Practical Small Business Marketing Tips: How to Quickly Put Money In Your Bank

Small business marketing ideas are what every business owner wants and yet sometimes don’t get the exact ones they need. Or at least ones that turn into a quick revenue injection that many businesses need on a consistent basis.

Put Money in Your Bank

Marketing is the life blood of any small internet business. It is about creating demand for your product and service. The selling part comes later. In this Article let’s explore a quick and sure fire way to capitalise on the demand already out there for your product and service.

One untapped goldmine that many small business owners forget is their current customer list. If a customer has bought from you once they are likely to want to buy again. You have already done the hard part in creating the demand once before (marketing) you then converted that (sales) into cash so in reality this will be a lot easier next time.

So often we forget to contact our clients and remind them we are here? Perhaps even make them a special, client only offer. This engages them with you again with the added warm and cuddly feeling of having access to a special offer. This works really well if you have a website and an Email list. As internet marketing experts often say! It is all in the list

Just access your client list. Take a few minutes to pull together a special offer first then send a quick email, to your list. For the cost and time it takes you might just have a blip in revenue!

Now imagine if you set this up as a regular event with your customers so that you had a communication like this with them every few weeks. The difference that could make to your revenue might really surprise you.

To You and Your Online Success

Practical Internet Marketing for Small Business 25 Ideas: Part 4.

Continuing this series about, just some of the strategies for internet marketing for small business. We have covered a whole range of different areas. Lets broaden it out and look at sales and marketing.

16. Sell Products and Services on your site.

This may depend on your market and, wherever possible sell something. It is more than possible even if you don’t have an ecommerce site. People cannot buy if nothing is there. It is easy to integrate even if you don’t have a merchant account. PayPal is one of the well recognised payment processes online. Just have a look at EBay!

It is easy to apply and costs little. Depending on how people pay, using PayPal you hand over only a small part of the transaction of your fee. We sell an internet dictionary online. It is a really useful digital reference for business owners. It was easy to place on a page on the site a brings in a steady income.

17. Don’t make assumptions about price

Many business owners devalue what they do and as a result often undercharge. Don’t get me wrong it is not about overcharging clients it is about adding value.

If you don’t make available a higher priced service people don’t have an option to buy. We run one day workshops and in the last few weeks we have been asked if we are running a three day event where people can learn more? Interesting don’t you think? Never make assumptions. Some clients won’t enter your marketing funnel until you have something of a higher price.

18. Spend Time on Customer Service

Maybe this is old fashioned and just because you have a significant online business it does not mean that customer service is not necessary.Though it is not always possible to make customers and clients smile all the time. It is great when you ring and talk to someone and they are happy to take your call. Hint this usually happens if you have given a good service.

In a time of uncertainty more than ever it is. Your customers will let you know what they think if you just ask them. Where possible get their phone number and address.

Give them a call and check out how things are going. Most satisfied customers will be more than happy to chat to you. Think how it will make you stand out from the crowd. How many times recently when you purchased something did you receive a customer service call? ………..Once?………… twice……….. never?…..exactly

19. Market Off and Online

This might sound strange coming from an online marketing company and yet there is a great power in combining both streams. We often go to networking events and talk to people and then invite them to a free Teleseminar or Webinar. Top tip you don’t have to have an online business for this to work. You could quote your website and a special page for people to access something for free.

Van and Advertising

20. Pick a number of Online strategies

Every marketing and sales book will tell you this. A bit like the Goldilocks story not to much and not to little. There are literally hundreds of ways to market your self online. With the internet growing at the rate it is some strategies may well have a short shelf like. The basics though will never change.

Pick a few you think might work and test on a small scale. Set a goal and measure the results. If it is a particular activity a 30 day challenge will give you the best results. Consistency is the key.

To You and Your Online Success

Denise and Sharon

Practical Internet Marketing For Small Business: 25 Ideas That Work Part 3

Carrying on the series we are up to number 15 plus the forgotten number 5 oops! Below are a number of small business marketing ideas and small business marketing tips that will work for any business.

11. It’s About Your Customers Not You

An easy mistake that many business owners make is that they “think” they know what their customers want. A classic example of this is creating a new product offering with out testing the commercial viability.

In others words checking out what other people are selling. If it is similar that is actually a good thing. At least you know there is a market for it. If you, Google the word or look in the paper what do you find? If there are adverts and lots of pages on Google you could be onto a winner. If not, maybe your idea needs more research.

