Marketing Tips to Jump Start Your Small Business

When you have a new business, it’s imperative that it gets off to a strong start. Otherwise, it could be mired in financial challenges that could be difficult, if not impossible to recover from.
If you’re just starting out and you need some fresh ideas for jump-starting your business, take a look at these three ideas. These techniques are inexpensive and simple and yet get amazing results.

1. SEO and Freebies

If you’re going to have any kind of blog at all, you want to get very comfortable with SEO (search engine optimization) as a marketing tool. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to incorporate SEO into your content marketing plans.

Using Visual Content for Your Small Business Marketing

When tackling a content marketing campaign, you need to know what will rouse online growth and engagement for your small business. Text-based content will always be important, but in this digital era, visual content is integral to the success of content marketing.

Websites that are mobile-optimised should focus on visual content as the internet has made attention spans shorter than ever. The popularity of content presented in big blocks of text is long gone.

It makes sense to use visual content when over 50 percent of people are visual learners. Content that resonates psychologically is said to be at least 43 percent more persuasive. To reach your audience on a deeper level, here are 3 types of visual content to incorporate in your next campaign:

Compelling Images

Images are the first thing people think of when it comes to visual content. Knowing to add images to your content marketing campaign isn’t the hard part, it’s choosing the right type of images to get your point across.

Just like relevant keywords are important in text-based content, high quality and relevant images are vital to visual marketing. When deciding on how to choose images for your campaign follow these tips:

• Aim for original images over stock photos
• Candid photos over posed
• Capture a feeling

Will GDPR Affect My Small Business?

There is a general sense of panic and impending doom for small business owners as the May 25th deadline draws closer for the new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)!

It's not a topic that I would generally get excited about BUT this time we don't have a choice, it pretty much impacts everyone who has a business, whether you are a sole trader, solopreneur, small business, online business or home business, you need to be prepared!

Knowing the answers to basic questions like these is important if not critical.

- What is it?

- Does it affect me and my business?

- What if I run a very small business?

- Can I ignore it?

- What do I need to do to be compliant?

The new regulations cover the whole of Europe and will be current even after Brexit and with a deadline of May 25^th 2018 you need to act now.

How To Be More Effective With Your Small Business Social Media Posts

It never fails, you received a free eBook and get excited to read about the latest, and best, way to utilised Social Media posting for your small business.  You hungrily tear through the information and then re-write your marketing plan to implement this new strategy only to receive entirely different information the next day, week, month, and so on.

Fortunately, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to CoSchedule.  In their great wisdom, they have put together information from a variety of reports to provide you with the last word in Social Media Post schedules.

We learned in school that there are many different time zones across the world with 4 time zones just in the U.S.A.  So, with clients spread from sea to shining sea, what are the best times to post on the various social media platforms?

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To decide this, we need to take into consideration where most of these clients are living.  According to Census records, 80% of those people living in the United States are found in the Eastern and Central time zones.  It would make sense, then, to focus our schedules on time as it is followed in those locations. If all your clients are in the UK, then posting for the GMT time zone would make more sense.

Facebook

Top Tips for Small Business Content Marketing

You probably read a great deal about how important the right content is for your small business in addition to continually striving to create the perfect content for your business every time. The fact is that your content marketing materials are so much more than merely top-quality, compelling, educational content. They need to earn you a good living.

Getting your marketing materials to produce the right results

If your marketing materials don't produce the type (and level) of results that you need them to produce, the chances are really great that you will not continue to use those content materials. Of course, the concept is extremely simple; however, achieving the goals that you have set up to achieve are not necessarily as easily obtainable.

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A content marketing approach that works

Safety Practices for Small Business Social Media Use

No longer the “New Kid in Town.” Social Media and its marketing resources have gone from a compulsive form of recreation for many to a fundamental piece of any small business marketing plan, large or small.

What is still not readily known by many small business owners and managers is that use of social media by companies and their employees can seriously compromise a businesses’ security.  Very often, when it comes to maintaining safety and security via social media, employees can end up being the biggest issue.

