21 Easy Marketing Ideas to Cap Off DIY Marketing Month
June has been DIY marketing month. I know, for many small business owners, every month is DIY marketing month. I highlighted what a few small businesses were doing a couple of weeks ago. But before June totally fades from our memory, let me share with you some ideas that I’ve been collecting throughout the month. Take a few that look good and put them on the top of your “to-do” list or pull in one of your best employees to get the job done. Get yourself on a local radio show. A friend with a money-saving-tips blog did a regular 15-minute call-in spot on a local radio talk show. Find this kind of opportunity in your community. Create multi-use content. When you do a blog, massage it into different formats for wider distribution – shorten for Twitter, give it a newspaper style for a press release (don’t forget to send to local publications) and when possible translate into an infographic. Help a Reporter Out. Register as a source on HARO and volunteer information when request match your expertise. Join forums related to your business. Follow discussions and post useful information. Be sure to format your forum “signature” to promote your business. (See next item.) Create an email and forum signature that links to your website and/or social media pages. Redouble your keyword efforts. Take another look at your keywords. Use Übersuggest to find long-tail keywords. Spruce up your website. Web styles change and for many small businesses their website is a prospect’s first impression…and how many chances do you get to make a first impression? Join LinkedIn groups. There are two types to join: the ones your customers are in and local groups. Local groups will often hold networking events. Attend. Exchange links with noncompeting but related businesses. Create a directory on your website for other local businesses that would interest your clients. Encourage them to do the same. Double-check your business listings around the Internet. Start with Google. Dedicate your social media marketing to two platforms. If you’ve allowed social media marketing for your small business to become an afterthought, think again. Design the best way for you to keep everything fresh and informative. Listen to a marketing podcast every day. Marketing is like a shark: if it’s not moving forward it dies. Find a marketing podcast that you enjoy, subscribe and listen during your commute or while you exercise. Create a survey, either online or at your location. People love to voice their opinions. If you’re hosting a survey on your website, promote it through the social media platforms you use. Do a contest. Offer a free ebook or white paper download. Combine several blogs on related topics into a whitepaper or ebook and offer it as a free download in return for giving you an email address. Plan out seasonal promotions for the rest of the year. Get a marketing/editorial calendar going so you aren’t always doing things at the last minute. With a calendar you can also more easily assign tasks to other employees. Check out the weird, wacky and lesser known special days and have some fun with them. You’ll find that at Days of the Year. Volunteer to give at least one talk at a local community, business or university group. Build your...
read moreThe Secret to a Long Life: Close the Complaint Department!
A rather unusual pair of comedic Christian missionaries – identical twins Rick and Mick Vigneulle – often conduct an “Attitude Check” program for high school students. One of the highlights is when they ask the teenagers to shout out what they think make people successful in life. They dutifully list everything the kids say and then pause to consider the responses at the end. Many of the things you’d expect the kids to say are often missing from the list, like money and connections. What dominates the list are all personal attributes that fall into the category of our attitude. I could sum most of these up by simply saying that even teens – who we often write off as ignorant, apathetic, or both – understand that the most vital key to success is having a positive attitude. Over the years, I’ve come to deeply understand that your internal beliefs are reflected in your external results. Lose the rain cloud If you’ve ever been a fan of the funny papers, you’ve probably seen a cartoonist illustrate a character with a bad attitude by putting a little rain cloud over his or her head. I don’t think that’s far from the truth. If you have a persistently negative attitude, you’ll find that it tends to “rain on your parade” almost all the time. And not only does a positive attitude increase your opportunity for success, it can dramatically increase the number of active and enjoyable years you spend here on Earth as well. 107-year old Lona Collins recently told reporters that one of her secrets to longevity was to not complain. It is very easy to become a complainer. After all, business and life do throw some tough challenges our way. Unfortunately, complaining is the easiest – and least productive – way to respond to problems. Complainers don’t solve problems, complainers magnify problems. Discernment is required Let’s face it, some problems can be solved and some can’t. When you run into a problem for which there is no solution – at least in the short term – you just have to adjust your attitude and move on. But to do this you have to recognize and agree with the fact that you have control over your attitude. There are many things in the world that are beyond your control – your attitude isn’t one of them. Complaining is an outward expression of inward ill feeling, such as unhappiness, envy, frustration and others. We need to learn to let these go. If we bottle them up, we eventually explode. If we express them by complaining, we chase away people with positive attitudes and draw in other complainers. It’s not a pretty picture, so if you’re prone to complain, try to start catching yourself at it and head it off. If you’re deaf to your own complaints, ask a trusted loved one to give you a secret signal whenever you start harping on something. You’ll be happier and more successful in life and in your small business. Will a positive attitude guarantee you material wealth? No. But when it’s combined with hard work and a sound business strategy, there’s no limit to what you can...
read moreThis Week in Small Business: Are your sleeping and waking habits killing your chance at success?