12. Active and Constant Market Research.

Your customers will tell you want they want if you ask them. This does not need to be fancy. You can send a quick email or use a free survey tool. A great one that we use is survey monkey. It is intuitive to use and for free you can survey up to 100 of your clients. You can find it hear. http://www.Surveymonkey.com

Find Out What Your Customers Want

This is something we learnt the hard way in our own business. If something is not working you can find out much quicker than you think. Some people call it failing fast. Now this is actually a positive thing! If you just review each week in detail.
Look at the different things you put your time and effort into and what the result was.

This will help you refine you service offerings and where you and your business are in flow. You might find out that one particular activity actually creates more revenue than you originally thought. This could be making a low cost offer to your database of clients, or running a free taster event.

14. Respond to Emails.

This depends on the size of your business and what support you have in place. No matter what, if people contact you make sure someone in your office contacts them. I will never forget the impact it had on me when an internet guy I bought something from actually responded. If fact at the time he even had his skype details visible.

I was totally impressed. Interesting that he has now gone onto be a millionaire in his field. He is called James Schramko by the way and he is a mentor of mine.

15. Look out for Trends

Trend based marketing is applicable to any product or service. You just might need to tweak things a little. Whether you are a Solicitor, Accountant or kitchen designer, focus on where the growth is. Can you adapt or add to your services to make it more relevant.

For instance many areas are now governed by legislation. Perhaps you can help your customers by creating a guide that talks them through what they need to do… This adds value and raises your profile. You might even be able to add a service around it as well.

Missing number 5!!

Ooops just realised we missed something off our first communication. Let us go back to time management. Every bodies favorite subject…not! In honesty you cannot manage time. Though you can manage activities and energy.

Time Management or Activity Management

Looking at activities. How often do we take far too long to complete something? Our perfection streak comes in. If you want to leverage what your business achieves you will have to let perfection go. The odd bit or formatting on a document, waiting till you get every last piece of data before you make a decision etc etc. I am sure you will be able to relate to this one.

Ask yourself the question. Is this good enough? Will spending another hour on this return more to the bottom line?

To You and Your Success,

Best Wishes

Denise and Sharon

Practical Internet Marketing For Small Business: 25 Ideas That Work Part 2. Continuing last weeks offerings.

6. Ask Questions

Ask Questions

Questions for me are where it all starts for me in any size of business. It even does not matter if it is online or in the local high street. The better your questions are the more useful the answers! Questions can be used in all the different scenarios you will come across in business. From “how do I improve cash flow”, to, ” what is your favourite colour Mr X?”……… everyone of them giving you valuable information.

7. Create a database.

Now that is logical of course and yet online you will see millions of websites with no means of capturing visitors contact details. There really is no excuse. Email marketing no matter what people say is very much alive. Make it active to. If someone is giving you their email address, make sure you give something tangible in return. Perhaps a free miniseries like we do, or an eBook or audio recording. You can then stay in contact with your market, in a really easy way.

8. Add Value

Leading on from the last comments about databases. Add value to your audience. Remember it is likely that they are coming to you as an expert. You will have lots of different strategies and ideas. Trust ne not everyone will use them like you. So even just small pieces of information are of incredible value to people.

9. Build a relationship

Relationship building takes time. Your potential clients need to get to know you first. Making a pitch every time you contact them will not work. As you would with any business associate, nurture the relationship. If you remember no 8. Building a relationship will not be difficult. Give first to then receive later.

10. Make a list

As business owners you will never get it all done. Just be with that fact. Though a great strategy is to make a list. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Somehow this enables the mind to free up its processing capabilities. I learnt this technique back in my NLP days. It works. It’s also wonderful to be able to tick things off…and also give some of them to someone else. Always ask yourself what is the best use of my time now. This then really focuses the mind to prioritise where the first actions should take place.

To You and Your Success,

Best Wishes

Denise and Sharon

Practical Internet Marketing For Small Business: 25 Ideas That Work Part 1

I started to put my thoughts down on this and realised how much I could write! so rather than lose the impact I decided to split this up over five days. Here is the first 5 ideas that will work for anyone that decides to use them!

Internet marketing for small business is entering a huge growth phase. No surprise really with 90 billion searches a month now on Google, and over 80% of consumers or possible clients searching for a provider online.