Whether it’s from posting on their personal page about things happening at work, or clicking on things they shouldn’t while using an office computer, employees can accidentally leak information or download mal-ware into your network without even realise they are doing it.

To help avoid the issues that can result in these seemingly small actions, here are some tips to assist you in keeping your business and your employees safe from social-media troubles, both at work and at home.

Advise Employees to Avoid Posting Info About Where They Work

7 Tips To Use Instagram in Your Small Business Marketing

Instagram, once the red-headed stepchild of the social media world, has now turned into a runaway beer truck, exceeding 700 million users in early 2017. Small businesses are now adopting the social media platform as a primary method of generating revenue. Today, Instagram boasts over 1 million advertisers.

So if everyone else is on Instagram, why isn’t your business? Not leveraging Instagram for your small business is a lost opportunity, and should be remedied immediately! The potential Instagram provides from a marketing perspective is enormous! So let’s get started.

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Here are a few tips on marketing and gaining a following:

Use Those #hashtags

Are Lack of Reviews Effecting Your Small Business?

Reviews are a great way for your small business customers to get an idea of what your business is like. Through reviews they know what services you offer, how well you offer them, and the quality of your products without even leaving their home.

Reviews are also a valuable tool for a small business to know what their customers think about them. It’s a convenient way to get honest feedback of your services and find out what you need to fix to keep your customers satisfied.

What your customers say about you is just as much advertising for your business as any marketing strategy you could employ. It’s unfiltered, honest, and sometimes a bit dramatic.

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While reviews can be loud and sometimes deceiving, no reviews at all can garner the same effect. Are no reviews better than bad reviews? Read ahead to find out.

Is your business good or bad? No one knows…

Managing Your Small Business Marketing Funnel

With the over whelming success of the Digital Marketing Age, you may think that the concept of a marketing funnel is now defunct. And, yes, what used to be a fairly direct route from drawing in leads to converting them into clients has now exploded into a multitude of micro processes.

However, the concept of a Marketing Funnel is still a good way to create a marketing plan that needs multiple levels of engagement to convert leads into clients. Today, in this era of social media and smart phones, we are definitely in a (sometimes) brave new world of marketing plans.  Even when we’re ready to run screaming from our computers after trying to make sense of all the rapid changes that have evolved.

If you use a marketing funnel plan for your small business, there are probably some adjustments that could be made to your process that will help you see even better results in lead generation and subsequently converting those leads into paying customers. Here are a few procedures to improve your marketing funnel and provide even more successful results quickly.

Carefully Research and Develop the Stages of Your Buying Process

Making Your Own Small Business Marketing Videos

Professional marketing videos promoting your small business aren’t cheap. You get what you pay for when it comes to marketing your products and engaging your audience. However, there are tools you can use to accomplish these tasks without breaking the bank. You don’t need Hollywood; you just need fast and free.

Incorporating marketing videos into your small business strategy accomplishes several things:

• Their versatility allows them to live in several places like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, your website, and your blog.
• They are eye-catching, enabling your audience to digest the same information in a more engaging format.
• Marketing videos are easy to repurpose by trimming, expanding, or converting to GIFs for easy sharing. Infographics also make great videos.

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How to Make a Video Like a Professional

You don’t need expensive equipment to make a great video. Sometimes you don’t even need your own footage. An idea is a great place to start. Try storyboarding your plan and writing a script. Find or create the footage you need. Edit it using an online app. Upload for viewing!

Free Stock Footage

Using Images to Improve Your Content Marketing

Whether they are inserted into the header or placed within the main body of text, images are an illustration of your small business contents core idea. Including simple images that relate to as wide an audience as possible will help maximise the work your content can do.

Where Can I Find Photos?

There are a number of places on the web you can find royalty free images that are free to download.  Even more where you can pay to download. The easiest way to find the latest resources is to do a search for “Royalty Free Images.” Pixabay is a good place to go.

No matter where you go for images, it’s vitally important to give proper attribution when required. A good rule of thumb for attribution is to credit the contributor of the image and include the website where you found it, ie: “Photo Courtesy of ABCD from FreePics.com.”

