Category: Marketing
Local Small Business Online Marketing Checklist
The marketing landscape for local business has changed dramatically. Smart business owners, like you, are relying less on print and traditional media advertisements and are instead embracing the power of the Internet and mobile 
technology. Consider this your checklist for ensuring you have all your bases covered when it comes to marketing your business locally.
Your Business Website
If you don’t have a website, now is the time to create one. Your potential customers are searching for you online and they want to see your operating hours, address, catalog or menu before they visit you. If they can’t find you, they’re likely to move onto the next business that readily provides the information they’re looking for.
Your website needn’t be complicated, but should include the following:
- Hours of operation
- Catalog / Menus and Pricing, where possible
- Any specials you are currently offering
- Contact information including address, phone number and email address
- An interactive map to help users navigate to your place of business (Use Google Maps)
- ”About Us” information about your company
- Customer / Client satisfaction and testimonials information
- Website privacy policy and other legal documentation
Search Engine Traffic
There is plenty of potential for local traffic from search engines. Whether your customer is searching for your business name or searching for the type of service you offer in your local area, this is highly targeted traffic.
Free Search Engine Traffic: Most of the business listings you see in a search engine are free and businesses do not pay to be listed there. Search engines use a complex algorithm to determine which pages are relevant for each search its users make. For example, if a user searches for “kids clothing boutique Raleigh, North Carolina” and you happen to own a kid’s clothing boutique in that city, you’re more likely to be found, provided that your website is descriptive and includes those keyword phrases.
Main Search Listings: Always be descriptive when creating your website pages. Include your complete address on each page and describe your products and services. Make sure you or your web designer also includes descriptive keywords in your title, description and headline tags. If you are building your site yourself, find out how you can modify 
your title, description and headline tags as the method varies depending on the type of design tool you are using.
Google Places: On Google, you may have noticed that there are Places results that often appear before the other listings. These listings are based on sites that have been added to the Google Places database and they are ranked according to a number of factors including how often your business is mentioned on other websites, reviews and how frequently your Places page is updated.
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Mastering the Art of Relationships
Face it – Business is all about Relationships!
You do not do business in a vacuum. You have clients and customers – your life blood of your business. You also have employees, co-workers, maybe a boss, business partners, shareholders, joint venture partners, business associates, referral sources, suppliers, vendors. The list goes on and on.
So the true ‘Art of Business’ is the ‘Art of Relationships’. It is one reason why there are more and more successful women in business (not knocking the men here). Women just have a knack for developing strong relationships. Men are driven to get the job done, while women build networks of friends and associates that can get it done for them.
So if business is all about relationships – then why – if you open 99% of business books today, do they not talk about relationships; how to build them and nurture them. Instead they discuss organizational behaviour, time management, sales strategy, financial tracking, system analysis, etc.
If you really want to succeed in business – then find a book about relationships. Learn how to work with people, get people to trust you, how to create real friendships.
That will drive your success!
I have heard it said that 90% of a person’s success in business relates directly to how happy they are in their personal relationships. I believe this is true to some extent. But the reason behind it (this the real secret) is that 
these people have are skilled at the art of creating powerful relationships.
If you are happy in your personal relationship – then you have mastered – at least on your personal level - the art of building and nurturing relationships. You can transfer these skills directly over to your business life. This will then corresponds to your level of success in business.
Let me be clear – it is not about contacts. Just having someone’s business card, friend on Facebook, or connection on LinkedIn does not mean you have built a relationship. You have to take it a step further.
You must make a connection – that is the start. And in today’s busy world that can by tough. It can start with an email, comment or message on social media. Then it should progress to a phone call or in person meeting. In today’s busy world the phone is still one of the best business tools you have..
Learn to make short, but positive impact phone calls. Know what your message is before you dial. Have a question; invite them to a networking or other business event; have an irresistible offer for them. Give them VALUE! Stick to the facts; be courteous, opening the door to building a relationship.
Email can be a great follow up to a phone call. But don’t make it your only contact. It is too impersonal, and too easy to ignore.
Don’t forget those relationships right in your own business, your coworkers, employees, vendors, etc. The ones you see day to day. You must continually work on them, building the relationship. You cannot tune them out, assuming they will always be there, and nothing changes in your life. Keep ‘getting in touch’ with these people – really making a connection on a regular basis.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a highly effective way to distribute your message to your target market.
Email marketing builds relationships as it allows you to touch your client or prospect multiple times in an economical way.
To effectively use email marketing you need an autoresponder service.
An autoresponder is essentially the automatic series of emails that get sent out to people that subscribe to your mailing list. This is a massively important part of marketing online, an autoresponder allows you to create a trusting connection with your list. Building this trust means they are more likely to respect your suggestions, and therefore means if you suggest a product they will be more likely to buy it.
To make your email marketing more effective your need to create powerful messages.
This is a very important part of email marketing, the key is to invoke an emotional response in your readers. You want them to feel connected to you and that they trust you, doing this will increase the chance they buy from you because they will see you as genuine, this is human nature.
Researchers have found that only about one in three emails are actually opened. It is important that your potential customers find your message useful so they will be sure to be looking for your next email. Also make sure that you send out your autoresponses about twice a week. Again researchers have found that sending out an email twice a week will result in more openings. Any more and your potential customer will feel like they are being bombarded and less than that they will loose interest.
The most successful messages are those that your customer’s will appreciate because it will allow them to feel like they are learning something by reading the message. Therefore, these messages need to be created to teach the reader about the benefits of your product. After the customer has been taught then they will be more likely to buy from you as you have become a trusted friend.
If you don’t yet have a list of email subscribers it’s easily one of the biggest and easiest improvements you can make to your business because when someone comes to your website they can sign up for updates whether they are a free visitor or a paid buyer and get notified about new content and new offers you have for them. You need an autoresponder service.
Seven Marketing Ideas
Business Marketing Ideas
- Create a marketing plan.
- Build your own referral network of business professionals that you send clients to and receive clients from.
- Put up posters or business cards in public libraries, meeting places and local businesses.
- Offer informational brochures to teach your customers about your industry and products.
- Write articles for a local magazines, publications or business journals.
- Give away something for free.
- Have a marketing plan, but also have a follow-up plan to keep customers once you get them.
Marketing Ideas
You need great ideas to have good marketing.
Here is where to get started
- Create a marketing plan.
- Build your own referral network of business professionals that you send clients to and receive clients from.
- Put up posters or business cards in public libraries, meeting places and local businesses.
- Offer informational brochures to teach your customers about your industry and products.
- Write articles for a local magazines, publications or business journals.