The thing is though, many small business owners are in awe of the internet. Not really knowing how to leverage its possibilities and capabilities. No wonder really. Everyday we hear stories of mis communication and small business owners being bamboozled with jargon. So as a starter here are 5 of 25 things to consider and think about as you plan you online domination of your local market!

1. Have an Online Presence

This might sound logical! Yet it is not just about a flash website. Consider using a blog. They are easy to manage, generally less expensive and can be managed by you. There are also lots of other things you can use and tap into that help enormously for little in the way of costs. By the way this site is a blog!

2. Have a Strategy

Everything starts with a plan. Don’t just throw up your site without any thought. Think about what you want to achieve. All successful businesses have a strategy. Being successful online is no different. You need to know what your goals are, and what you want to achieve.

3. Have a Positive Mindset.

I am not going wowo on you here. Just remember that everything is possible with some planning, focus and most of all belief. There are more people making significant income on the internet than ever before. The sky could just be the limit. Imagine that you increase your traffic and conversions, which with consistent steps is really possible. This could start your own lift off to new heights.

This includes local businesses that are getting switched onto exactly what is possible. We talked about this in a previous blog post. Have a vision think about it, talk about, believe it and you will be amazed at what can and does happen.

4. Learn New Skills.

Internet marketing is easier than many people realise. Like anything there is a learning curve, yet it is easier to climb than most people appreciate.

We have been online for nearly four years now and this is our core business. When we started we knew………………. …………Nothing…………………as the famous TV programme once said. So we decided to learn. At the time cash flow was interesting! to say the least.

Study

We could not afford the high prices we were quoted for a website let alone how to promote it, so we decided to learn ourselves. And we did. As the saying goes trust me if I can learn anyone can!

5. Get a Mentor

This might be a new concept to people and yet having a mentor is invaluable to your business growth. The Merriam-Webster Webster Dictionary defines a mentor as “a trusted counsellor or guide.”

I would add something else to that, from my own experience. Choose someone who has been before you. Somebody that can help and guide you. We were very lucky to drop on our feet with our own mentor.

She is a marketing and branding expert who works on million dollar brands.
For us this gives us the ability to tap into an amazing knowledge base that then means that we can add more value to our clients.

On Monday lets explore 5 other areas that most people just don’t think about,

To You and your Success,

Denise and Sharon

Marketing a small business well, makes a huge difference to your success.

Yet there is an important step before that. If you don’t do this one thing, your business will not be the success it could be. Did you know that very few individuals set themselves goals? Less than 1 percent of adults have clearly stated goals. What’s interesting is those who do earn as much as 10 times more money than those who don’t!

What many business owners marketing a small business rarely think about it that before you set a goal you need a vision for your business. So let’s look at two phases to think about.

Phase 1

Think about what you want your business to look like in the future?

What size do you want it to be?

How many customers do you want to have?

What kind of services and products do you want to be providing?

Be clear about the kind of business you want to build.

Phase 2

Now you have a clear vision for your business. Next you need to create some very specific goals. By achieving these you will ensure you realise your vision.

When marketing a small business, there are many goals that you can set for both you and your business.
You might start with some really big ones;

Like an income goal to double your turnover, launching 3 new products in a year, or a different service, or even entering a new market.

The thing to remember is that you need to break these goal down into even smaller ones that will help you deliver on them.

Your Online Sales !

Let’s say you set an income target for your business. Think about how you might achieve this.

You may decide to develop an online part to your business and capitilise on the 90 billion searches a month on Google!!

To do this you decide to learn about how to market a small business online by attending a course. Then you set a goal that you will invest 2 hours per week implementing what you have learnt.
Your next goal is that in these 2 hours you will write 1 article and 1 blog post.

Ok, so now you have a vision, some big goals and a number of small specific ones. What’s key
is keeping your vision and goals alive. In the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, he recommends writing your goals on an index card and taking it with you everywhere.

Take a tip from Usain Bolt

Visualize your goals every day. Take a few quiet minutes to visualise exactly how you want your vision to be or how you want your life and business to be when you have achieved your goals.

Notice how this makes you feel if you are not inspired maybe you need to think again.

Over the last few years this has become a recognised activity to help acheive big things. All successful business owners admit this is an important part of their day.

