Promote U Guru Blog

Posts Tagged ‘small business’

Tips for Using Instragram to Grow Your Small Business

March 04th, 2014

Hi All!

With social media ruling the roost in business promotion, it’s hard to ignore any social networking platform these days, and Instagram is no exception. What started as an iPhone only app has expanded into one of the fastest growing and most vibrant social media networks; Instagram for business is a great marketing tool, especially those targeting younger audiences.

With over 150 million users already, Instagram is the ultimate visual marketing tool to showcase to your prospective customers your social and human side. Instagram is all about pictures and videos, and thus is a great marketing tool for your business. After all, pictures directly appeal to emotions, increase interaction rate, and strike a chord with prospects, thus making your brand visible to a larger audience.

Here are a few tips for using Instagram for building your brand, increasing sales, and growing your small business:

Introduce your employees

You may not know but most of your followers are keen on knowing the people associated with your brand, especially those who keep your company going. By introducing your team through Instagram photos, you humanize your brand, thus building a connection with prospects and customers while enhancing their experience.

Cultivate a following

It’s easier than ever to increase your following on Instagram for business by linking it with your Facebook account. Connect specific brand images to your Facebook business page with a relevant, popular hashtag that aligns with your brand image or marketing campaign. This is a necessary step to show to your Facebook fans that you’re on Instagram.  Use relevant hashtags (#yourbrandhere) to increase your brand exposure and reach out to a wider audience for leads while helping people find your account.

Be polite to follow

Do not forget to follow your followers on Instagram. It’s a good idea to follow other brands that relate to your specific brand so as to create strategic relationships on the platform. Give your followers a sneak peek into an upcoming event or a news feature often can help keep them hooked to your page. Not only this, make your loyal followers feel special by sending them updates about an upcoming product, the latest launch, or new releases. This is one of the easiest tips for using Instagram for business – helping build anticipation in prospects and keeping them coming back for more.

Don’t be content with static

As a multimedia platform, Instagram now allows you to upload 15 second video clips. So why remain static when you can use the visual feature to upload behind-the-scenes peeks at different business activities. A few businesses even use this video feature for customer testimonials and product demos, helping prospects see your human side. Further, you may wish to embed Instagram video in your website or blog to reach a larger community and boost your business exposure.

Share positive emotion more often

When using Instagram for business, carefully curate your photos considering the likes and dislikes of your target audience. Figure out what kind of photos they would be more interested in. It is human nature to like smiling faces more than sad ones. You may use a serious post occasionally to make an impact, but prefer to share positive emotion more often. Let the powerful imagery in the images evoke emotions that words often fail to express. Encourage followers to share their story with you to build a relationship and show them that you care, unlike most other businesses that merely focus on self promotion.

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Powerful Pinterest Tips to Help Grow Your Small Business

December 11th, 2013

Hi All!

As the third most popular social media network after Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest has over 48.7 million users, recording more than 25 million monthly visitors. And it has become a powerful social media platform for product-based businesses, bringing in more traffic than Yahoo and Bing.

Plus, statistics show that prospects are likely to spend 70% more money with you when they are driven to your website from Pinterest. That alone makes it all the more important to take this newer social media platform seriously!

That said, here are a few tips for using Pinterest effectively to grow your small business and increase your sales:

1. Increase Your Brand Awareness

Provide useful, educational information to your followers. Your purpose is to become a reliable source of the most accurate, valuable information; not just to promote your products and business. This will ensure that your followers see you as an authority in your industry and look to you as the go-to place for all relevant information about your niche. Done right, you’ll inspire interest and build trust online, and that can lead to increased customer loyalty, greater audience reach, and referrals from others.

2. Expand Your Reach

Other social media networks have given small businesses amazing tools to expand reach and grow business, and Pinterest does, too. Using the group board feature on Pinterest and collaborating with popular pinners, you can easily expose your brand to a greater audience and expand your reach. Make each board theme specific, with a catchy title and keyword-focused relevant content. As the audience follows the focused boards, your follower numbers will tend to spike.

