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:

  1. 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:
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

Social media can be intimidating - especially as a small business owner with limited time. We've put together a series of steps - a recipe - to get you started! Let's get cooking!

PREP
Strategies are the bread and butter of a social media campaign. How do you develop one? Start with your target audience.

ORGANIZE

USE
Start using social media - but start small and build.

RELATE
Listen to your followers. Comment and respond – even to negative, especially to negative, feedback. Be relatable. This helps build relationships – which is the essence of social media. Share others posts. Just like you communicate with people on your personal page – communicate with them via your business page (just keep it tasteful and professional – remember this creates an image for your business!).

EXPERIMENT
Track and analyze your posts. Experiment with different times and days to find the best time to post that will elicit responses from your customers. Find out what types of content get the best results. Social media is constantly evolving, so your content should be too!

BONUS

Comment below with comments or questions! Please, share our posts with anyone you think would find it helpful!

Advertising just doesn't work like it used to. It's expensive and isn't getting results. Worst of all it's difficult to track. Businesses don't know how to manage their marketing or advertising and don't have time to do it right. Word of mouth works and can still be counted on. That's why social media is growing fast.

Many small business owners would echo these sentiments. However, none of these statements have to be fact. While advertising can be expensive and time consuming, it has major benefits. On average, many small business owners cut marketing budgets first when they start having cash flow worries. However, it’s at those times that it’s even more important to keep your business brand front and center.

Social media is by far one of the most effective and affordable ways to reach your customers and build your brand, but it’s not the only way. Here’s our list of marketing tips and strategies to help you market your business the best you can, even when the budget is tight.

  1. The Elevator Speech
    An elevator speech is a 15 to 20 second description of what you do. The idea is that if you find yourself in an elevator with an ideal client, by the time you reach your destination, your prospect will have asked for your card. Start with your ideal client and determine the single most important thing you want them to know about your [product, service, brand, idea]. Then include what problems you can solve for them and what sets you apart from your competition along with a brief description of the results they can expect. Invest time in meticulously crafting your elevator speech. If you have a killer elevator speech, the return on investment will pay off big.
  2. Think Local
    You don’t have to market to the whole country, or even the state or region. Think local. You’re a small business; the majority of your customers and prospects live in your immediate area. Get involved in the community to get your name out there. Sponsor a little league team or a charity event. Hand out free paper fans at the 4th of July parade. Think about where and how your ideal customers spend their time and then find ways to get your marketing message in front of them.
  3. Collaborate and Network
    Round up a group of area business that are non-competitive and can easily work together and agree to cross promote. Collaborating can help you all reach an expanded customer base. Networking is one of the best ways to build your business. Get out there and meet people! Networking requires a time commitment, and it’s not always going to provide instant gratification, but it will easily become the strongest asset you can have. Just remember, its about building business relationships. Networking gives you the chance to help people know you, like you and trust you. When they do that, they will be ready to do business with you or refer someone to you. Which brings me to…
  4. Referrals, Referrals, Referrals
    The easiest new business comes from happy customers who send you referrals. Don’t be shy about asking for them either. Most people are willing to provide a referral, if asked, but very few will do it on their own. If your customers are truly content, they will be happy to help you and there is nothing more powerful than the recommendation of a happy customer. Don’t forget to offer up referrals for others when you can. Sometimes a successful referral from you for their business will result in a return referral from them.
  5. Keep Relationships
    This point ties right into numbers 3 & 4. It’s less expensive to keep a current customer than to get a new one. Establishing strong relationships with your current customers is vital. You can build these relationships by using social media, email campaigns and good old face-to-face conversations. Keep communicating!
  6. Speech, Teach!
    I know, I know, you hate public speaking. A lot of people do, but it’s a great marketing tool. Many organizations are constantly seeking qualified, subject-matter experts who can present to their groups. As long as your information is helpful to the audience – and correct – people won’t care if you’re a public speaking pro. Plus, the more you do it, the easier it gets. Check with your local small business administrations, colleges, chamber of commerce, even the library. These opportunities to teach and speak to groups of individuals will establish you as a credible authority in your field. They will also open doors for collaborating, networking, referrals and relationships. (See the snowball effect?)
  7. Get More by Giving Some Away
    If you test or experience a product or service and like it, are you more likely to buy it? Probably so. Your customers are the same way! Chances are they will purchase more if you give them the opportunity to try it. Don’t be afraid of giving someone a free trial or sample. But, don’t give away too much, just enough to bring them back for more!
  8. It's Not About You
    What? Yes I said this correctly. It’s kind of about you - but mostly it’s about your customer. Sometimes it’s easy to just tell your customer all about your company and how long you've been in business. But honestly, most of the time, they don’t care about that. They care about how your product or service benefits them. If you answer that first, then they will start to care more about your company and you. Focus on the benefit and/or solution you can give your customers.

