away. Social media will continue to change the way businesses market their brand, products and services because a savvy business is able to be proactive with its consumers, listening to what they want and need and responding to those needs quickly.

Small business owners should be excited about the opportunities available using the Internet and social media to grow your brand and become more visible to your target market. Social media will enable you to reach more people interested in your products and services faster and more effectively without the huge marketing budget that traditional media requires. Social media gives you the chance to reach out, talk with your customers, give them a reason to talk about you and happily share their recommendation with their friends or better, your community. As pointed out in the video, consumers will “no longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media“.

The good news is that according to a study by AMI-Partners, nearly 70 percent of the small businesses in the United States use social media. The bad news is that only 30 percent of small businesses perceive social media as strategically important to their continued business success because they are unsure how to best utilize the sites’ services to grow their business.

What does this mean for your business?

If you haven’t stuck your toe in the social media waters yet, you need to seriously think about doing so. If you have started to use social media but are unsure of whether it is helping, make sure you have defined your goals for social media so you have something to measure your efforts against. As with all marketing activities, you must develop a marketing plan that integrates online and social media marketing strategies and set goals for what you want to achieve.

How will your business take advantage of social media for gaining visibility and growing revenue?

Lead Generation: What Works Today

Debra — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:15:02 +0000

I recently presented a workshop at the New England Business Brokers Association meeting about how to integrate online and social media marketing for lead generation. As professional service business owners, we build our credibility by demonstrating our expertise and knowledge of our discipline and the use of social media makes building your reputation much simpler than before.

As a small business owner, how you approach online marketing can make the difference between a successful campaign and an overwhelming exercise. Learning how to use online marketing to drive visitors to your Website and generate leads is going to impact your marketing and ultimately the success of your business.

Here is a summary of the slides:

Slide 3: Small Business Marketing – What has changed?

Social media and the Internet channel has opened up opportunities to reach more potential customers that were unavailable to most small businesses not too long ago. What has changed in the market is the ability for the customer to:

Research service providers long before engaging in the sales process
Obtain reviews about the service provider that may influence the purchase decision
Acquire a perception about the business based on what they do and don’t find about you
Engage with the business through social networks to learn more about you

Slide 4: Small Business Marketing – What has not changed?

What has not changed, however, is the need to develop a brief, but focused marketing plan to help you effectively reach your prospects.

Slide 5: Benefits of Online Marketing

Levels the playing field
Positions you as the expert in your industry
Increases online exposure
Develops relationships / grows contact list
Encourages online WOM
Influences purchase decisions
Increases your reach
Drives visitors / generate leads

Slide 6: Challenges of Online Marketing

Not understanding what you are trying to accomplish with online and social media marketing can lead to activities that are disjointed, inconsistent and totally ineffective. Online marketing requires:

A strategy on how to approach it for your business
A marketing system to ensure consistency
A definition of what makes you different to stand out from the crowd
A valuable offer (content, information) to get attention
Understanding how to sell without selling
A plan for how to prioritize time, energy and money for best results

Slide 7: Online Lead Generation

Acquiring leads is accomplished by doing something that gets a person to take some action, such as:

Fills out a form on your website
Signs up for your mailing list
Calls you to initiate the relationship
Likes your Facebook Business Page
Connects with you on LinkedIn
Takes an action based on something you do online

Slide 8: Online Lead Generation

As with all marketing activities, if you establish a goal, the strategies and tactics will be more apparent and cohesive.

Getting Started with Online Marketing

Slide 10: Do you have a Web presence?

Evaluate your presence on the Internet by conducting a “vanity search” – search your name and business name. What is your first impression of what you find?
Do a review your brand – name, logo, color scheme – to ensure that it is aligned with who you really are and that it is consistent across all your web properties.
Review your website for brand consistency, fresh and relevant content and whether it is developed so that you can easily update it.
Review your existing profiles on social networks – are they consistent and project your value?

Slide 11: Define your Internet Marketing Strategy

The hub of your online marketing strategy is a professional website and/or blog where the goal of all marketing activities is to drive visitors to your website. Do your keyword research and ensure you have a list that you use consistently.