3. Make Your Business Site Pinnable

The best way to spread the word about your business is to make your Pinterest site visual.  You may use Flickr, Shutterstock, Photo Pin, iStockPhoto, or Fotolia to find unique, interesting, exciting, and pinnable photos on a regular basis. However, don’t forget to check the copyright of images. Be sure to give credit where it’s due. The most successful pins are a combination of valuable content and great images.

4. Add Pinterest Logo to Your Website

Adding a Pinterest logo to your business website will help increase your fan following and remind site visitors to pin your content. Also, to ensure a positive brand image, send messages that express the real identity (the voice) of your business. So plan out your boards accordingly, keep your content organized across different boards, and clearly outline the information you want to share with your fans.

5. Engage with People

Engage with your audience to better understand what they want to generate better boards that they’ll like. Use the Repin option to stay current with what is trending on Pinterest by examining the pins of the most popular Pinterest users and keep your pins sharp, current, and targeted. Also, be sure to keep an eye on your competition to see what they are doing to attract traffic and create engagement.

These tips may seem like common sense to some of you, but they’re NOT common practice with many pinners! I constantly hear from people who ask me, “I’m on Pinterest (or Facebook, or YouTube, or LinkedIn, or Twitter)…but what should I be doing there?”

That’s more proof that opening an account on a social media platform doesn’t immediately make you a marketing expert. Learn the basics of Pinterest, get comfortable with using it, and then start experimenting with more tools and features they offer. It can work for you as long as you’re persistent and consistent!

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7 Tips to Create More Effective Tweets

September 16th, 2013

Hi All!

According to Brafton, a Content Marketing Agency, almost 80% of the B2B companies using Twitter are not driving business from it…but WHY? Many of them are not paying attention to the following tweet tips. Are you?

Whether you own a small business or oversee the Marketing and Social Media department at a large company, and regardless of whether your business is B2B or B2C, these tips can help!

Here are seven, basic yet effective, ways to compose tweets in order to build website traffic, business, and your brand:

  1. Use Proper English & Grammar: By using proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling, your tweet will be easy to read and comprehend. And it will create a positive impression for your brand. Basically, make your tweets clear versus clever!
  2. Create Appealing Content: Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and think like them to accurately craft a tweet that will connect, communicate, and appeal to them.
  3. Use a Call-to-Action: Tell your audience what you want them to do. The focus of many of your tweets should include a call-to-action for your audience. This gets them to “engage” with you versus keeping it a one-way communication process.
  4. Link to Something: You can link your tweet to your blog, website, an online article, or social media page. Using link shortening services, such as bit.ly, will not only save space, but also create better looking tweets. And research reveals bit.ly links generate maximum retweets.
  5. Include #Hashtags: Including 1-2 hashtags relevant to the message is a good way to improve tweets and increase reach among prospects (who are not yet followers of you). Those hashtagged words that become popular are trending topics and you can use them to piggy back for views. Warning: Using hashtags too often is a bad twitequette and will not serve you well. The search engines will see you as a spammer and the whole process will become counterproductive, thus potentially harming your social media marketing efforts.
  6. Avoid Abbreviations or Slang: Avoid using text-speak and slang in your tweets. You’re not sending a private message or text to a friend; you’re primarily creating professional messages for an audience that can impact your business.
  7. Focus on Size: An ideal tweet should include (approximately): 100 characters for the message, 20 characters for the link, and 20 characters for retweets or the info source.

Take the time to focus on these tweet tips, as well as be consistent & persistent in your Twitter efforts, and you’ll be one of the business’s that DOES benefit from Twitter by increasing your sales and leads!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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7 Ways to Improve the Stickiness Of Your Website

April 21st, 2013

Hi All!

