Tag Archives: small business marketing

6 Budget Friendly Business Marketing Tips

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Trying to get attention without a big budget? It can be hard to stand out in a crowd with all the big agencies making big splashes with multi-million dollar budgets.  Luckily, here in the 21st century, you don’t need a big media budget to get noticed. You just need some time and some patience.

You can get attention, raise awareness, and promote your products without spending lots of money. We like that!

Here are some of my favorite tips:

Offer free information

Start a blog and build an email newsletter. Don’t oversell and don’t try to sell right away.  They’ve just met you; they don’t know if they like or trust you yet.  Space out the offers, rather than holding your hand out right away. Make it free, free, free, sell.

Build relationships

Be helpful. No hard-sell, sometimes even no real “selling” at all. Listen. Put yourself automatically at the top of the list when they need what you do. Getting hired without RFPs, cold calls, and sales meetings is a beautiful thing.

Partner with people who offer complementary services

I’m a copywriter and marketer. I partner with business coaches, web developers, graphic designers, etc. If you are a developer, partner with a coder or a graphic designer.  Recommend each other.  Bring them in on projects (and have them do the same for you).

Be visible online (and offline too)

Find out which social networking tools, online forums, or real-life business forums your audience likes and uses.  Create accounts, attend networking meetings, and build relationships.  Share helpful tips, respond to questions, and share other businesses’ posts and information, as well as your own.

Build your email list the right way

Make sure it’s clear what you’re offering and what sign-ups will receive. Get permission. Don’t just add people because they attended a meeting where you spoke.

Follow up – in a friendly way – not a spammy way.

By that I mean that if you do talk to someone at an event, follow up with something relevant. Send them an email telling them you enjoyed the conversation. Point out an article you thought they would find interesting. If you discussed classic cars, tell them about the car show in town next week.

What are yours?

Are You Marketing Backwards?

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Da Vinci notebook
Image by tiny_packages via Flickr

We all know that Leonardo da Vinci wrote backwards, though nobody knows exactly why.

It may have been to keep his work secret, or because he was left-handed (and writing that way was less messy).

Doing things backwards worked for Leonardo, but it’s not a good idea for your marketing.

Is your marketing backwards?

I was just reading this blog post in the NY Times by Jay Goltz.  He owns a picture framing company and his team was doing some sales planning for next year. They were trying to think of some ways to increase business.

A brainstorming session about a hypothetical 100 people in the area who needed framing, but went elsewhere, came up with the following possibilities :

  • “5 percent used us and for some reason decided they didn’t want to come back (we have a very high repeat and referral rate).
  • 25 percent are loyal to another frame shop and have no reason to leave.
  • 20 percent consider us too expensive.
  • 50 percent don’t know about us.”

Self-focused marketing is looking the wrong way

So, they decided to increase their advertising to get the word out. Obviously, this isn’t scientific, and the author readily admits that.  However, there’s another, bigger issue.

Say they spend more on ads, radio, adwords or whatever. Now more people know they exist. Is that enough?

Do you buy from the place you heard of (along with all the other places)? Or, do you buy from the place that’s remarkable? That treats you differently or offers something the other framing stores don’t?

There are lots of places near me (this store isn’t one of them), but no particular reason to choose one over the other. It’s a commodity. I have something I’ve been meaning to frame, and when I do, I’ll just pick one.

They were focusing on themselves, not their clients

They were looking in the wrong direction. They stopped and asked themselves how to get more sales, and their solution was focused inward – we’ll advertise more!

They never asked what the customer might want, such as pickup and delivery of large paintings or faster service. Neither did they focus on building a niche – maybe focus on museums (large, high-quality frames) or hotels (mass frame purchase).

What if the experience was special or unique in some way?

Like this dry cleaner (apologies in advance for the forced commercial; Seth Godin fans look closely at 1:55).

The reason that Hangers Cleaners is doing so well is that they made it convenient and made it fun with silly signs and t-shirts. How many silly dry cleaners have you ever seen?

Marketing forwards (outwards and toward the customer has led this company to improve its revenue, while its competitors are losing money.

Which way are you marketing?

28 Essential Online Marketing Tools

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paint chips

Image by Anosmia via Flickr

Want free tools for your business? These 28 handy helpers save you time, improve your marketing, and make life less stressful.

Five free tools to help you get more traffic, brainstorm ideas, create screen capture videos, and manage projects.

1. Web Site Grader

Web Site Grader reviews your site, checks your keywords, and tells you how effective they are.  It will also give you your ranking in Alexa and Technorati.

2.  Quantcast

A tool that estimates the traffic and the demographics of visitors to your site (male/female, education level, age, etc).  You can use it for other sites too.

3. Bubble.Us

Free mind-mapping software. If you’re visually oriented (like I am) this is a great way to organize information and ideas. It’s like a flow chart for creative types.

4. Tiny Url

If you want to send (or post) a long, messy URL, try using this shortener instead. It’s a lot less cumbersome, and you can even customize it.

5. Scribefire

See something you want to quote on your blog? Or get a quick idea while you’re browsing. Use ScribeFire to drag and drop text into a post (without opening your blogging software). Or, save it for later use.

6. Wordoid

Stuck for a name for a new service or business? Plug in some words and wordoid will come up with suggestions for you.