Leadership, management and productivity Are you getting fewer than six hours of sleep per night? It could be killing your chance at small business success. And when you get up, why not try doing these four things that successful small business owners do each morning? Small business wants to hire, but many owners are having a hard time recruiting the talent they need. Here are four ways to level the playing field in the hiring game. And when you do find candidates, be sure you’re making the best decisions. Management secrets from Winston Churchill (maybe), mom, and “Red” Smith. Eternal truths in these three pearls of wisdom. If you have a to-do list, double check it and see if these three things are on it for today. When you’re able to see rejection as a gift, you can dramatically improve your odds for success, says Ron Karr. Likeable people have a far better chance at becoming successful people. Here are 10 behaviors of incredibly likeable people. Marketing and sales Creating long-form content that is also “evergreen” helps solve a lot of problems in your content marketing program. And, of course, you’ll want to measure the real impact of your content marketing on your small business. If you want to know how your small business brothers and sisters are marketing this year, check out the results of this thorough survey. Images can turbo-charge your content marketing program. Here are image rules for the top seven social networks. Clip ’n Save! Marketing a small business with multiple locations complicates the picture a bit. Here’s the right way to get it done. Personalized marketing is essential, but sometimes expensive for small businesses. Here are six low-cost ways to personalize. Are you beginning to think that this whole social media marketing thing is a hoax? Here are four reasons your efforts may be failing. It’s trade show season and your small business really needs to get heard and seen above all the noise and distractions. John Ruhlin gives us five tricks. The more you know about your customers, the better able you are to sell. Rachel Krug, senior researcher at Constant Contact, offers a simple approach to conducting customer research. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation Are you trying to raise capital? Here are four steps required for success. Before you get too far into marketing your startup, look over this startup marketing strategy guide. The people at QuickBooks know something about managing money. In this article, they discuss funding your new business without using your savings. Keeping the main thing the main thing is not always easy. Don’t let these three entrepreneurship essentials slip off your radar screen. Are Lyft and Uber drivers the new face of entrepreneurship? Before you dive into your startup, here are five things every potential small business owner needs to know…and understand. Leaders differ. Read this article on the Personal Branding Blog and see if you fall into either of these three leadership styles. Are you mistaking patience for persistence in your startup. Don’t. I always prefer learning from someone else’s failure. Here’s a post-mortem on the venture-backed startup, Sonar. Politics, government and the economy Los Angeles recently passed a law to raise the minimum wage there to $15 an hour over the next few years. It looks like...
read moreTwo Ways Your Small Business Can Benefit From the Sharing Economy
If this short conversation hasn’t happened already, it will happen soon: Mary: I like your new dress. Margaret: Thanks. Want to rent it? Average people today are empowered to rent the shirt off their backs – or in my example, the dress. They’re calling it the sharing economy, but that’s really a misnomer. Sharing is when you break off half your candy bar and give it away to your friend. This is really grass roots, peer-to-peer renting or trading, for the most part. An infinite variety of rental connections are possible today because it is so easy to communicate with virtually anyone over the Internet. If Jacques has a garret to rent in Paris, Jack can reserve it from his brownstone in Philadelphia. The impact of this on small business owners will be huge. Some will find ways to benefit and others will have to modify their business plans to cope with the market changes. Let me give you a few examples of the potential, both positive and negative. Find what you can ‘share’ You should look around your small business to spot excess capacity. Do you have equipment or even space that isn’t being utilized to its fullest capacity? You might be able to find others who would want to “buy” your excess capacity from you. If your offices are too large, rent out your spare space. If you have a widget folder that sits idle except for that one big widget order you get from a long-time customer twice a year, find someone who may be able to use it. Or if someone else needs it more than you do, sell it with the agreement that you can rent it back twice a year. Further, consider some of the popular peer-to-peer options for business travel. Would you like to take the whole team on a retreat? Instead of a hotel, find a nice house through Airbnb or some other vacation rental site. If your reps do business in cities with Zipcar service, you might be able to lower your rental car costs. Of course, Uber and Lyft are also options. Fewer non-necessity purchases On the downside of the sharing economy, consumer demand may decrease for some items. When convenient short-term use can be arranged, there will be some things that people no longer need to buy. Have there been occasions when you bought something for a special event or occasion and afterwards it got relegated to the attic, basement or dark corner of a closet? There will be fewer purchases like this going forward. This impact will increase in the coming decades. Millennials and the generations that follow them will be very accustomed to working the levers of the sharing economy and it will feel natural to them. Baby Boomers are used to accustomed to buying everything they need. They will not drop that habit overnight. So enjoy the sharing economy. Leverage it as both a consumer and as a supplier. For the small business owner looking for additional incremental income as well as cost-saving measures, it should prove...
read moreWhen your small business goes to the dogs…in a very good way!
I love the tag line for PSI’s Take Your Dog To Work Day®: “Because who ever heard of working like a cat?!” PSI is Pet Sitters International and June 26 this year marks the 17th annual Take Your Dog to Work Day. The event celebrates dogs and promotes pet adoption. When you head over to the website you’ll find a downloadable action pack that gives you a ton of background, great ways to convince people of the event’s worthiness and planning tips. If you’ve been around nursing homes, hospitals or rehab centers, you know that visits by friendly dogs is extremely therapeutic. I have to believe that the same kind of good vibes that dogs bring to folks recovering from or battling against illness would be a wonderful tonic for stressed-out small business employees. And spending break times and lunches walking your dog around the block a few times would certainly be a lot better for your health than eating that extra bag of potato chips. It’s funny, but when we carve out time in our busy schedules to get some exercise for our dogs, we end up getting great exercise for ourselves. If you allow your team to bring their dogs into work, you might also find that walls come down between people. Individuals who don’t get along very well often find that they share a love of their dogs. Dogs can be extremely effective ambassadors of good will in your small business. I wouldn’t be surprised if Maxwell, my little Shih Tzu, could bring peace to the Middle East, if given the chance. I know that he brings a major dose of peace to my hectic life. I often take Maxwell – my chairman of the bone – with me in my travels and I couldn’t ask for a better companion (with apologies to my husband, George!) As long as your small business isn’t something like a restaurant or outpatient surgical center, I urge you to participate in this year’s Take Your Dog to Work Day. Not only will the dog owners on your staff appreciate the gesture, other employees and your customers will enjoy the wagging tails and enthusiastic greetings these canine companions will bring to your workplace. And before I leave the topic, I should mention that pet sitting and dog walking can be great businesses, especially for people who want to start a business but don’t have deep pockets for the initial...
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