The same goes for a registered trademark or trademarked product. For example, if Nike Swoosh or an actual Nike product is seen in the photo, include a statement like, “Nike, the Nike logo, and Nike Products are trademarks of Nike Inc., registered in the U.S. and internationally.”

Image SEO 

6 Ways to Improve Your Email’s Subject Lines

Email marketing campaigns are a great way to get more eyes on your small business newsletter or website since you can reach thousands of people at once. However, your campaign won’t be successful if nobody opens your message. According to Madison Logic, over 122 billion emails are sent an hour, so knowing how to stand out from the crowd is important.

Your email’s headline is arguably the most important part of the message since it’s the part readers will see first and make a split-second decision whether opening the message is worth their time. Headlines that aren’t interesting will quickly be marked as read or deleted. In fact, copywriter coach Chris Marlow claims that studies have proven that headlines are responsible for 50-75% of an ad’s success.

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Knowing just how much of your campaign’s success rests on the headline alone, it’s important that you really take the time to examine how effective your headlines are. Here are a few great tips to craft better headlines:

Personalise your subject line.

5 Steps to Using Facebook Live for Your Small Business

5 Steps to Getting Great Results with Your Live Broadcasts

Facebook Live is a free streaming tool you can use to boost your business. But before you dive in there are some key factors to take into consideration to avoid risking losing your credibility.

Facebook Live is an excellent way to get the engagement Facebook wants on your Business Page with their latest algorithm updates. As long as you're prepared, you will garner a great reach and higher views than natively uploaded videos.

With Facebook Live all you need is a 4G or better Internet connection, a Facebook profile for yourself or your business page, and you can take advantage of up to 4 hours of free live streaming.

Getting these set up isn't hard but with the volume of new live streams happening per hour you'll need to work on your videos in order to draw in users.

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Keep reading to find out what you need in order to draw your followers in when you're doing your next live broadcast.

Step 1: Get the Word Out

Top Tips For Your Small Business Sales Promotion

What is a Sales Promotion?

When done correctly, sales promotions can transform a small business.    Most of us these days know sales promotions are usually designed to increase sales or, encourage the use of a service. They are also often one type of marketing strategy confused with general advertising.  In fact, the two are different.  Because, each entices a different part of the buyer’s nature.

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Advertising is emotional in nature.  It induces consumers to purchase products or services through images, sounds, and experiences. Sales promotions draw on a customer’s logic.

To get the most out of the efforts you put into creating a promotion, it’s important for you to promote your sales promotion. I know, that’s a lot of use of the base word promote, it’s confusing, but accurate.

Promoting Your Promotion

3 Email Secrets to Help Your Small Business Marketing

Is there really a secret to using an email marketing autoresponder system for your small business?

I have been a user of autoresponder systems for over ten years now and I admit that the first few weeks that I operated my own autoresponder system, I did not understand most of its uses and benefits. After two months of use, I started to see how surprisingly they helped my business. I had increased sales and an increased number of site visitors who were in turn converted to subscribers.

Autoresponders allow me to automatically send messages to my subscribers in my own predetermined time. I can even greet them on their birthdays or during other special occasions. All I do is set the system to do this. It gives me a greater chance to connect with my subscribers - to make them feel special. With this, I have gained and retained more and more customers.

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I really believe that each entrepreneur in whatever business he is undertaking should use this system. Let me share with you some autoresponder secrets - what they are and how you use them.

Goals - What does an autoresponder do?

1.) Builds a long-lasting relationships with your customers and subscribers.

2.) It allows you to send the most unique and engaging emails about your business.

3.) It heightens your sales and the number of visitors.

5 Tips on How to get More Attention for Your Blog on Facebook

Having a blog for your small business is an important online marketing strategy. It helps with SEO, gives your customers and clients important information, helps educate new customers and clients, and is a great platform to talk about what you do and how you do it.

Undoubtedly you spend a fair amount of time curating the content for your blog. You come up with ideas, write the content, optimise it for your website, and more. After it’s written, you want to make sure that people actually read it.