Slide 12: Establish Your Home Base

Spend some time on ensuring your Website has been appropriately optimized. Then develop a content strategy: Know what you want to achieve and the content that will attract your ideal prospect. Take an inventory of the content you have and re-purpose for different uses. Create new when needed.

Develop a comment strategy to become visible. Develop a list building strategy that you can use to market your information products. Syndicate your content via the RSS Feeds or through Article marketing sites

Slide 13: Social Media Strategy

Research your target audience and listen to what they have to say.
Find out where your target hangs out online.
Determine how you can help, educate and gain visibility.
Identify the tactics for engaging your target audience and attract them to you.
Create your complete and keyword rich profile that sets you apart and projects your human side.
Integrate your valuable content – blog posts, eBook, presentations, audio, video posts, advice – to attract your target market
Upload a quality picture that projects YOU!

Slide 14 – 21: Social Media Tools

Google Profile – Shows up when people search for your name. Provides a portal to your online identity.

Facebook Business Page – Profiles your business and enables your clients / prospects to get to know you through your content. To grow your supporters:

Add Like Box to your blog / website
Invite your opt-in email list to like your Facebook Page
Start a discussion so fans can interact with each other
Acknowledge fans when they write on your Page Wall
Create and promote events to your fans and friends
Incorporate your Blog posts
Welcome new fans with a welcome tab
Update your Page status with tips, advice and other useful information

Twitter for Business – Connect and network with people who share your industry, share your views or share quality information and ideas. Get instant access to what’s being said about you or your industry. Extend the reach of your thought leadership by communicating your blog posts and other content

LinkedIn Profile – Create a compelling, keyword rich profile. Make the full view public enabling Google, Yahoo and Bing to index. Get your vanity URL. Claim and update your company page. Marketing using LinkedIn:

Get and give recommendations
Join or create groups of interest, participate in discussions and display your expertise whenever possible
Update your status with content relevant to your connections
Participate in Questions & Answers to attract a targeted audience and make new connections.
Share your expertise and help people
Create & promote events
Incorporate your blog, presentations or e-books on your profile

Slide 22: Integrating it All

Connect LinkedIn to Twitter, Facebook to Twitter
Use Friendfeed for integrating other networks
Use HootSuite for a single dashboard

Slide 23: Internet Marketing System to ensure a Consistent Flow of Information

Daily:

Update Facebook page
Update status messages across networks
Scan Google Reader subscriptions and share content that would be valuable to your followers (add to Friendfeed to ensure it goes out to all social networks)
Check Google Alerts for mentions of your name and business name
Respond to new Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook connection requests

Weekly:

Blog once a week at a minimum
Scan LinkedIn Q&A and answer a few questions
Review content for new uses (presentations, videos, screencams, articles, ebooks, etc)

Monthly:

Tweak profiles
Check Webmaster tools
Check Google analytics for information on traffic
Write a recommendation for a contact in LinkedIn, request one in return
Review Facebook Business Page, update and add new features

Slide 24: Get Connected, Get Found™

Schedule time to work on your marketing and make social media part of it. Don’t overlook any content you create that can be useful to your followers. Set your system up and work it – the value of social media on your marketing will become evident. Be realistic on what you can do with the resources you have available.

What lead generation activities do you use? How do they work?

I am available to present this and other marketing topics for your organization. Please contact me if you are interested in discussing your presentation needs.

6 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page

Debra — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:29:22 +0000

Creating a Facebook Page for your business is one of the more valuable exercises you can do as a small business owner. But once you have the page set up and you are providing valuable, relative content, how do you get people to like your page?

Invite your Facebook friends that fit your target market profile

To invite connections you think would be interested in your Facebook Page, use the Suggest to Friends link.

If you have connected with clients via Facebook, invite them first as your clients should already be supportive of you. Next invite other connections that fit your target market that may be interested in finding out more about what you offer. If you have done a good job of organizing your professional colleagues, customers and prospects into Friend Lists, you can invite these lists as groups to your Facebook fan page instead of sending individual invites.

Be selective in who you invite and as a courtesy, invite them once only. Don’t annoy people with Facebook Page invitations that aren’t interested in your business or know nothing about you. If a person rejects the request, be careful not to send them another invitation.