The following article is a Guest Post written by Michael Fleischner, an Internet marketing expert and the President of MarketingScoop.com. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and had appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. You can visit MarketingScoop.com for further details and more marketing articles including tips on how to improve search engine rankings for your web site.

Check out this great advice from this seasoned pro!

7 Ways to Improve the Stickiness Of Your Website

Today more than ever, consumers are overwhelmed with choices, and distractions. The cost of attracting users to your website continues to increase and keeping them engaged is more important than ever.

Engagement doesn’t end with an individual browser reading content or clicking on an ad. Rather, engagement is an ongoing process that results in loyal customers who come back again and again, becoming more vested in your web site.

How can you make sure you’re engaging and keeping customers?

In order to create a loyal following, there are some basic principles you need to consider. From first impressions to life-long membership, put yourself in the shoes of your browsers and make their experience a valuable one.

  1. Reduce Clutter. How many times have you visited a website only to be overwhelmed and confused? What is this site about you may have asked yourself. Or perhaps you found yourself asking, ‘Where is the information I’m looking for?’Don’t ask your browsers or potential customers to figure this out. Make your site clutter free and create a visual priority that emphasizes the information, resources, or actions your browsers want. By reducing obstacles you build trust among new web site visitors and allow for simple decision making – which benefits everyone.
  2. Make Navigation Intuitive. There are many ways to navigate a web page but intuition rules the day. Don’t try to get fancy with your navigation or overuse java script. Basic navigation that follows current convention is the best way to lead individuals through your web site to the information they’re looking for.
  3. Make The Initial Site Interaction Relevant. When a browser reaches your web site, you have less than seven seconds to get them engaged. Making your initial site interaction relevant to what individuals are looking for is essential for keeping them interacting long term.If you are promoting your web site with Google Adwords, or any pay per click advertising for that matter, be sure to create customer landing pages that are truly relevant to the individual who clicks-through your ad. Once you’ve established relevancy, you can move them deeper into your content, tools, and resources.
  4. Ensure That Your Content Is Up-to-date. Web site content that isn’t up to date does not serve your audience and browsers are likely to move on. One way to ensure that information is timely is by providing a feed of relevant news or information. If including static text on your web pages, try not to include specific dates. However, if you must publish dates, be sure to update this information on a regular basis.
  5. Start An Interaction With Your Users. Each time a browser views your web page, you have an opportunity to interact with them. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by. One great way to interact is to offer something of value at no cost. This can be a white paper, access to an exclusive list, or simply a 30 day free trial. Be sure to capture an individual’s valid email address and include them on your mailing list. An auto-responder is best if you wish to engage these individuals on an ongoing basis.
  6. Provide Plenty Of Support. Don’t hesitate to offer support right from your home page. Prominently display your 800 number, support email address, and additional information for your prospects and customers such as mailing address. This information is viewed favorably by search engines and also creates a sense of legitimacy. Contact information builds trust among prospects and elicits interest in your company.
  7. Make Sharing Easy. Once you’ve made your web site easy to use, don’t hesitate to offer browsers the ability to share your web site with others. This can be in the form of a simple widget that allows users to bookmark your page, subscribe to an Rss feed, or submit your content to popular news sites like Digg.com.Individuals are much more likely to visit a web site based on a friend’s recommendation versus some other type of marketing initiative. Leverage the power of viral marketing with easy sharing tools.

Your web site can be your greatest asset. Unfortunately, many marketers and website owners are so focused on increasing traffic that they lose site of the audience that’s already visiting their web pages but are simply not converting.

Don’t make the same mistake. Improve the quality of you site through relevant content that is up-to-date and easy to find. Once you’ve engaged users, encourage them to share. Doing so will make your site perform better, increase conversions, and deliver value for all involved.

Thank you, Michael, for sharing that great info! And I hope all of you found it helpful for increasing awareness and respect for your personal and business brands!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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Simple Strategies to Get More Business on Facebook

January 13th, 2013

Hi All!