Finally, I suggest that you ask a friend or colleague to be an Accountability Partner.
Have someone who can support you. One of the things I did with a business associate was to have a 10 minute call once a week. We shared what progress we had made and discussed what we had learned if we hadn’t quite achieved what we planned.

In summary, start with a vision, create big goals, and break these down in to smaller goals. Then turn these into monthly weekly and daily goals.

So if you want to be in the top 1% of successful people marketing a small business ………..give yourself a goal to aim at. Make the decision it is your and watch what happens

To your success

Sharon

Small business internet marketing is new for many people. The wonderful thing is if you are a small business utilising online marketing , this one strategy might just be the making of you and your company.

Pound for pound and dollar for dollar, marketing on the internet can be totally cost effective. The only challenge is many people abdicate the responsibility because they feel technically challenged. Their words not mine.

The reason I know that is because of my own experience. I was that woman just a few short years ago. The journey I have been through has shocked me and most of my friends. I had always been able to send emails and at least do @sum on an excel spreadsheet! As for generating traffic and conversion stats and understanding SEO….you must be joking.

Frustrated Woman on A Computer

Yet here I am just a matter of a couple of years later with a number of online income streams. It really is possible. You only need to look how Ebay has grown exponentially over the past few years. And is now the home of many new Start up businesses.

Getting back to how we left off yesterday. The reason I have managed to create an online business is by being consistent in my actions. Being committed to just start somewhere. Better to just make a decision about what one thing you will do and keep that focus.

It may be adding content to your site, or researching and adding new Keywords. Whatever it is just be consistent……………and most of all do it.

As Woody Allen once said part of winning in life is just showing up.
Now a great strategy to add the extra sparkle and chance of success is “to do it” for 30 days.

The NASA space programme demonstrated the 30 day habit. By doing something consistently we can break and form habits. During their intensive training programmes an interesting thing happens. Suddenly with whatever activity they were learning there comes a point about 28 days in where everything seems
to click.

It is the same with many things in life. Let’s be honest four weeks is not long and yet it can have amazing results in what it is possible to achieve. This is definitely so online. By committing to do something every day you will be amazed at the results you can achieve.

The thing about many businesses that are new to online marketing,is that this fact slips away from them. Just breaking through this barrier everyday will produce results.

So what will you commit to? Perhaps 30 minutes a day customer research online. Looking on YouTube for videos you could use.

Tomorrow let’s look at another important factor in your on line success.

Best Wishes

Denise

P.S. This nugget is the start of everything.

Small Business Internet Marketing is big business and is set to become even bigger! The latest coms data from the United States is that in the month of Dec 2009 Google had over 90 billion searches!….yes you did read that correctly. 90 billion in one month alone on one search engine. Add in all the others and the figure is well over 130 billion in one month.

Growth in the UK is over 35% from the previous year. So this is not just a US thing!

We might all be shocked and yet in reality how many of us run to the PC or Mac when we need to look for something? Do you even know where the yellow pages directory is in your house?! No me neither.

The thing is, we all now want choice and Google gives us that. As a business if you don’t wake up to where your customers might be looking for a new service provider your business will not grow at the same rate as others. This is a fact.

We Make Internet Marketing Training Jargon Free

We consult for our clients and basically help them get traffic to their sites, which is where the sales process begins. We also now teach our small business internet marketing strategies, to business owners in the UK. We have both trained in the US and Australia and know what works and what does not, when it comes to leveraging a business online

We have sites that are on the first page of Google in competitive areas. The above screen shoot is from
one of our sites in the competive sales and management arena.We also know that if we can do it so can you. You just need someone to show you.

That’s where we come in. We are running 5 Internet Marketing Training workshops in March across the North of England. They are designed for business owners and are delivered personally by us. We are both trained coaches and facilitators, and to this day are payed to deliver and train in some of the largest companies in the world.

These events are as follows

March 4th and March 31st Preston Haighton Manor Hotel

March 9th S. Cumbria ( Venue TBC this week)

March 24th Leeds ( Venue TBC this week)

March 25th Sheffield ( Venue TBC this week)

All venues will be easy access with parking!

So if you are looking for;
Internet marketing training Lancashire, Internet marketing training Leeds, Internet marketing training Preston, Internet marketing training Sheffield, we are the Girls for you.

