What can small businesses do to stand out in a crowd? The market has become extremely noisy. Getting your ideal client to notice you is difficult. But correctly positioning your brand and communicating it to your target audience can get you noticed.
Small business owners tend to view their businesses very tactically. Taking an objective view of your business from both an internal and external perspective can uncover a host of opportunities while highlighting potential threats. A SWOT analysis can help you evaluate your small business and the surrounding business environment that can affect its overall success.
Any business owner that feels marketing is an expense and not an investment is probably going to have a difficult time keeping the business profitable. To be successful, you need to develop a mindset that views marketing as an important investment regardless of the state of the economy or other external factors.
One of the hardest exercises for small business owners is to figure out where they should focus to grow their business. Business owners are sometimes afraid to focus for fear of leaving money on the table. But to try to be everything to everybody, you confuse your audience and never achieve your true purpose.
Today’s climate has every business looking at ways to change the way they market their business. This is especially true for home services businesses. Homeowners need quality landscapers, electricians, plumbers, HVAC services and remodelers. When they need them, they will go online to find one.
It’s the time of year where posts on marketing trends are more than abundant. You can find plenty of posts on digital marketing trends. But as I was working on my content audit, I came across a couple of posts on small business marketing trends for the years 2013 and 2014. As I reviewed these, I noticed something very interesting.
We’re all busy running our businesses. We have plenty to do. When it comes to marketing, we need to focus on the essential marketing activities that can generate leads and sales.
As long as I have been in marketing, I’ve heard my share of excuses for why small businesses don’t invest in marketing. These marketing myths when constantly repeated, become reality. Small businesses have many opportunities to attract their ideal client if they put these marketing myths aside and create a practical marketing plan that will work for their business.
Businesses need to take precautions when providing access to your digital marketing assets. Learn the risks some businesses take and what can happen if you trust them with the wrong service provider.
In this complex and noisy world of too many choices, a small business can stand out from the competition by simplifying its marketing. Simple marketing also helps business owners eliminate the marketing overwhelm due to the rapidly changing digital landscape.
The beauty of marketing on the web is the fluid nature of the channel. We have the ability to evolve our web presence as we evolve our businesses. We can write and publish our content and continue to strengthen our messages as we learn what our target audience wants or needs. We can create offers, try them and if they don’t work, change as necessary. We are no longer on that elusive quest for perfection in the traditional sense.
A simple marketing plan that outlines all the important pieces needed to successfully and consistently market your business is something every small business should create. Whether you want to focus solely on inbound marketing or you want to integrate online with off-line marketing activities, there are 10 important reasons why your small business needs a simple, realistic marketing plan.
You know you need to market your business to become or remain visible to your target audience. But like most small businesses, there are more pressing priorities of operating a business that demand your attention. Your time will be spent on operational issues and you will struggle to find the time to do any marketing at all, until you realize that sales are dependent on creating visibility and generating demand for your product or services.
How do you view marketing when it comes to your business – an investment or an expense? If you pick investment, then spending money on creating a powerful web presence is something you will do willingly because you know it will help your business grow and succeed. If you pick expense, then you will cut marketing when things get a bit tight (if you spend on marketing at all) and make irrational decisions when it comes to your web presence.
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Susanne Morreale Leeber, the president of the Marlborough Regional Chamber of Commerce for their ongoing cable TV series called Biz Snips where we discussed Internet marketing tips for small businesses.
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