Social Media is an area that I not only conduct workshops and seminars on for small business owners, speakers and authors, but one that I provide private consultation on with every single client who hires me.

Now, I realize that to some of you Social Media may not be a mystery for building your brand, lead generation  and increased sales, however I will tell you it IS a huge mystery to most anyone who contacts me.

The common questions I hear are: How can I get more followers on Twitter and attract customers? I have a Facebook Business (Fan) Page but how do I use for marketing to get more clients? I have no idea how to use LinkedIn, Pinterest or YouTube for business, so what should I be doing? How can I use social media for book or product marketing?

And on and on and on…I’m not exaggerating when I say those types of questions are posed to me several times a week.

Obviously each one of those inquiries could each be the topic of its own book (and many have been!), so I’ll narrow this down to ONE of those topics and tackle the others in future posts I write.

Today I’d like to share an excerpt from an informative article written by Angela Stringfellow, a Business Writer who just had this article published on American Express’s awesome website for Small Business Owners and entrepreneurs, OpenForum.com. Her article is entitled: “10 Tips for Using Facebook to Boost Business”.

To avoid copyright issues, here are just the first three tips she shares and then you can click on the link to read the final seven:

Here are some innovative ways small businesses can use Facebook and capitalize on the power of this social giant.

1. Integrate Facebook connect buttons into your company website. Website visitors can easily connect to Facebook with the click of a button, enabling small business owners to maintain contact with potential customers even if they never return to the website.

2. Be responsive. Josh Grossman of e-Coupon service SavingStar says his company uses Facebook to communicate with customers and makes a point to respond to every question and comment promptly. Small businesses often thrive on personal interaction, and Facebook is a useful tool.

3. Make it easy to share content. Grossman explains, “Every coupon we post on SavingStar has a Facebook like button. Each coupon gets dozens or even hundreds of likes, helping to spread the word with users’ Facebook friends. All of our blog posts also have Facebook like and send buttons, and we use the Facebook comments plugin to make it easy for users to comment and share those comments with their Facebook friends.”

The tips that Angela shares in her article are dead on, so I highly recommend CLICKING HERE to read the other seven!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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Google: Solid Strategies to Rapidly Increase Your Search Engine Ranking

March 30th, 2012

Hi All!

The following article is a guest blog post courtesy of Kelly Marsh, a freelance writer and blogger. You’ll see that she provides great strategies to improve your search engine rankings on Google, so if you want to get on page one of a Google search, keep reading!

Here is the blog post Kelly provided:

If you are a small business owner, or own an online business, you know the importance of first page ranking in the Google search engine. Some believe that well done SEO can bring the desired result. However, this is not the only thing that helps one to get the top ranking. Moreover, Google maintains a top-secret and complex algorithm to decide on the websites to be displayed on top. No one has the exact information about the ways in which search engines give priority to websites. Still, it can be said that the well optimized and highly relevant web pages would get good ranking. Find out the easiest ways to get top page ranking in Google below:

Keyword Research

Start with keyword research. Find out the keywords relevant to your webpage that have the highest number of searches. You can do keyword research in the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Choosing the right set of keywords is half work done.

Proper Optimization of Meta Tags

Use the keywords in your description tag, title tag and keywords tag. You can also use the keyword phrase in the image ALT tags. In this way, Google shall be redirecting traffic to your website. However, ensure that the webpage is relevant to the keywords searched.

Keyword Density

Always maintain the keyword density of 1-5%. If you exceed this limit, it would be considered as spam as per the rules of search engines. Hence, keyword stuffing should be avoided at all cost.

Domain Name

The domain names that have the keyword phrase have more chance to get a higher ranking than those without the same. However, this can only happen if your website is properly optimized and possesses high number of quality backlinks.

Backlinks

Create as many backlinks as possible to redirect traffic to your website. Video marketing, article marketing, social media and social bookmarking are some of the ways to create backlinks to your website.