These eight tips are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to marketing. But they are enough to get you started and help you out if your budget isn’t that big. Just remember, engaging customers and building relationships are the heart of your business and will be vital in your business growth. You don’t have to spend outrageous amounts of money on your marketing for it to be successful as long as you put in the time and effort and focus on what’s important to your customers.

Infographic: Freepik.com; edited by Poole Communications.

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Rose Anne Huck, manager of our Poplar Bluff office brings you today's book review.

Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers.
By Seth Godin

Internet marketing pioneer Seth Godin says we must change the way almost everything is marketed today. 

Our author, Seth Godin, speaks to us about the demise of the age of interruption Marketing with the arrival of Permission Marketing. In this groundbreaking book, Godin describes the four tests of Permission Marketing:

  1. Does every single marketing effort you create encourage a learning relationship with your customers? Does it invite customers to “raise their hands” and start communicating?
  2. Do you have a permission database? Do you track the number of people who have given you permission to communicate with them?
  3. If consumers gave you permission to talk to them, would you have anything to say? Have you developed a marketing curriculum to teach people about your products?
  4. Once people become customers, do you work to deepen your permission to communicate with those people?

With case study after case study, Godin walks us through good and bad examples of using the power of Permission Marketing to grow a business and customer base.

We are encouraged to follow-up with a full “suite of follow-up messages” for permission given. The suite of messages is a leveraged sequence of communication designed to strengthen our position and build trust.

You can easily do the math. Drive traffic to your site to collect their contact information. For every x percent who give you permission, you’ll generate $Y in sales. To finish the equation all you need is your conversion rate which you may be able to pull from your sales and marketing records.

The key is not to focus on permission acquisition on-line but rather build to it into what you’re already doing in your marketing efforts.

Think of it this way: an Interruption Marketer is a hunter. A Permission Marketer is a farmer.

Seth Godin uses a charming analogy to demonstrate the differences between Permission Marketing and Interruption Marketing.

First Scenario: A man gets a new suit, shoes, all the accessories and heads to a singles bar. He has an engagement ring in his pocket. He proposes marriage over and over hoping for someone to take him up on his offer. As you can imagine, he suffers many rejections.

Second Scenario: A man chooses a likely prospective date. Asks her out to dinner and a movie (appropriate incentives). They spend time together. Go out again. Meet the family. Eventually he proposes marriage and gets an emphatic  “Yes!”

This approach is about building quality connections where there is mutual trust which in the long-term should result in greater sales per contact than any other system.

When we look at it this way, it is hard to imagine doing marketing any other way. It is also obvious that Permission Marketing requires a greater investment of time and resources. Permission Marketing results grow over time. They is measurable. These are the opposite of Interruption Marketing.

One hundred years ago small businesses ruled the world. They were responsive, trusted and capable. They offered samples or use of products before purchase and the company owner or sales person spent extra time with customers before the sale. It would not have been unusual for the company owner to be your neighbor. Oh my, how times have changed for most companies.

The KEY to Permission Marketing is in building a series of steps designed to get prospects to take the next step in the process. Let’s take a look at this example: Camp Arowhon

  1. Permission Marketing for the camp starts with an interruption message using an ad to order free information in the form of a brochure and video.
  2. The brochure and video are designed to sell a personal meeting - not sell camp registration.
  3. The visit sells the camp. After attending camp for one summer, campers are sold on the camp for an average of 6 summers plus referrals. This nets approximately $20,000 per family.

At each step the goal is to expand permission, not to make the final sale.

By not focusing on the sale, marketers are able to get far more out of their expenditures. Response rates to free samples, an affinity program or birthday club is 5 to 10 times higher than responses pushing for the sale.