Invite your email newsletter subscribers

When you are ready to send out your next email newsletter, include an incentive to get your subscribers to visit your Facebook Page and become a fan. Put a free download on your landing page tab for non-fans that will appeal to your subscribers.

To set up your landing tab, use the Facebook Static FBML application. FBML is similar to HTML and can be used to enhance a user’s Facebook experience on your Page. Then edit the Wall settings for your page and select that tab as the landing page for “everyone else”.

Include your Facebook Page URL in your marketing materials

Once you reach 25 people who have liked your Page, create your vanity URL that makes it easy for you to promote the Page and for people to recognize your brand.

Now it will be easier to promote your Facebook Page by including your vanity URL in all your sales tools, such as business cards, brochures, email signature or other marketing and promotion tools you use to help you drive more visitors to your Business Page and connect with them. All of these tools can be used to cross connect you with your communities and make you more visible to those who are interested in what you have to say.

Place a Facebook Like Box Widget on your Website / Blog

The Facebook Like Box is a social plugin that helps you promote your Page to your website visitors. To create your Like Box, fill in the Facebook Page ID for your Page, the height and width of the box, whether you want your stream included and the number of fans to show.

Facebook Like Box Generator (Click to enlarge)

To get your Facebook Page ID, hover over the picture on your Page and the link contains the number. It should look like: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=12345678912 (the 11 digit number is the id). When you are done, the form will generate the code you need to paste into your Website.

Use Facebook Social Ads

Depending on your business, Facebook Advertising can be beneficial to building your base of prospects because it enables you to tightly target your best prospect based on a number of variables, including geography, age, gender, education, relationship status, workplace and keywords. With this type of pinpoint targeting, you can create and deliver advertising to only those who you feel would benefit from what you have to offer.

A local retail business like a spa, hairdresser or restaurant could run an ad that has an incentive for fans to come in to your store and try your services or purchase your products.
A local service business like a plumber, landscaper or electrician could run an ad that contained an incentive only for new fans (and customers) such as a discount on a maintenance agreement.

Rather than placing ads in the local papers, Facebook advertising can be much more cost-effective in generating leads and growing your business.

Promote your Page on other Social Sites

Most social sites give you the opportunity to promote multiple websites. LinkedIn allows three links and Google profiles are unlimited. Use these opportunities to promote your Facebook Page as one of your key web properties. Don’t forget to use the “Other” feature when editing your additional information in LinkedIn to name the link appropriately.

In addition, integrate Twitter with your Facebook Page to communicate what you have posted to your Twitter followers.

So how will you promote your Facebook Business Page? Let us know what you have tried and how it works for you.

Contractor Marketing Basics

Debra — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:25:53 +0000

Recently I have been working with a few contractors helping them market their businesses. Besides defining their brand and setting up their Internet presence, I work with them on how to decide what type of marketing will work for them. The following is a presentation that I gave to a group of contractors a few weeks ago and a brief transcript of the key points that I make when I give this presentation.

Contractor Marketing Basics

View more documents from Debra Murphy.

Slides 3 & 4:

Let’s discuss what marketing is all about. To me, marketing is educating your customer about why they should do business with you. Marketing is helping the customer realize the value you provide by eliminating a problem or satisfying a need.

Good marketing will attract your ideal client, retain existing clients, encourages referrals and helps you avoid price wars.

Marketing is not specifically advertising, sales or public relations. These are strategies that you could select as part of your overall marketing plan. Marketing is also not your Web site or blog, a brochure or a business card. These are tools of marketing to be used to effectively build awareness for your products and services.

Slides 5:

A marketing plan gives you direction and clarity on how you will market your business. By following a plan, you are also more likely to be able to measure your results. You won’t be reactive in your marketing, spending money and not following through. The plan will help you define what you do, why you are the best, who needs what you do and how to attract them. Another key point of the marketing plan is that it will help you determine the overall budget so you can allocate sufficient funds to successfully follow through.