Anchor Text

Use of anchor text is also another way to get backlinks to your website and high page ranking in Google.

Video Marketing

This is also a great way to redirect traffic to your website. You would have to make small videos about your business or products and upload in several video sharing websites. Google would surely put your website in the top rank if it has a video. However, ensure that the video is relevantto the item searched.

Social Media

This is the fastest growing way to get traffic to your website. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are some of the social platforms from where you can expect traffic to your website. This is because once you share your url on your profile, your fan and followers would re-share the same with their friends. In this way, you would get traffic to your website.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is also a great way to attract traffic to your website through search engines. You need to submit articles relevant to your business to several article directories with a brief bio about your company at the end of the article and backlink the same to your website. The work is as simple as that.

Google Map Listing

This is the best way to get visible on the first page of Google. Google would surely keep you at the top spot if you use Google Map Listing. Moreover, this favors you from your customers’ base as well. They get to know about your location in an instance that helps both of you in several ways.

These are some of the ways to increase your page ranking. The more techniques you use, the more your chances to get top position in Google search engine. Using all of these would make you dominate the first page leaving your competitors perplexed.

About the author: Kelly is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on trek bicycle attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on landscape architecture.

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Beyond a Press Release: Two More Strategies to Get Media Interviews

February 05th, 2012

Hi All!

By writing and distributing Press Releases for myself, I have been interviewed by well-known media such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, and many others. And when you give them a great interview or sound bite, they come back to you. I have one reporter who has contacted me 3 different times in the past 6 months for 3 different articles she was writing. That is FREE publicity to the world!

Press Releases can also prompt the media to ask you to write an article for them. Why? They perceive you as an “expert”! In a short period of time I was asked by BNET.com, WomenEntrepreneur.com, and PersonalBrandingBlog.com to write articles for them – all because they received a Press Release from me and it put me on their radar as a “go to” expert in my niche.

But once you’ve crafted a newsworthy Press Release, and deployed it through a distribution service like PRWeb.com, what else can you do as a small business owner on a budget to get media interviews? Here are 2 strategies to consider:

Spoon Feeding the Media Segment Ideas

In addition to sending out “mass news” Press Releases, there is another strategy for getting publicity. I call it “spoon feeding” the media. The media loves it when you approach them with specific story ideas. This can be along the lines of topics like: “Is Your Career Suffering? 5 Unique Tips for Success”, or “Do You Struggle With Money? 3 Surefire Tips for Finding Financial Bliss”, or “Is Stress Ruining Your Life? 4 Proven Ways to Overcome It”.

The key here is you’re doing the “thinking” for the Reporters, Editors, Producers, etc. They are always looking for ideas, and appreciate when they get some! So focus on topics that fit within your niche as a Coach, develop compelling topics that would be great interview topics for print, online, radio or TV, find several media outlets that cover stories related to your expertise and that reach your target audience, and pitch them your idea(s). This strategy has worked very well for me, personally, and my clients!

And you can approach the media contacts via phone or email. But, and here’s a key point, whether you send them a Press Release or contact them with a specific topic idea, you need to follow-up. Sending them one email or leaving one voicemail message is typically not enough. Try 3-5 follow up attempts before you give up. Most members of the media are approached with many news stories and topic ideas daily, so being the “squeaky wheel” is often necessary. And even if they don’t jump on the first one you present, continue to the send them new ones. Eventually you will get their attention!

Sharing Your News Through Social Media

Once you have uploaded and deployed your Press Release through PRWeb.com or another online distribution service, the services create a web page for it with a unique url. So not only post your Press Release on your website but also be sure share the link to it with all of your Social Media channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. You can also use the Press Release as a post for your blog.

And, when you start to get media interviews, be sure to add the links to the articles or appearances on your website. Plus, share links to those, too, with your Social Media communities. Please note, it’s not only totally acceptable to toot your own horn by sharing these things, it is necessary for building your business and brand!