You will get a full manual to take away with screen shots that explain step by step what to do. A bonus book and mp3 recording. Plus access to our client only teleseminars for 6 months.You also get recordings of all these as well. We even through in lunch. You can find out all about it here and see some of the testimonials. http://www.OnlineMarketingSeminar.co.uk

All this for about 50% of the price of others in the field!…………..oh and for March we are offering a real special. You can bring a friend for £25 ………..yes that is correct.

The cost is £250 plus VAT with a bonus package worth another £170…………and you can bring someone for an extra £25 plus vat.

The thing is we know what it feels like to not know what you are doing and being scared about spending on something that does not work. So we want to minimise the risk. We also have a 60 day guarantee. So it really is a no brainer.

You can find out more here. Internet marketing training Lancashire Our first event is in just over a month at Haighton Manor Hotel in Preston, on March 4th 2010. Start time is 9am for Coffee and we will finish by 5pm.

So to whet your appetite we will be posting some different ideas, and small business internet marketing tips here every day for the next month or so.

To You and Your Online Success,

Denise and Sharon

P.S. See you tomorrow for a tip about the first decision you need to make.

A website and its presence on the internet have the ability to generate any company more revenue. The challenge is, like any venture you will have to market you and your website to create the desired effect.

Let’s be honest would you open a new shop in the high street and not market it? ……………

Well it is the same with your website or online presence. Many businesses make mistakes in this area……….below are three common ones……….

1. Not letting the search engines know you are there and ready for business

This is the most common mistake and natural. With so many other things to do for a small business it is logical to think your web company would do this for you. Not always so.

Letting people know you are around is about submitting your website or blog to the various search engine directories. Some consider this old fashioned. Trust me it is not and well worth the small investment.

Make sure you find out if this is part of the package from your web developer. If not get a local firm to do this for you. In the bigger scheme of things the cost is small.The return well worth it. It potentially will drive your first lot of traffic and will give you your first links. All important in the eyes of Google.

2. Not Marketing to Your Ideal Client

Many business owners know so much about their product they forget that their customer might not be searching for their brand online.

Instead they might actually be looking for a solution to a problem. This is easy to sort out. Make sure you have researched what your market needs and have built in search terms that they would use. That way a potential new client or customer is much more likely to find you online.

3. Not having Enough Content on Your Site

Content is key on the internet. In your small business marketing strategy this must now form a
major part. Especially with Googles latest ideas on customer preferences and SEO.

It is a sure fire way to attract and keep clients. Invest in a website or blog where you can update content easily.

The more your content changes the better it is for your customers. The more relevant you will be and the more likely Google is to pull you to the top of the search engines.

These are all easy areas to cover with a plan and some consistent action. Over time this will build and your website will grow, in popularity and the number of visitors it attracts.

To You and Your Success

Denise and Sharon

Video Marketing is growing. Having videos on your website will increase your conversion rate beyond your wildest dreams. The other great thing is it does not need to be you either. I had a quick look around You tube for a video you might like. Seth Godin is a natural choice. The man is a visionary when it comes to cutting edge marketing.

Video and visual media are not new and yet many people still don’t appreciate the persuasive power they have over us. You only need to look back in history to how popular the initial TV’s were to appreciate how popular this piece of technology is. One of the main reasons for this is how we as human beings receive information.

Have you ever noticed that some people prefer pictures, other people sound and some people like to touch things? Well this is how as human beings we are set up to receive and process information. One of the strongest preferences that people have is visual, followed by feeling and then sound.

So let us run the scenario of your website. On the page that people arrive on there is a video. Straight away people want to click on the screen to see what it says. They are then confronted by sound, pictures and maybe you talking. Immediately you have kept someone on your site for longer than the standard 5-10 seconds.

Great news you have captured their attention.Your video can now actually convert customers by engaging and talking to them. No it is not the same as a face to face contact and yet it is the next best thing. Then in your video tell them what you would like them to do. Perhaps sign up for a free report or newsletter. Signups to newsletters can increase by over 30 % in some cases on sites with videos.

This is the all important thing by having a call to action you can then capture the name and contact details of future clients. Then over the period of the next few months you can build a relationship with them that will increase your chance of conversion dramatically.

Videos can be created quickly and at low cost. They don’t have to be professionally edited either. The current trend is for natural video as it converts better. Remember people buy from people and real people at that. So next time when you are scratching your head about how to increase conversions. Video just might be your answer.

To You and Your Success

Denise and Sharon