Slides 6 through 15:

The key parts to the plan include:

Define your vision and goals - What do you want your business to look like in 5 years, 3 years and 1 year? Answering these questions helps you frame your marketing plan to ensure you are moving in the right direction. If you don’t want to build a large firm with multiple crews, your marketing needs to focus on things that drive enough business that you can handle yourself or with a subcontractor if need be. Once you have your vision, your goals are developed to help you reach your 1 year plan.
Identify your ideal client and how you are different from your competition - Who do you want to work with, who would benefit from working with you and how are you better than others that do what you do? Not all customers will be ideal and understanding why helps you avoid customers that drain you.
Develop your core message - What problems does your ideal client want fixed or what needs do they wish to fulfilled? Speaking to your customers on how you can help them enables you to develop a relationship that establishes trust. When a customer trusts you, they are more likely to do business with you.
Create your brand identity - What image do you want to project? Your image should align with your vision, values and goals so it does not send a conflicting message to your customers. Once you have established your brand image and identity, use it consistently throughout all of your marketing efforts.
Determine your marketing strategy, tactics and budget – What activities will you use to build awareness of your business? Understanding your customer and how they purchase your type of service will help you determine what will work and what won’t. Think about all the ways you can reach your customer, how much it will cost both in terms of money and resources and select those that you know you can implement. If you plan out for 6 months to a year, you can manage your budget more effectively and find the time to work a tactic completely.
Create sales tools to support the tactics and build your database of prospects and customers - What supporting materials do you need to help you sell your services? Web site, blog, brochures, business cards, signs, promotional items (pens and apparel) and other items can be designed to help you get your message to your customer. Wait until you’ve determined your strategy and tactics to avoid creating sales tools that are not needed, thereby wasting valuable budget.
Execute, track and measure results – Are the activities you are doing working? Take on only the activities that you can complete and measure. Working a strategy half way only sets you up for failure.

This is a really brief overview of how to develop a marketing plan for your business. I’d love to hear from home services professionals about whether you have a marketing plan and if so, how it works for you. What types of activities are the most successful and which did not work at all.

Social Media Marketing – Myths or Reality?

Debra — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:41:25 +0000

In a recent Business Week Viewpoint article called “Beware Social Media Marketing Myths“, Gene Marks highlights what he feels are 5 myths of social media marketing that small business owners should be aware of. Although all 5 of these statements as he describes are myths, I believe this article is misleading to readers on the value of using social media as a channel to build visibility and awareness for your business and personal brand. So let me weigh in on these 5 myths of social media marketing.

Myth 1. Social media sites are free

Reality: This statement is not a myth but a gross understatement of the value of social media. There is a significant cost in time which is an issue if small business owners do not know how to use these tools to market your business as you will spend a lot of time and get nothing in return. But, nothing of value in this world comes for free and you need to invest some type of resource – time or money – to get the most out of them. Think of social media as a channel in which you are able to communicate your value to your ideal client. You must spend time meeting people in these social media sites, building relationships and hearing what they have to say. As Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee) pointed out in his keynote presentation for the Social Media Success Summit, it takes sweat equity to be successful using social media.

Myth 2. Social media sites are a great place to find new customers

Reality: Social media sites are a great place to meet new people and build strong relationships. Will these people ever become customers? Not necessarily, but the reputation you develop on social media sites goes a long way to building a brand that attracts your ideal client. Establishing quality, compelling profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter help you get found more easily by those who are looking to acquire the products and services that you offer.

Myth 3. You need to be on all the big sites

Reality: To make the most of your time, you should select the social media sites that make the most sense for your business. For most business owners, LinkedIn is a must. Some of the niche social networking sites mentioned in the article that are targeted at business owners such as Intuit’s Small Business Community may make more sense now if you are catering to a demographic that for the most part is not on the more “cool and trendy” sites. But I would highly recommend you establish your personal identity on the major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr now and take control your online identity and reputation rather than letting it develop through what others say.

Myth 4. Social networking sites are for marketing

Reality: Saying social communities are not for marketing is like saying networking and word of mouth will never get you business. Unless you are one of the many who think marketing equals pushing your message into the face of everyone which is frowned upon in both online and offline networking venues, social communities are great for networking and developing relationships and ultimately creating visibility for your expertise. And remember, great customer service increases the value of your brand in the eyes of your customers which helps strengthen your credibility. The key to networking (both online and offline) is utilizing the VCP model: visibility + credibility = profitability. You can easily educate your prospects and customers on the value you offer by the value you provide those you interact with on social networking sites.