When you are making your offer, the less you ask and the bigger the bribe, the more likely the consumer will bite. This guarantees your chance to deepen the permission with the next level.

Three important keys to keep in mind:

  1. Be personal.
  2. Be relevant.
  3. Be specific.

The first sale is the beginning of the relationship, NOT the ultimate goal. The Ultimate Goal is mutually beneficial - a relationship which grows over time. You supply their need. They pay you. You provide more. They buy more and so forth and so on.

If you find need to start with high cost interruption marketing, you want to leverage the cost of the first interruption across multiple interactions. In this instance it definitely pays to approach your audience in as many ways as possible.

TRUST is EVERYTHING! Without trust there are no sales. Trust means the prospect believes in the product and the company. Think of it this way, you have a different level of trust with a high-end jeweler versus the guy on the street with a briefcase of jewelry.

Building trust is a Step by Step process which requires time, money and commitment. Frequency builds familiarity and familiarity builds trust. When you first run your ad 10% of your market will remember it. If you run 30 days in a row, by the law of averages, eventually everyone will remember your ad. Frequency causes the consumer to focus on the message. Like repeating yourself to a 4-year-old helps get the point across - or training a dog or horse.

Statistically when you increase your frequency by 100% you increase your effectiveness by 400%! Frequency and trust outweigh reach and its glamour.

This book is packed with the fundamentals needed to connect with you audience in a way that resonates with them and will lead to relationships that are beneficial for you both.

One of my favorite examples used in the book is the LL Bean catalog company. Their inventory stays relatively unchanged year after year. There are a few tweaks but nothing extensive. LL Bean sends out catalogs over and over again even though the last book you got probably has not changed very much. Their loyal followers welcome these new books and peruse them and continue to buy from them year after year. This is the relationship we all need. Customers and prospects who are happy to receive our sales message and who trust us to deliver quality.

Permission Marketing was written in 1999 but remains an authoritative source of information. Many if not most of Godin’s predictions have come true. He was and is so far out front that even now, we are still working to implement what he preached then.

One last suggestion: Read it and read it soon.

To find out more about Seth Godin's Permission Marketing book, visit http://sethgodin.com/sg/

We’re so excited for the opportunity to present a workshop at the Poplar Bluff Chamber of Commerce on May 29! The topic up for discussion is how to Make the Most of Social Media.

We know that Social Media can be a real headache. Especially for business owners who need to focus on business, but know that social media can be an integral part of business growth.

This workshop will give you the information you need to effectively manage your social media without eating up your time. You’ll learn how to use social media more effectively, best practices in social media and how to make it manageable. Plus, we’ll talk about content management, how to determine which networks and platforms are most beneficial for you, and when it’s time to hire someone to help you out.

The workshop will be from 10 a.m. to noon on May 29, at the Poplar Bluff Chamber of Commerce.

Fish Where the Fish Are

Spend your advertising dollars where the market is. The same concept can apply to social media. Use the platform the reaches your specific audience! If you’re customers aren’t using Twitter, but ARE using Facebook, put your time and effort there!

Also, browse our blog for more great marketing tips!

Do you want more tips?

Comment below and let us know what topics are really giving you troubles, or topics you'd just like to know more about!

88% of consumers who search for a type of local business on a mobile device call or go to that business within 24 hours, according to a Google Mobile Movement Study.

70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour.

Businesses are missing 70% of local content on sites like Twitter and Pinterest because they don’t have location-based sentiment monitoring set up, according to a recent study by Venuelabs.

These are some pretty staggering statistics. You spend lots of time and money building a website and optimizing it for search engines (SEO). But are you optimizing your business for local searches on mobile devices?

Half of mobile users use a local search/map to find businesses.

Let’s start with defining a local search.
Example:
An iPhone user asks Siri to find them a nice local restaurant, while visiting St. Louis. Local searches will include a specific location, city, ZIP code, etc.

Local SEO has one goal: to get to the top of the search results. In this case businesses want to rank on top for local geographic terms related to products and/or services that their businesses provide. The typical consumer performing a mobile search probably won’t scroll through pages and pages of results. They want fast, easy answers; they will likely make their decision based on no more than the first page of results.

So, what do you do?