7. Jing

This free tool takes a quick screen capture video – five minutes or less. If you need something longer, you can get Camtasia (not free, but not expensive).

8. Jott

Turns voice messages into emails. If you leave yourself a message, or someone leaves you one, it automatically appears in your email box (no typing).

9. Basecamp

Great for collaborating with people who are spread out in different cities. Keeps your notes, edits, and project management tools are in one place.

10. Maczot

Woot for Macs. One great deal each day.

11. Make Your Own Buttons

Make your own call to action buttons in photoshop. Plus, another one especially for buy now buttons.

12. Ebook covers

Make your own ebook covers for free. Takes a bit of practice, but it works.

13. 3-D Box.

If you want more ebook options, try BoxShot 3D software. It’s not free (and Mac only), but it will save you a lot of time.

14. Google Link Tracker

Once you finish that ebook, you’ll want to know if anyone is clicking the links back to your site. Great when you want to spread a free book or article.

15. Creative Commons Image Search

Find free images for your blog posts or ebooks. It will search in multiple places at the same time.  You can specify keywords, as well as usage rights, and where to look.

16. The wayback machine

It’s not just for Mr. Peabody anymore. Get your own time machine – and go back and find old versions of your site (or someone else’s) on the Web. It also has photos, old movies, and public domain books.

17. Scribd

Sample book chapters, free (and paid) ebooks, forms and templates – many at no charge. Upload a free ebook of your own and use their traffic to spread it.

18. Dryicons

Free icons in lots of different styles, from glossy to rather scruffy. It’s got blog icons, e-commerce icons, and holidays too.

19. Compfight

An improved Flickr search tool. It shows a full page of photos, plus their sizes (so you can find one that fits your needs without more clicking). You can choose by license too.

20. Veer

A stock image site, but one with photos that are more quirky and interesting than usual. Prices start at $1.

21. Free ideas

Out of ideas? Type a word into the inspiration generator and get photos, quotes, videos, bookmarks, songs, and tweets that match the word.

22. tineye

It’s a reverse image search.  Use it to find how images are being used,  if they’ve been changed, (great if you’re an artist or photographer and want to control the rights to your work) or to see if you can find a higher resolution version of an image you like.

23. E-junkie

An online shopping cart. E-junkie processes the orders, takes the credit card (or paypal information) and notifies you when you’ve made a sale. Use their affiliate program to help other people sell your books too.

24. Evernote (free and paid versions)

Keep track of ideas, save images, write drafts for blog posts, record your thoughts, and Available for both desktop and as an app, which will sync together so you can access it anywhere.

25. Asana – (free and paid versions, depending on your company size)

A project management tool. Use it for web development, tech support tickets, and task tracking (for one person or a team).

26. Scannable – scanning app from Evernote

Scan receipts, documents, scribbled notes (I have lots of these), business cards, and other piles of paper into your phone.  Goodbye clutter.

27. Userium – pre-launch website usability checklist

28.  Grammarly – a better spelling and grammar checker (this one can tell if you used the wrong word (even if it’s spelled correctly), suggest alternatives in context, and spots missing punctuation.

A Marketing Secret From a Flight of Stairs

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Going up the stairs is hard work. Everyone knows it’s better for you to get the exercise, but most people take the escalator. The stairs are hard. The escalator is easy.

But what if you “change the story”? What if you changed going up the stairs from hard work to something people want to do?

Find the fun

Tell a story

Businesses need stories and secret identities too. Not a story about how experienced you are, or your fancy equipment, or even your fancy client list. Instead, you need stories about the satisfaction, the happiness, or the peace of mind that your customers get by working with you.

It’s about helping them achieve their dreams or desires (regardless of whether that dream is a drop-dead gorgeous web site or a house on a lake). Tell them the story of how they can get that dream.

What are your favorite ways to make your clients happy? Share your stories here.

(thanks to Becky Blanton for finding this video and pointing it out)

How to Make Your Marketing Irresistible

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johnny_automatic_magnetDo you ever wonder if people actually read your ads?  Would you like to get more readers (and more orders) from your ads?

Here’s how.

Write a great headline

Use it to make a big promise.  Offer something your audience desperately cares about.  Tell them you can fix a problem they have (or avoid having the problem in the first place).  Here’s an example for an imaginary product.

“Stop Struggling With Flat Tires!”

Then, fill out the promise.  Paint a picture of what they’ll get, and how they’ll enjoy it. The more descriptive (and specific), the better.  Don’t use fancy words or technical jargon.  Make it about the buyer (not about you).  She’s the “hero.”

“New Super Tire Jack slips easily under your car.  Just press the button, and whoosh, the  car goes up and you can easily remove the tire. ”

Turn features into benefits

A feature would be “push-button operation”  A benefit is:   “No more sweating (and swearing) to get your flat tire changed.  Super Tire Jack does 90% of the work for you.  Just push a button!”

Prove that it works

Include testimonials from happy customers.  Even Seth Godin says that he sells more books on his blog when he reviews someone else’s work than when he talks about his own.  Use testimonials, case studies, statistics, or demos to make your point.

Ask for the purchase

Call, click, write….(do it now, before they’re gone).

Photo: johnny automatic