OKAY! There is your crash course in how implementing effective PR strategies can benefit your business. Again, this is a key marketing tool for building brand awareness, positioning yourself as an expert (ie: personal branding), generating sales for events and products, attracting new clients, and landing speaking engagements.

Being persistent and consistent with your PR efforts can bring you substantial returns…and prospects will be impressed by the media coverage you post on your website. It really will build your credibility as an expert in your field!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

 

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Startling Stats About Boomers Facing Retirement Challenges

October 13th, 2011

Hi All!

Read these statistics carrefully. They are fightening:

According to this 2010 report, The EBRI Retirement Readiness RatingTM: Retirement Income Preparation and Future Prospects, by Jack VanDerhei and Craig Copeland of EBRI.org: 47.2% of older Boomers (56-62) are at risk of outliving their retirement savings. And 43.7% of younger Boomers (46-55) are at risk of not having enough money for basic monthly expenses when they retire.

These sobering statistics have millions of Boomers currently wondering, “What can I do to generate income, full-time or part-time, that is flexible, interesting, fun, possible to start on a tight budget, and do way into my golden years?”

I wrote my newest book, Boomers into Business: How Anyone Over 50 Can Turn What They Know into Dough Before and After Retirement”, to answer those questions. I explain how to take what you know, from your career experience or hobbies, to develop a “topic expert” platform that can lead to consulting others, conducting training seminars online and offline, developing many strategies for on-going passive income, and much more.

And it doesn’t matter whether you’ve been an employee your whole career or whether you are currently self-employed. Nor do a person’s education level, career background, or business experience matter. The book was written to take a lot of guesswork out of the process.

Basically, most everyone knows something, from their career background, life experiences or from a hobby that other people will pay to learn about. Whether you’ve been an HR professional your whole career, or a construction worker, homemaker, lawyer, Life Coach,  housepainter, or a lover of growing roses, my book teaches Boomers how to monetize what they know to create a good income, in a wide variety of ways, as a topic expert.

And the book not only teaches how to determine a topic focus and how to create a unique brand platform, but it also outlines the tools needed to launch. Plus, I asked 15 other business experts to provide chapters on PR, marketing, and social media strategies, plus many more business-building and revenue generating ideas.

The reviews on Amazon have been great so far, and here are 2 examples of how my new book is helping those who read it:

“I’m now 50, a single mom with a teenage son, and I’ve worked at Title Insurance companies for over 20 years. I currently don’t have enough money to retire comfortably in my 60’s and have been trying to figure out what I can do make money on-the-side of my day job,” says Kathy F. in San Jose, CA. “ ‘Boomers into Business’ was a godsend! It opened my mind to possibilities I had never thought of before and I’m now developing ideas for an expert platform and consulting business that will provide me with the additional income I need to be more comfortable now and later in my life.”

“This book was so helpful, easy to follow and really fun to read! It’s loaded with
ideas that I can refer to again and again,” shares Marilyn F., a 62-year old Boomer in Santa Cruz, CA. “I’m already self-employed but learned how I can expand my services to be much better off financially. Plus, I learned tons of new marketing strategies that are really effective. I highly recommend this book to any Boomers wanting to improve their financial futures or who are seeking ways to change their career path.”

So, if you can relate to anything you’ve read in the blog post, check out my book on Amazon. It’s available in both Print and Kindle versions, and for a small investment it could bring you a serious return that can help your retirement picture!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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Ten Tips for Effective Networking In-Person

April 23rd, 2011

Nowadays, most people seem to be solely focused on social networking online. And, yes, while I am a firm believer that social media communities, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, are AMAZING tools for making connections and business building, I find that many clients I work with tend to forget about “the other” type of networking…attending industry mixers and professional association gatherings!

