Five Marketing Focal Points for Small Businesses

Are you a small business that is just starting out and needs to know what to focus on most? Of course with opening your own business, you know that there are many important things that you need to put your energy toward. I do not personally own a small business, but I've worked with many small business owners and based off of my own experiences, below are my personal top five marketing focal points for small businesses.

1) Social media platforms

Social media platforms are great; they are free and they are easy. They work well in trying to get out your message in an effective and engaging way. Social media platforms are growing in users and variety and really can cater to any kind of business.

Social media comes with its challenges, however. Although the platforms are free to use, they are not free to run when you take into account your time and effort that goes into them. And yes the platforms are easy, but you must learn the difference between how to run a personal account and how to run a business account!

2) Networking events

Networking events are a great way to market your business and yourself as a business owner. Many events have a networking portion where you go around the room to hand out your business card and collect others in exchange. There are also events hosted that are purely for networking; at these events people are asking to be told about your business and how it can help them. Be sure to prep your elevator speech and bring plenty of business cards.

Networking does take time, effort, and a little bit of money, but can pay off quickly when you meet that client that can help take your business off the ground!

3) Purchase a good website

You are going to want to pay a little more to get a website that is fully functional for your business needs, is mobile optimized, and has great SEO. Of course you want to live within your means when purchasing a website, but you want remember to create a website that is easy to use and provides your customers with valuable information. In this day and age, you need to make sure that your website is mobile capable if not mobile optimized. Many customers now access their information on a phone versus a computer—you want to make sure you aren't stopping your customers from doing so! And finally you want to spend at least a little time on SEO for your site. You need to make sure customers can find you via search queries and that you have a high page rank.

Websites can get expensive quickly, so make sure to be prepared for a large total if you are looking to build a large website with all the bells and whistles.

4) Blog

Blogs do many great things for your business and your website. It provides your customers with valuable information in addition to providing a reason for them to keep coming back to your site! If you are consistent on the timing of your blog as well as providing great content, you will attract subscribers and in turn, customers. An extra benefit of having a blog is that it keeps your site active and shows Google you are making updates to your site often, proving that you are a business that does real business!

Blogging does take time and effort to do correctly. You need to post consistently and constantly come up with new topic ideas that you think will interest your customer enough to make them subscribe.

5) Business cards

Spend a little extra money and get custom-designed, high-quality business cards. Having these from the start help you to establish your brand and your credibility. Business cards can be used at networking events as well as your place of business; they help to remind your customers you exist!

They can be expensive to get designed, but your business will thank you later.

See Do we Still Need Business Cards in this Digital Age?

Of course the marketing tips for small businesses are truly unlimited. Do you own a small business? What marketing tips do you have for potential entrepreneurs? 

Until next time!

~Melissa

"Behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores - these didn't come out of nowhere." ~Paul Ryan

My Blue Networking Shoes

Yes I do own blue networking shoes and I do wear them. Often. And here's why!

A few months ago I purchased a pair of blue mary jane Merrell shoes from a local shoe store. I purchased them simply to have an option besides arch-less flats and high heals. I would wear them every once and awhile but was worried about them matching my outfits, so I tended to stray away from wearing them.

I was in a sales position at the time and was attending several networking each week. My feet were becoming tired and my arches began to hurt; I started wearing my blue Merrell's more and more.

It turned out to be a huge advantage for me and helped me excel at networking events! Many people would come up to me and introduce themselves, "Hey, we met last time, I remember your blue shoes!", "Blue shoes, huh?", or "I've never seen anyone wear blue shoes to a networking event before...".

So what is my point? No, I do not expect all of you to run out and purchase a pair of blue Merrells to improve your networking skills. I do, however, want you to think of something that makes you stand out from all the rest. Whether it's a piece of statement jewelry, a catch introduction phrase, a cool business card, or a sweet name tag, you must find a way to be remembered. The average networking event I attend has between 10 and 100 attendees.

As a general networking tip, don't be afraid to get your feet wet, you never know who you are going to meet and what they have to offer. And whether you wear statement shoes or not, you still have to actually talk to people to be remembered! This is difficult for many people I know. My best advice is to be yourself and relax at these events. People ask me often how I know so many people. It simply comes down to not being afraid to introduce myself and hand out my business card. The worst thing that can happen is that it is awkward and you had them your business card and walk away!

This will not be the last blog about networking tips you'll see as networking is a large part of marketing. If you have any networking topics or tips you would like me to blog about, please comment below!

For now, blue shoe power.

~Melissa

How often should I email my customers?

The most asked question when it comes to email marketing is: How often should I email my customers?

Once per week?  Once per month?  Three times per month?  Every day?