Myth 5. Social networking is the future

Reality: Social networking sites are a means to an end, not the end game. Although the platforms will shake out technologically (as does every technology), getting comfortable with social networking sites to develop your personal brand will not go away, even if the platform changes. Believing that social networking is a vanishing trend is dangerous and there are many business owners utilizing these channels to market their businesses successfully.

Marketing using social media should be part of your marketing plan and not a replacement for other more traditional marketing efforts. Newsletters, seminars, partnering, and yes, the telephone, are all ways to have a conversation with your customer. But ignoring social media is not a strategy for success. The best way for most small business owners to market their business is to get involved in social media now as it is a process and not getting the process started is basically suicide. Why give your competitors an edge, making your business anonymous and relinquishing control of your future?

What do you think: Myth or Reality?

Tele-clinic on Marketing using Social Media

Debra — Thu, 07 May 2009 02:55:39 +0000

Get Connected. Get Found.™

Social media has added a new, powerful set of tools to your marketing toolbox, making it easy to meet, network and develop relationships with people online that was once out of the reach of many small business owners. More importantly, social media is making it easier to meet new potential clients and market your business. But how you integrate these tools into your marketing plan will make the difference between a successful marketing strategy and an overwhelming exercise. Whether your business targets consumers or other businesses, social media is going to impact on your marketing and ultimately the success of your business.

On Wednesday, May 13th and Wednesday, May 20th, I will be hosting a two part tele-clinic that will provide practical advice on how to select the right social media tools for you to connect with your target audience and get noticed.

For only $60, you will get:

Two 90 minute sessions (3 full hours)
The recordings of those sessions
An ebook on LinkedIn

I also decided to add one more bonus! If you register for the tele-clinic and you can’t make the live sessions, in addition to getting the ebook and the recordings, I will also provide you with direct access to me via email to get your questions answered. Once you have listened to the recordings, if your questions aren’t answered you can email me with them and I will personally answer them for you. There’s absolutely no risk!

Registration

We’re only one week away. Register by clicking on the “buy now” link above or visit Get Connected. Get Found. to get more information on what we will cover.

Develop a Social Media System

Debra — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:23:03 +0000

Some people just are organized. Others need a bit of help staying focused. When it comes to managing your time given all the social media activities, the small business owner can get more than overwhelmed. I often get asked how I keep up with all of my social media activities and still get client work done (which does pay the bills!).

Two of the experts have provided their social media “systems”, showing you how they approach these activities.

John Jantsch started this with his My Social Media System post and then asked others to share their systems as well.
Chris Brogan then responded to being tagged by John and shared his workflow system.

As you can see, these two systems are very different and work for them. The point of both of their posts is to create a system that works for you, refine it as needed and eventually your social media strategy will become a habit. So let’s thank the above two folks (and others who have responded to John’s initial request) for suggesting we write down and share our systems, as I’m sure doing so will help us stick with it and make it a habit.

What helps me is to use my laptop for social media tools. It sits next to me on my desk with TweetDeck, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Friendfeed and other applications open in their own window so they don’t interfere with my client work that is on my desktop. I monitor these tools using the following system.

Daily:

Morning:

Check LinkedIn each morning for updates and questions
Check Facebook each morning for updates
Check Friendfeed and update my status across the social networks

Continuous:

Check Twitter using TweetDeck every couple of hours (easy to organize groups and searches). Being open on the laptop, I can glance over to see who’s chatting and if interesting, join in.
Check email every couple of hours (clients send requests via email)
Monitor Friendfeed for updates and interesting conversations

Evening:

Scan Google Alerts blog feeds via Google Reader
Respond to Twitter followers – I check their profile to see if I want to follow back
Respond to LinkedIn connection requests
Respond to Facebook Friend requests
Subscribe to new friends on Friendfeed

Weekly (usually weekends):

Write blog posts for the week – schedule them to be published in the coming week
Tweak profiles across the many social media accounts
Check Webmaster tools for errors, issues needing fixing
Check Google analytics for information on traffic
Write a recommendation for a contact in LinkedIn, request one in return
Respond to other social media invitations

Being visible and participating in social media, like all marketing activities, takes time to reap the rewards. But if you come up with a system, and as John says, “work it day in and day out”, you will begin to understand what social media can and will do for your business as part of your marketing strategy.