Quite honestly, I find that attending in-person networking events can typically yield me positive business results faster than online networking. Therefore, I make an effort to include in-person networking in my business-building mix. But, I also find that people are not that great at using their valuable in-person networking time wisely. So I often spend time coaching my clients on networking at events so that they are comfortable attending and get the most out of them.

That said, here are Ten Tips I recommend to make your in-person networking efforts a success:

  1. Show-up with your business cards! People often forget their cards, or only bring a few, and that’s embarrassing. Bring a good-sized stack with you so you don’t run out. Some people you meet may ask for several because they may know other people that need your product or services!
  2. Don’t be shy. Remember, everyone is there to meet new people, so you are all in the same boat. Find someone standing alone or a small group of people, walk up, extend your hand (for a FIRM shake), smile and introduce yourself. It’ll feel weird the first couple of times but people who network a lot are used to strangers approaching them. And if you say it’s your first time attending the mixer, they’ll normally want to help you meet other people.
  3. Practice your 30-second “personal infomercial” before you arrive. When someone asks what you do, be able to explain your business in 30 seconds or less. DO NOT bore people with a long sales pitch or a bumbling explanation about your small business.
  4. You should take an interest in the people you meet first. It’s common to blab on about yourself when you’re nervous, so make a conscious effort to ask people questions and LISTEN to what they share closely.
  5. Depending on the length of the mixer, try not to spend more than 5-10 minutes with each person. You’re there to meet people! Now if you’re really enjoying yourself with someone, and/or you’re talking to what may be a potential client, maybe spend a bit more time. BUT, KEEP IN MIND, they may want to be moving on to meet more people, too, so don’t monopolize their time. They might be too shy to excuse themselves, so be mindful of time, and watch their eyes and body language!
  6. If alcohol is being served, don’t overdo it. I’ve seen quite a few people start the evening making a great impression and then, after a few drinks, it spirals downhill.
  7. Make a lot of eye contact with people and smile! It’s all about human contact, and smiling will draw people to you. Yet when most people get nervous they sit on the sidelines and hope people will come to them. A genuine, warm smile will relax people you meet and will make connecting with you more inviting.
  8. Practice being a good conversationalist. Rather than just talk about you and your company (or theirs), have a few interesting questions memorized, and ask about kids, travel, previous jobs, pets, sports, current events, etc. Also, by really listening to people (which many people aren’t great at!) questions will come up naturally that you can ask to keep the conversation going. And, personally, I avoid topics around religion and politics.
  9. If someone approaches a group you’re talking to…immediately extend your hand, smile, and make them feel welcome. 
  10.  Send a hand written follow-up note to all the people you meet (mail them within 1-2 days). The immediate thought is to send e-mail, but a good ‘ol fashioned “Nice meeting you” thank you card, sent via snail mail, makes a BIG impression on people…because people rarely send them nowadays!

Okay, now find some good association mixers and industry events in your area, and try to attend at least 1-2 per month. There is a very good chance you’ll reap the benefits of your networking efforts quickly, such as: See your connection database grow quickly; find new opportunities otherwise missed; and attract new clients to generate more income!

And, here’s a great quote I’ll leave you with on this topic (but I can’t remember who said it): Take your offline contacts online, and your online contacts offline…I think that’s great advice.

And if you have a helpful networking tip to share, please share it!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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7 Easy Steps to An Effective Marketing Strategy For 2011

January 01st, 2011

Hi All!

The New Year is here…are you ready with a Marketing Plan and Strategy to enter 2011 organized, poised for revenue growth and career success? If you are, fabulous!

However, if you’re like many of the new clients who hire me, you’re probably “hoping” 2011 will be better but don’t really have a plan to make it happen. You may even know your previous marketing efforts have been ineffective, but have no clue what to do to fix and improve them.

Oftentimes, I find that small business owners, speakers, authors, coaches, consultants, etc. are good at what they do in their profession, but aren’t that great at marketing themselves, their businesses, and/or their products. They run in circles in a “reactive” mode (versus create a strategic plan) and then wonder why they are struggling to land new clients, sell books, secure speaking opportunities, or generate more income for their businesses through other avenues.

