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Happy Halloween from Blue Dog Marketing!

What to Consider When Making a Video

Making a promotional video is a great way to market your company. You want to make sure your video stands out in the crowded video world. You want a video that highlights the best of what your small business is about. Here are three tips to help you achieve that.

Have a Script

Write a concise, informative and entertaining script. And stick to it! You want to engage your viewers.

Figure out what message you want to convey to your viewers and create your script around your main point. You will stay on track when you have a clear message.

Include a Call to Action

What do you want viewers to do? Whether it is to call you, visit your website, or follow you on Twitter, don't forget to mention it in your video. A good call to action is your ticket to a good return on investment for your video.

Make It Look Professional

You want your video to look professional, not like you used your cell phone. You should hire a professional videographer to help you make your video.  It won’t break the budget and you’ll end up with a video that will help your company stand out. 

Your Personal Photo Is Your Marketing Brand

I am on LinkedIn often and I noticed many people use snapshots rather than professional photos on their profiles. I see images where people are posed with their kids or pets, biking along a trail, or even worse, no photo at all. LinkedIn is a professional networking site. It’s not Facebook, which is all about family and friends.

Your photo on LinkedIn should brand you as successful and professional. Your photo says lots about you. Do you look friendly, confident and capable? A great picture of you can make you look active and engaged.

Have a professional photographer take a picture of you. Don’t wear something that can date the picture so it can be used for several years. Don’t just use the picture on LinkedIn, use it everywhere….on your website, on your business card.  A professional photograph of yourself is a good investment every small business owner should make. 

Create An Effective Marketing Plan

The success of your business depends on your marketing plan. A good marketing plan outlines how a business will go about attracting prospects, converting them into customers and retaining customers.

To have a successful marketing plan, you should incorporate the following:

Analyze the market

You cannot make assumptions about the market. You must conduct a thorough analysis of the prevailing market, your strengths and weaknesses and the existing competition. Get to know your target customers and what their pain points are. This analysis helps you determine your marketing objectives and product positioning.

Create your marketing messages and determine marketing methods

You have to come up with creative and compelling messages that address the needs of your target market. Use a variety of online and offline marketing tools to convey the messages.

Plan and monitor the budget

Determine what your marketing budget for the year is and how exactly you will spend it. Base your budget on your goals. Monitor it so you stay on track.

Evaluate and review your marketing plan

Determine your metrics for success. Measure your results and compare them with expected success. This will help you to know if any corrections or modifications are required to make your plan more successful.

Written a Book? Now Promote it!

Have you written a book? I’ve heard that everyone has a book in them. Some of us are just more proactive in letting the book out!

Several of our clients have written books. Most are in both hard cover and e-book format. Once your book is written and published, how do you promote it? Facebook is a great place to start as it is a free book marketing resource.

Create a Facebook fan page for your book. On this page, post about your book title, your book cover image, include your biographical information and create a search-engine friendly description of your book. Use your fan page to generate excitement about your book. Once your page is created, invite your social media network to “Like” your page. Don’t be shy, ask your friends to share your fan page.  Let the work spread through Facebook about your book.

Create an author website. Here you can build your brand, tout your book, post reviews and, most importantly, sell your book.  

Create a blog, link it to your website, and continue building your brand.  Post your blog articles on your Facebook fan page. Always direct traffic from Facebook and your blog to your website. Remember, people can purchase your book there.

Both your website and blog can promote your book, publicize your accomplishments, and inform people about your next book. 

Are You Using Newsletters?

Why should you bother writing a newsletter? Are newsletters relevant in today's information marketing world?

If you are not doing a newsletter, you should be. A newsletter can secure new business, repeat business and create many connections. It can establish you as the expert in your field. A well-crafted newsletter contains more details than a blog but not as much as an eBook. It is something that can be read in a few minutes over a coffee, and most importantly, is worth reading.

No one will read everything you write, but when they have that need for your product or service they will remember you because you’ve kept top of mind with them.

How often should newsletters go out? Keep in mind, writing and publishing a newsletter takes a great deal of time. Some small businesses do produce a newsletter once a month. For others, once a quarter is sufficient. Like blogging, once you pick a schedule, stick to it.

Should your newsletter be electronic or paper? Email is the easiest of course. A print newsletter involves a commitment to production, design and budget but can be extremely successful. You have to choose which format is best for your small business.

Blue Dog Marketing assists many clients with writing and producing newsletters. Let us help you!

4 Blogging “Bumps in the Road”

Writing a blog post is a lot of work. And there are many things that can trip you up when you’re writing one.

Here is a list of four bumps and how to avoid them.

Writer’s Block.

Anyone who writes blogs gets writer’s block occasionally. Choosing the topic for your next blog is usually the hardest part. Once you’ve got a topic, writing is pretty easy. So, how do you come up with a topic that is relevant and of interest to your audience?  Keep up to date in your field. Read other blog posts and association publications to get inspired. We keep electronic copies of articles that inspire us. Use these article topics to get you thinking. Do you agree with what the author says? If not, why not? Well, write about that!

Create a Catchy Title

The title of your post is its first impression to potential readers. You want to create a title that entices people to read your post. Have fun with alliteration. And try to optimize your SEO.

Formatting

Make your blog attractive to read. Don’t just post a huge block of text. No one will read that. Use headers, paragraph breaks, bulleted lists and images. Make sure you have plenty of white space allowing eyes to rest.

Use Statistics

Incorporating relevant data into your blog post adds credibility and increases your authority. Make sure you attribute the original source. And be sure the data is relevant. When was the research conducted? The more recent, the better.

3 Simple Marketing Tactics to Attract New Clients

Some small businesses invest a great deal of their marketing budget into advertising, which can be expensive and not always reach your target audience. Radio, television and newspaper ads are great ways to get your message out to as many people as possible.

However, this mass marketing eliminates the personal connection you want to create with your customers. Radio, television and print ads are usually very general in content and used for informing people about sales and promotions.

As a small business, your marketing should be about building relationships with your customers. There is a place for mass media, but if your budget is tight, here are three simple marketing tactics you can immediately implement.

1.     Newsletters – Collect the email addresses of your customers when they purchase your product. Use this information to stay in contact with your customers and keep them informed about what you’re doing, new products, promote sales and events, and even introduce new employees.

2.     Network – get out of your office and meet new contacts. Attend local Chamber of Commerce events. Join an association and get involved. You’ll meet potential new clients and alliance partners at networking events.

3.     Blog – Become the “expert” in your field by blogging about your business. Your voice will be heard by many people when you blog.

Marketing is necessary for your business to grow. Implement several different tactics consistently to see results.

Use Events as Part of Your Marketing

You have done the work to determine who your target audience is. There are multiple ways to reach them. One fun way is to host your own events.

When you host, you have control over the guests, the format, the selling and marketing around it. That's what makes this such a great strategy.

Some reasons for an event:

·         a celebration of something (anniversary of your company, holidays)

·         a launch of something (product, service, book, etc)

What is the purpose of hosting an event? You want to meet new contacts and thank your current customers. Ask your guests to invite a friend or colleague who may be interested in learning about your company or has a business or challenges similar to theirs.

Your goal is to create a great experience for your customers and your new guests, and send the right messages to the people you are trying to get to know and turn into prospects.

Make it a quality event - don't skimp.

Events can be part of your overall marketing strategy. Have all your marketing components mesh for your event to be successful.

Need assistance planning and executing a corporate event? Give Blue Dog Marketing a call….we’re here to help you!