Update: 2/14/09 – as I scanned my feed headlines in Google Reader I realized I didn’t incorporate reading and commenting on blogs into my personal social media system. That activity is normally part of my day and I will take a few minutes each morning and evening to scan, read those whose headline draws me in and comment when I have something to say. I also watch Twitter for notices of blog posts that seem interesting to me.

As with all plans, they are living and need to be modified. I will keep monitoring my use of social media and write an update to this as the system evolves.

A Simple Marketing Review

Debra — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:28:38 +0000

As we enter the final days of 2008, I’m spending time with clients reviewing their marketing results in order to determine their marketing plan for the new year. You can do this yourself by spending a few hours looking at how your marketing has helped your business grow. Ask these questions and don’t be afraid of the answers. If your results aren’t the best, now is the time to make some changes.

What Are We Measuring?

Marketing is used to generate leads and awareness. You need to balance both so that you have the revenue you need to stay in business while developing your reputation or brand. Each marketing activity should be developed with a specific goal – i.e. public relations to build awareness and Google AdWords for lead generation. However, every marketing campaign will accomplish both at some level.

Can the business directly attribute revenue to marketing activities?

If you are not asking clients where they found your business, you are missing the opportunity to track your results. Make sure your Web site asks the question on the contact form. Train whoever answers the phone to ask the question, “How did you hear about us?”. Most people will tell you and you may just be surprised by their answers. By asking them, you get a better understanding of where your clients look for your types of services.

How much did you spend on each activity and in total?

First you should determine the cost of your sales tools:

Web site / Blog (development / hosting)
Business cards
Brochures
Promotional items (unless part of a specific campaign)
Designer and marketing coaching fees

Then determine how much you spent on each marketing program:

Internet marketing (Google Adwords / Yahoo Search / other sponsored ads / article marketing)
Social media marketing
Direct mail (printing / postage / list purchases / follow up)
Advertising
Networking and referrals (memberships in BNI / Chamber of Commerce / Better Business Bureaus)
Public relations (fees to a specialist)
Events (seminars, tele-clinics, etc.)

The Big Picture

Take the total revenue attributable to marketing and divide it by the total marketing dollars spent, including the sales tools and marketing services. This number better be at least 4 or more. If you are spending $1 and making $4 or better, you’re in good shape in general. Remember we’ve included all the “overhead” costs in this number which I do to make sure the business is covering all of its marketing expenses.

Which ones gave you the highest return?

Now we will measure each activity specifically. Take the revenue attributable to each activity listed and divide it by the marketing dollars spent directly on that activity. You can do each individual campaign or combine those that were developed to work together. For example, a direct mail postcard campaign would include the costs of the postcard design, print, postage and mailing list. However, you may want to measure your Internet marketing ROI as one major effort. Did you recoup your investment and then some (the number is greater than 1)?

Ideally you want at least a 3 times return or better or the campaign may not be worth your time and effort. In addition, you may want to use the money on something else. Look at each activity with a perspective on what you gain monetarily as well as from an awareness and reputation perspective. In a service based business, sometimes awareness and reputation are just as valuable as the dollar return.

What to do next year?

Now that you have a good idea about how your marketing has performed, you can determine what marketing you will invest in next year. Look at each activity and ask the following questions:

Which activities were the most successful?
Do they make sense to continue?
Which activities were marginal? Do you know why? Could they be improved?
Should I invest the money somewhere else?
What new activities should I look at?

If your marketing is working, keep doing what is successful, eliminate what isn’t, and leave some room in your budget for unexpected marketing opportunities if they should arise.

When Do You Need Marketing?

Debra — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:21:23 +0000

The answer to that question is “all the time”.

I often notice that many small business owners treat marketing like something that can be turned on and off. I see this happen especially when the economy is soft. The key indicator is that I get unbelievably busy because businesses decide they probably should market to try and find new customers.

