Are you looking for ways to get more attention for your business? Most small business owners are! Do you ever feel like the “best kept secret” on the internet? You have a great service to offer but very few people know about you.
As a small business owner it’s important to use a well rounded approach to gaining attention for your business. It’s easy to get caught up in all the new social media strategies available to you. They are extremely important and should definitely be integrated into your marketing plan but they are by no means the only way to market yourself or your business.
Don’t forget about some of the more traditional approaches. They may be old but many still do the job when it comes to introducing your products and services to the public. Below are just a few ways you can gain attention, partnerships and sales for your small business.
Article marketing: Articles don’t necessarily have to be long in order to get your point across. Think about your audience. Who are they and what are they looking for? Then provide value to them in the form of a short informative article. Give them information that benefits them and you’ll have a friend for life! And don’t forget to use some of the top article directories to submit your articles. It’s great to have them on your website but getting them in front of others through sites like iSnare. or Ezine Articles allows you to get tons of exposure by allowing others to use your information for content on their websites.
Free Reports: Offering a free report is a great way to build your lists! Use a sign up form on your website, blog or even on your Facebook page (yes, you can do this if you use the FBML App) and you’ll have the opportunity to market to all of these prospects at a later date. Make sure you’re offering something of value. Provide them with information that will help them sell more, earn more or save more and you’ll soon find yourself with an endless supply of potential new business.
Press Releases: When was the last time your business did something newsworthy? It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking but it does need to be something that provides value to the people you are trying to get in front of. Are you offering a new product that will change the way they do business? Do you have a new service that will help them save money? Is your company volunteering in a community project that will benefit your hometown? All of these things are newsworthy! Once you’ve written your press release you can submit it to sites like BusinessWire or PRNewswire – Using distribution sites like this not only save you time but also help you get your news published instantly!
Help a Reporter: http://www.helpareporter.com/. This is one of our favorite tools for free publicity. You’ll receive information from reporters who want to write specific stories. If you have something to say that can add value to their work then you may quickly find yourself with tons of free publicity for no more than a few minutes of your time!
With information so freely available on the internet there are lots of ways to get free or inexpensive publicity for your small business. So get yourself a plan, ask for help when you need it and enjoy helping your business grow!
Gayle Buske is the co-founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click and VirtualAssistingUSA. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 57,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid small business owners in their growth and development through virtual outsourcing. Virtual assistants across the globe look to Ms. Buske and her organizations for guidance, mentoring and motivation.
Most businesses focus their entire marketing budget on trying to win new customers and they forget their most valuable asset…the customers they already have. What’s even worse is if they finally decide they want to change this, they don’t even have a way to contact the largest percentage of their customers.
The difference between a highly profitable small business and one that barely gets by could the result of one thing, whether or not you capture customer contact info…and then use that info wisely. By not attempting to capture contact information for every customer who comes through your door you are essentially throwing money away. To get it back, you need to develop a customer list and then send a minimum of 25 “messages” a year to your this list. A message could be an email, direct mail piece, fax, or phone call.
Before you have an anxiety attack over sending that many messages to your list, there are ways to automate the process so you can go about running your business or enjoying life. This automation gets your messages out regardless of how busy you get (the more messages that go out, the busier you’ll get).
Fortunately, there are automated tools called autoresponders that do this work for you. An autoresponder is a web-based software system that sends out emails when someone signs up to receive them. Then it sends out emails at intervals you set up. You can also set it up to send an email on a specific day, such as a holiday. You can use that feature to send out holiday reminder emails that are targeted to bring business into your store. You simply enter your email messages into the autoresponder one time, and these messages are sent automatically whenever anyone signs up on your customer list.
One of the best ways to capture customer information is to have customers enter a drawing for a valuable item right as they enter the store. The items you give away do not have to be expensive. They just need a high perceived value. An MP3 music player would be an example of something with a high perceived value. Using eBay you can even buy these items from Hong Kong at a huge discount.
Once you build your customer list and then start mining it for the solid gold it contains, you’ll start seeing your profits soar.
Tim Bruxvoort is an ecommerce entrepreneur who operates a full-time ecommerce business called http://www.IntercomsOnline.com. He also is a partner in a small business marketing consulting business that helps small business owners improve their marketing. For more information go to http://www.fastbusinessprofits.com.