Well the answer is......yes.

The trick is finding a good balance of emails sent for you and your business.  Over-mailing your list can be damaging; too many emails is an easy excuse to unsubscribe.  And if you send too many in a short time period it is unlikely that someone would read them before you send the next one.  Under-mailing can also be harmful, however, as you want your customers to think about you often.  It is generally agreed that only once per month is not enough but once a day is too much as this article refers to. 

The way I look at it is you need to analyze what kind of relationship you have with your customer and what kind of business you own.  You need to sit down and say to yourself, "If I subscribed to an email list of a company like this, how often would I want to be emailed their sales pitch and updates?".  

Just this week I unsubscribed from a list because I was getting an email every other day for a product I bought once, use maybe once a month, and do not have a plan to purchase again.  On the other hand, I am on the email list of a few retail stores that email every single day and I do not unsubscribe.  I really enjoy the newsletter style email marketing that is once per month; there is always actual content and I find myself reading it every single month I receive one.  

But this is just me.

You need to discover what your customer wants and what they are comfortable with!  There is no harm in asking your customers what they prefer.  You may not get everyone to respond, but at least you would get a little feedback.  Try a facebook post or an email survey to try to get a response and at least a little feedback so you can keep those customers you try so hard to gain!

Unfortunately the answer to the question 'how often' still remains yes.  There is no right or wrong answer; you just need to find out what you and your customers are comfortable with.

Until next time and Happy Turkey Day!
Melissa

"There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks, and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination you can get there"  ~Darren Rowse

https://plus.google.com/102584250252348512231/posts

Don't forget about the tourists!

As a local business, you do all you can to get your name out in your community.  Whether it be through an ad in the newspaper, through social media, or through a TV commercial, a local merchant's focus is usually on the people that already live an their prospective areas.  But as a business owner, did you ever stop to think how you can advertise to the tourists and visitors?

Many may think of tourists as a lost cause; they will visit what they want to visit and stop where they want to stop.  This may be true in some cases, but more than likely, they will pick up a visitor's guide, check out a tourism website, or stop to talk to the front desk worker at the hotel they are staying at to get more information about what they can see and do.

Since my current location is Lansing, Michigan, I wanted to gather some stats on the business that tourists bring to the area every year just to put some numbers to my point.  Did you know:

• Tourists spend around $424 million in Greater Lansing every year
• Lansing welcomes almost 5 million visitors to the area each year
• Guests pay the region taxes on various services adding $3.7 million in local taxes and $23 million in state taxes
• The overall result impact of tourism in the area is over $160 million dollars in revenue each year!
• **Thanks to the Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau for the stats!  www.lansing.org**

Did you learn something?  I know I did when I first saw these numbers.  This just made me realize how important it is to get your name out to tourists can be!  So the first step may be to define a tourist. Well, a tourist (in my opinion) is anyone who visits an area for a specific amount of time for any reason.  In an area like Lansing, visitors have endless reasons to come here: sporting events, parents visiting their sons and daughters at college, conventions, important legislative events, business meetings, interviews, visit family, and go on vacation, just to name a few!

Now the important question-how does a local business owner reach out to a tourist that may be coming from really anywhere in the world?  Personally, I think being in a visitor's guide is essential for hotels, restaurants, shops, public transportation, and so many other types of businesses.  Maybe place fliers around the local hotels if you are allowed.  Work with other businesses to promote at the same time so you can cover more ground.  Put fliers in the airport. Have fliers at your local visitors center or chamber of commerce. Team up with the university to offer student-parent discounts.  If you are really web savvy  make sure you are up on your search engine optimization so when someone searches "things to do in Lansing" they will find you.  Make sure you are on tourism websites like tripadvisor.com, chamber websites, area tourism websites (like www.lansing.org), local newspaper sites (like www.lansingstatejournal.com), and so many more.  Really the options are endless!!

A good way to test how easy you are to find, put yourself in the shoes of a tourist.  Visit a hotel or the airport and check out the fliers there.  Google your business.  Google "tourism in _______ (your location)". Check out facebook sites that promote businesses to tourists.  Check out the tourism websites and see what other businesses like yours are already on your site and take a look at your competition! And then make sure your act on these findings and get your name out to tourists!!

Overall, yes, it is extremely important to advertise to your potential regular customers (locals) as this is where a large chuck of your income will come from.  However, I hope this helps stress the importance of being available to the people who do not live in this area and will be coming to visit!

What is your experience in working with tourists at your business?  What ideas do you have to advertise to them?

Thanks so much everyone, see you next week!

-Melissa

             "The traveler sees what he sees.  The tourist sees what he has come to see".  ~G.K. Chesterton