The good news is these businesses seek out help, looking for someone to guide them in their efforts so they achieve success. But for every one business that calls me or another marketing expert, there are many that try what I’ve called the “Chinese Menu” approach to marketing – trying to mix and match disparent marketing activities – and their business will get busy again. Some call it the “binge marketing” approach. In either case, all you get is a bad case of heartburn and not many additional clients.

Unfortunately, that belief is the demise of many small businesses.

Effective small business marketing is not an activity to be done only when things get quiet, but should be constantly and consistently happening in your business. Marketing needs to be a continuous activity whose activities feed off each other, ensuring your business stays top of mind to your current customers and new prospects.

In addition, stopping and starting marketing interrupts the process. Marketing takes time to take effect and when you shut something down, it is really hard to kick it back up. Plus stopping and starting marketing doesn’t give you enough data to know whether something is working or not. The key is to put a marketing effort in motion and let it run, evaluating the outcome and tweaking the tactics when need be. Starting and stopping marketing activities is guaranteed to give you less than stellar results.

Benefits of continuous marketing:

You build awareness and brand differentiation for your business by being visible to your prospects and clients;
You establish a solid reputation for your business by marketing your expertise through articles and blogging;
You distinguish your business from the “competition” by staying visible and promoting your expertise;
You can evaluate your marketing efforts by the results you are seeing in your business. If they work, keep doing them; if they don’t work try something else.

Marketing takes a little time each week, ensuring your business stays visible to your clients. Plan to network, blog, write an article, update your profiles on LInkedIn and Facebook, contribute to a Twitter conversation, add some additional Internet marketing activities, be active in social networks and ask a client for a reference or testimonial. All of these take a few minutes to a couple hours but the payoff can be substantial.

Visibility + Credibility = Profitability

Debra — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:24:52 +0000

Works both Offline and Online

For many thinking of starting their own businesses, the fear of finding clients can paralyze them enough to sabotage their efforts. Cold calling prospects can make some of us break out in a cold sweat. One of the things that I learned early on in my business start-up days is that there are other ways to find clients. When you have worked in corporate America for your entire career, one of the skills you didn’t learn was how to network. As a business owner, networking is one of the best ways to get clients and today, adding social networking to the mix makes your ability to find business that much easier.

One of the first things I did when I launched the business was to join BNI (Business Network International). Some people feel that it doesn’t work, but when you are starting a business, being busy meeting new people, gaining a support organization and having a place to test your marketing message is really a valuable exercise. The next thing I did was to take a course on networking. The course taught me the basic principle of growing your business, called the VCP model – Visibility + Credibility = Profitability. Dr. Ivan Misner developed this three phase relationship development model: Visibility–Credibility–Profitability or VCP, to help business owners understand how to generate profitable relationships.

Visibility – Be seen otherwise out of sight, out of mind.
Credibility – Develop the relationship so that people understand your value and how to refer business to you.
Profitability – Cultivating relationship with the right referral sources will result in profitable business relationships.

The principles of networking transcend to social networking. How does the VCP model work in social networking?

Building visibility and credibility using social media takes time but is worth it as it provides the venue from which you can create visibility and demonstrate your expertise. In many ways, it’s easier to develop this reputation online since the tools enable you to build your reputation on a daily basis. In person networking events happen frequently, but not 24×7.

Where to begin?

Create a blog and write relevant posts;
Create profiles on social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MyBlogLog and other social networks that relate to your area of expertise;
Link your blog to your profiles and look for other opportunities to get link love;
Comment intelligently on other blogs;
Submit your blog to Technorati and Blogged.com;
Answer questions on LinkedIn;

Share presentations on SlideShare with linked audio if you have it;
Create videos and upload to YouTube.

You get the picture!

So why do we do it?

Because according to John Jantsch, ”Tis better to be found than to find“.

1) It’s just a whole lot more fun to pick up the phone and have someone on the other end go on about all the great things they have read, seen and heard about your products and services.

2) (And I think this is a really big point) Prospects that come to you by way of your information machine, that have logically progressed down a path of education, are probably ten times more likely to be ideal and equally more likely to close than those that you go out and try to convince to buy from you. In fact, your marketing system can be one of the greatest ways to qualify leads – if a lead won’t go down your education path, that might be a red flag that they won’t be an ideal customer either.

What other ways do you recommend people get visibility and credibility using social media?