If any of this resonates with you, keep reading!

Here are 7 steps to help you create an effective Marketing Plan and Strategy for the New Year:

  1. It’s time to really research your target audience. Do you really know what your customers and potential customers want? Do you have a profile that describes your “ideal” customer/client? Or, perhaps you want to expand out of your current target audience and find new types of clients. For example, maybe you’re a Coach or Consultant and want to start attracting clients who are willing to pay higher fees for your services. Do you know “who” they are and where to reach them? You can’t effectively market to them if you don’t know all of this important information first!
  2. Research your competition. Sure, this may sound like common sense but many small business owners don’t take the time to do this. What do your competitors offer? What do they charge? What products or services do they offer that you don’t? What types of marketing strategies are they using that could also benefit your business? Not only is it good to know what they’re offering and their pricing, but you can get fresh ideas for marketing your business by learning from their strategies.
  3. Focus on what makes you “unique”. Back in college when I was an Advertising Major, one of the key phrases mentioned in my classes a lot was “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP). It’s still a key phrase and used by major Ad Agencies a lot when working with a new client. What’s your USP? Great, you’re a CPA, lawyer, landscaper, speaker or executive coach…but so are many other people! So, what makes YOU different? Find your USP, focus on it in your branding and marketing communications, and “own” it. Making yourself different from all the other people who offer what you do can be the difference between struggling or excelling this year.
  4. Outline your marketing goals. You can’t create an overall strategy if you don’t know what you want your marketing efforts to accomplish! You want to write down specific goals, such as: Secure 2 paid speaking engagements per month; land 4 new clients per month; get 75 new subscribers each month for my e-newsletter; or attract more targeted fans on my Fan Page and get 100 new “likes” per month. These types of targeted goals will enable you to start thinking about “how” to accomplish them…and this leads to determining the strategies, messaging offers, and marketing mix you’ll use.
  5. Determine your marketing mix. Once you’ve determined who your target audience is, what makes them tick, where you can find them, what your competition is doing, and what your USP is, you can develop your strategy for reaching your marketing goals. Create a list of 3-6 strategies, ranging from email, social media, sales calls, direct mail, online services, speaking at events where your audience attends, writing articles, PR, finding strategic partners, etc. Don’t feel like you have to use everything! Pick a few, focus on them, and implement them.
  6. Develop your plan. Once you’ve determined the mix of tools you’ll use, you can focus on implementation, messaging, frequency, budget, etc…this becomes your actual Marketing Plan! Work backwards from your goals, and chart your map for the year…what will you be doing each day, month and quarter to reach your goals using the mix of tools you determined? Example: You want to do eblasts. How many per month and what will you send? You want to speak at association events to reach potential clients. But what are the associations and what is the presentation topic you’ll pitch them? You want more “likes” on your Fan Page. Will you develop more strategic partners to help you achieve this? Run ads on Facebook? And if you decide to run ads, what is your budget and what will your ad say? You have to write your Marketing Plan so you have a direction!
  7. Evaluate, measure and assess regularly. Marketing Plans are not set in stone! You can change a strategy in your plan if it’s not working well. You have to! But you can’t even get to the point of “being strategic” about your strategies if you don’t start with a plan and monitor the results.

Sure, this 7 step process is a simplistic approach (there are some Marketing Plans that are much more detailed and complex), but you don’t need to make it complicated; that’s what can scare you from even trying to create a basic plan! I’ve helped clients outline an effective Marketing Plan in an hour, so trust me when I say this doesn’t have to be a drawn-out process.

I don’t care whether your plan ends up being one-page or 50…just make sure you have some sort of strategic plan so you enter 2011 feeling more organized and in control of your new year! And here’s a link to a Marketing Plan software solution that can help you: Marketing Plan Pro.

Cheers to a Prosperous New Year and Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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