The business world is changing. Ten years ago, you would have never understood "sharing your contacts on the cloud." Two years ago Newsweek stopped all printed publications. Take a look around you. It's time to move your company forward.
Last week I spent three days learning about new trends in internet marketing. I'd like to share a few ideas with you that can help grow your business:
- Grow your e-mail list. Take a look at how many emails you have right now and set a much higher goal. This is one of the very fastest and best ways to communicate with existing and potential customers. This alone will help increase your business. Then communicate with your customers on a regular basis... which leads to:
- Send an e-newsletter regularly. Keep it simple and benefit oriented. Fill it with tools and information your customers can use. The key is to send it on a regular basis. If you're busy start out quarterly. Get a handle on it and move it to once a month. You can send twice a month if the content is good. I would not send much more frequently than that.
- Please tell me you have a website. If not, stop reading and go start working on it right now. It's that important. Take all of your old yellow page budget and pour it into your website. Then I challenge you to use video on your website. It's not hard - grab your cell phone, shoot some video and post it on YouTube then link it to your site. It doesn't have to be perfect - it just has to be beneficial to your customer.
- Build a business Facebook page and promote it. Most of the people in the developed world are on Facebook. It's time you figured out how to use it for business too. Then when people LIKE your page, go to their page and thank them. Saying "thank you" never goes out of style. Take time every chance you get to thank each and every customer.
Thank YOU for reading my post and stay tuned for more growing your business ideas.
Sally Poole
Check out our Facebook videos to see Sally's Secret Ninja Facebook trick! Find it here.
Want to try something new? Ready for a little innovation? Need something inexpensive? I thought so! The time is right for you to start using all those customer emails you've been collecting! You're going to start marketing your company through an e-newsletter. You can do this in your existing email program. Before you start, make sure you have something of value to give your customers. Find something really newsworthy, offer free advice, or a special discount. Then don't inundate clients with messages; send no more than one a month. A quarterly e-newsletter is a great way to get started. Remember to blind carbon copy your customers so you aren't sharing their email address with everyone. Dig into your e-mail program and start your e-newsletter this month.