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One of the best ways to get your small businesses blog content out there is to post it on your social media channels. Facebook is an especially powerful tool for posting your blog content and having people read and share it.

There are a few tactics that you can use to your advantage when you post your blog content on Facebook. Here are the ones that work the best:

1. Share your blog on Facebook 

3 Tips for Successful Facebook Ads

Are you considering advertising on Facebook or are you already doing so? Then these three tips that will help your advertising campaigns to be more successful.

Tip One:

Facebook is not primarily an advertising sales platform. I know the managers of Facebook have heavily promoted it as one of the top online advertising platforms out there. And, in many ways, they are correct. It has a fabulously rich marketing database.

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So, what do I mean by this statement, that Facebook is not primarily an advertising sales platform?

What I mean is that people's intention for being there is not to buy. We're on Facebook to be social. To share silly pictures or find out what our friends are doing, etc. If we want to buy something, we will go to websites such as eBay or Amazon or Etsy.

What this means for you as an advertiser, is that if you try to sell on Facebook right out of the gate, you will fail. Why? Because there is an instant disconnect between why someone is there on Facebook, and what you are doing.

The way around this problem is for you to give. You have to promote something that gives value to the people who will see your advertisement. In short, you are using Facebook advertising to build a relationship. And, what you're hoping is that further down the road of that relationship, sales will be made.

Tip Two:

What Is People-Based Marketing?

Marketing is all about reaching people and all marketers want to find out how to reach the greatest amount of people with the smallest amount of effort. This often means sending the same generic message to hundreds, if not thousands, or people. However, everyone is unique and therefore has unique needs. What is relevant to one person might not be relevant to the next. It’s hard to be that brand that appeals to everyone since each person is so different. This is where people-based marketing comes in.

If you’d like more access to invaluable marketing strategies, check out this done-for-you-system.

What It Is

People-based marketing represents the original promise of digital and internet marketing; it allows you to replace your broadcast with personalized messages and experiences that the consumer wants to see.

Combining Small Business Offline Marketing With Your Online Marketing

Because so many people make use of the internet for basically anything you can think of, the offline side of marketing efforts is often overlooked. While the use of the internet for putting your business out there guarantees global reach, and visibility, there are many other tactics you may want to try that can give you an added push and of course, be profitable. Making physical connections with people is a vital part of the business building process, and should not be side-stepped when trying to grow your business.In fact, combining offline and online strategies, produces the perfect marriage of forces to drive your business forward.

Make Use of Trade Shows and Expos
You can actually search online to see which trade shows related to your field of business you could take part in. You could split the cost of a display space with another business to minimize your costs.

Even if you decide not to exhibit via a booth or table display, you need to be prepared so that you can garner leads through this medium. Making use of print media through flyers and business cards which you can personally hand to patrons, is a great step toward building your network.

Click here to find out how to build an online business (without having to build it yourself!)

Volunteer for Local Projects or Causes

5 Key Components to an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

There’s more to your content marketing strategy than your content. You can create as much content as you want. But, it won’t get you anywhere without brand visibility, repeat traffic, social media marketing, and other factors.

The following 5 key components will help ensure that you put your content to good use. When you spend time or money generating content, you don’t want it to be wasted. Pay attention to these 5 components:

• Brand visibility
• Website traffic
• Calls to action
• Multiple channels
• Quality content

Brand Visibility

The first component is brand visibility. This includes awareness and familiarity. When customers see your content, they should be able to immediately recognise it as coming from your website. The easiest way to achieve this is with branding.

Your content should include your branding. This means adding your logo, using the same colour scheme that you use on your website, and making sure that your brand name is prominently displayed.

Website Traffic

You need traffic. Otherwise, how’s anyone going to find your content? So, the next key component of any content marketing strategy is website traffic. This includes referral traffic and repeat traffic.

Referral traffic lets you know that people are linking to your content or talking about it on social media. If you’re not getting any referral traffic, you need to incorporate social media marketing.

Share links to your content on social media. This should help get the ball rolling. 

Calls to Action

Every piece of content that you create needs a call to action. It doesn’t matter if this call to action directs the visitor to a product page or to a lead magnet. The goal is to get them to move onto the next step.