Here’s a few tips to get you started:

Yelp
Yelp is a community driven review site that enables users to create locations, give details about the businesses, review them, and even post multimedia content.

It’s a major asset; you can thank Apple for that, and here’s why:
When an iPhone or iPad user uses Siri to search for a local business, the results are powered by Yelp. So, if you’re not on Yelp, iPhone users aren’t going to find you in local searches (unless they use their mobile browser and navigate to Google).

But there’s more. Yelp results returned to Siri are based on Yelp reviews. So, the top results returned are going to be the business with the most positive reviews.

But use caution, Yelp reviews can be tricky. If someone creates an account just to write a review for you, it’ll likely never be activated. Yelp likes reviews from active users. Ask your clients if they use Yelp, if they say yes, then ask for a review. Also, you can, and should, thank reviewers and invite them back for another visit, even offer a discount! That person, who’s already a fan, will often post a follow-up review, or answer others’ questions about your business. On the flip side, if someone posts a legitimate complaint, don’t be afraid to publicly apologize – but be sincere. Remember, a scorned customer doesn’t want freebies; they want to be heard.

Google Plus Local Pages
Google Plus Local pages are indexed in more than Android mobile searches. They’re also indexed in three additional types of searches:

Google Plus Local Pages are similar to Facebook business pages, but they have better SEO. You don’t have to post to your Google Plus Local Page as you would on a Facebook business page, although it doesn’t hurt. The essential elements include a complete bio, contact information and some photos.

You’ll also want to ask for reviews. Just like Yelp, the more positive reviews you have, the higher you will rank in searches. And responses to reviews are important here, too.

Other Searches of Note
Not all users search using Siri or Android Google searches. Many people have a favorite app. You should try to have listings on these sites as well. Other sites to consider:

Mobile Websites
To make the most of these local searches, your website needs to be optimized for mobile viewing. Here’s why:

There are plenty of apps, widgets and resources that can help you optimize your website for mobile viewing.

Now’s the time! Go mobile!

If you have more questions, or want to know more, give us a call!

Sources:
http://socialmediatoday.com/jonathan-long/2061506/importance-local-businesses-being-found-mobile-devices-infographic

http://www.inman.com/next/3-key-strategies-to-optimize-business-for-local-search-on-mobile-devices/

http://visual.ly/solomo-stats-no-business-can-afford-ignore-infographic

Yesterday we started a list of guidelines to help you improve your marketing efforts, today we're sharing the rest of the list! You can view Part 1 here.

Follow Up
Once the schedule is established and responsibilities have been assigned, make sure all is going according to schedule. Check to see what your customer response is to each advertising effort. If you don’t already have a way to register response to advertising, set something up. Better yet, set up more than one way to track response. Ideas: include discounts for mentioning the ad; at the time of purchase ask your customers how/why they chose your place of business, mail special offers and track response.

Evaluate Customer Response and Effectiveness
Develop a tangible method to determine the effectiveness of your advertising efforts. Develop a short questionnaire for customers or include a response vehicle on your website. Use the results to tailor future advertising efforts. Advertising must be responsive to your customers and prospective customers needs. It must be ever changing and speak clearly to do its job.

Bonus Tips:

Copywriting
Clearly state who you are and what it is that you have that customers will want, especially in terms of its benefit to them. Point out why your product or service is preferable to others. Don’t make promises you can’t fulfill. Remember, there is usually someone else offering your product or service. Give your customer reasons to come to you and keep coming back.
One common mistake in copywriting is that companies tell their story first. The first thing your customer wants to know is how you can answer their need. What product or service do you offer that will help them accomplish their goals?

Design
Buy the finest quality you can afford. Quality speaks best for quality. When you see poor quality workmanship, you don’t expect much from the company, and you certainly don’t expect to pay much for it. Good design should make it clear to your prospective customer that you are the best place to come for the products and services they need. If your customer can’t find your contact information or if your ad needs further explanation, it is a lousy ad.

Think of your customer first and you will develop great advertising to promote your company. 

For more great marketing tips like us on Facebook!

Marketing can greatly enhance your business and help improve your company’s profitability – as long as you plan carefully.

Today we're sharing with you part one of a list of guidelines you can follow to make your marketing dollars work harder for you. Check in tomorrow for part 2! (more…)

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