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How to Market Your Service Based Business

What is a Sales Promotion?

When selling a product, marketing usually comes fairly easy. Your marketing campaign revolves around the product for sale and how it can be used.

When you own a service-based business, the marketing may require a different approach. Instead of marketing product features, you have to market yourself and your team.  The good news is, people are always looking for reliable services, no matter the type.  You just need to make sure they find you and not your competitors.   Here are some techniques that will help you accomplish this.

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Connect with Your Own Community

Established local businesses have their own clientele.  And, they may only be able to handle a certain number of clients.  So, if you treat these businesses respectfully, they may refer clients to you when they are at their capacity.  A good way to connect with your community is to be involved with the local Rotary Club or Chamber of Commerce. These associations will connect you with other businesses that welcome assistance from a peer.

Use Social Media and Networking

How To link Your Small Business Email Marketing to a Marketing Funnel

What is a Marketing Funnel?

The idea of a funnel is used to illustrate the process a potential client goes through as they become familiar with your products or services.

Visually, clients enter the funnel at the widest part, the top, then proceed to descend, stage by stage, leaving at the level they lose interest.  What you end up with at the bottom are the final few who have purchased and love your product or service.  These are the clients that will keep coming back

Your goal is to raise the number of potential clients that enter the top and lower the number that loses interest at each stage.

To accomplish this, you will need to have a conversion tactic for each stage.

There are a few different Funnel maps out there that vary in their vocabulary but each basically means the same thing, for the sake of this article, we’ll go with the following terms:

• Awareness
• Engagement / Interest
• Discovery
• Purchase / Conversion
• Loyalty / Retention
• Advocacy

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Using Email Marketing to Get a Client All the Way to the Bottom

Six Tips To Grow Your Instagram Followers

As Instagram continues its meteoric rise in both monthly user base and saturation metrics, it makes sense for small businesses to get on board. Statistics show that engagement rate on Instagram is much higher than either Facebook or Twitter. Not making Instagram a part of your marketing campaign is a mistake your business cannot afford to make.

With that in mind, here are a few strategies on how to grow your Instagram following:

Post Daily

Get into a regular flow when posting to Instagram, but don’t inundate your followers with content. A few times a day is probably the ideal number. Quality content combined with consistency will do more to drive up your number of followers than flooding their feeds will.

Share on a regular basis so you can discover what works best for you and your business. Provide creative, engaging content, and you’ll be rewarded with not only more supporters, but followers that are interested in your content.

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Promote User Content

Market Your Small Business With An Instagram Photo Contest

An Instagram photo contest is a great way to promote your small business while having some fun. A photo contest can lead to new followers while your company is giving back to the Instagram community.

But running an Instagram photo contest isn’t always easy, and can be a bit confusing. Here is a short guide on getting the most out of a photo contest, should you choose to do so.

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Target Your Market

Define your target market before kicking off your photo contest. A contest for families who enjoy camping is going to look a lot different than couples who look for new and exciting places to visit in the city. Determine who you intend to engage with, and gear your contest toward them.

Team Up

Finding a partner for your Instagram photo contest can be a benefit for both businesses. Not only can you gain more followers through this method, but you’ll also receive additional exposure. Most of these types of partnerships require participants to be followers of both accounts before they can enter. Keep things simple though. There’s no need to team up with more than one business per contest.

Avoid Confusion

Make Emails Work for Your Small Business

Cold emailing is not as awkward as cold calling, but it still can be a frightening thing to do. A well-written cold email could be the key you need to get into contact with employers, celebrities, speakers, and just about anyone else you want to contact. You might be trying to reach out to one particular person you want to partner with or you might be trying to sell your product to two dozen people you met at a conference. Either way, cold emails are a fast and simple way of communication.

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Unfortunately, it is often very difficult to find a way to get somebody to notice your email amongst dozens of other messages. Most people have countless spam emails in their inbox that they never read and they might disregard your email in the same way. Here are some tips you can use to make cold emails work for you:

Keep it Short and Sweet