3 Marketing Tips to Grow Your Small Business

As a small business owner, you wear many hats. You’re not only the owner, but you have to handle all the marketing and are the lead (or only!) sales person. If your budget does not allow for the hiring of a dedicated marketing person, you could be missing out on some great opportunities to promote your business.

Luckily there are some strategies we can share that can help you that don’t need a large marketing budget and a great deal of time to allow you to reach the highest number of appropriate buyers.

To start with, a small business owner’s time is best spent executing targeted marketing campaigns. You need to reach the right customers at the right time.

You can develop a targeted, cost-effective marketing strategy by building a strategic plan using these three steps.

Know your audience

The better you know your audience, the better you will be able to market to them. Is age, income, sex or location a characteristic that is important to you? What do your current customers look like? This is quite likely what your future customers will look like too.

Once you’ve developed a profile for your ideal customer, you can target your marketing to customers that match that profile.

Personalize content

No two customers respond to your marketing content the same way. Depending where they are in the sales cycle, each customer needs to be targeted differently. A new customer will respond differently to a certain email subject line differently than a repeat or loyal customer.

It’s important for you to have different content for each stage of the sales funnel so your customers will respond the way you want them to. The Call-to-Action for each stage tells your customers what they need to do next and it should be different for new and repeat customers.

Use multiple channels

Don’t just find one way of marketing to customers and only use that. A good marketing campaign will implement several different channels to reach your customers in different ways. Use a combination of social media, email marketing, direct mail and display advertising to reach your customers. Based on your ideal customer profile, you will be able to determine which channels work best for your target audience.

Your customers need several touches from you before they will be ready to make a purchase.

The key is to identify your potential customers and choose the right content and channels through which to reach them to have a successful marketing campaign. With these pieces in place, an effective marketing strategy is possible.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. – Steve Jobs

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools. – Napoleon Bonaparte

How to Write a Blog Post

Blogging can help you grow your business. It allows you to shine as an expert in your industry.

Blogging can be tough for many small business owners.  We know that small business owners are busy and struggle to find the time to blog and the ideas to blog about. Are you one of these small business owners with a multitude of excuses why you can’t blog?

Well, the time for excuses is over! This blog post will give you a simple method to follow so you too can blog for your business.

Know Your Readers

Before you start writing your blog, you must know who your audience is. You need to be able to write posts that speak to their problems or issues. Is your ideal customer the end user or the decision maker? Are they male or female? Is age a consideration?

You should know and understand your target audience before you do any marketing of your business. You don’t want to waste your time and your money marketing to the wrong people.

Pick a Topic

Before you start writing your blog, you need to pick a topic. You can pick a general topic to start with and then come up with some different working titles for the topic. For example, if you are a used car dealer, you might want to talk about the benefits of buying a used car. You can narrow your topic focus down by creating working titles such as “3Tips for Getting a Good Deal When Purchasing a Used Car” or “A Checklist for Purchasing a Quality Used Car.”

A working title this specific will guide your writing of the post. The more specific your working title is, the easier it will be for you to write about the topic.

Create an Outline

Outline your post. Collect all the information you want to share with your readers and organize it. This will let you know which points you want to address and the best order in which to do it. 

By organizing your post, you won’t overwhelm your readers with too much information. If you have a lot to say, perhaps you can break the subject into two or three posts.

Write!

Now that you’ve got your blog post outlined, start writing. It’s kind of like filling in the blanks if you have a good outline.

Your first sentence or paragraph must catch your readers’ attention. If you don’t, they’re off your blog page. How can you grab their attention? You can tell a story about a customer’s problem or share interesting facts. Let your readers know right away what they will learn from your blog post. Will you address a problem they have and give them a solution? You know they’ll stick around for that!

Add a Call-to-Action (CTA)

At the end of your blog post, you should have a CTA. This tells your reader what their next step is. Do you want them to register for a webinar, subscribe to your newsletter or download your free e-book?

Write a Catchy Title

Now that you have your blog post written, it’s time to revisit your title. The working title got you through the blog post writing. Now you have to create a title that will make your audience want to read your post.

Your title should be clear and accurate about what the post is about or what your readers will learn. Keep it short. If your title is longer than 65 characters, Google will truncate it on its search results pages.

Proofread

Before you publish your blog, be sure to proofread your work. Check for correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation. You want to make a professional impression on your readers so take the time to make sure what you’ve written sounds good and is error free.

If you really don’t want to spend the time blogging, then hire an expert blogger, like Blue Dog Marketing, to ‘ghost-blog’ for you. This can free you up to focus on your business while still having the benefits of a robust blog for your target audience. 

8 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Facebook Live

Facebook recently launched Facebook Live, Facebook Live is a video streaming service that lets anyone broadcast live videos from their mobile device straight to their Facebook Newsfeed.

This is an awesome way for small businesses to use the power of live video to communicate your stories and build genuine, personal relationships with your fans.

How can you make the most of this new service to promote your business? In this 

blog, we’ll walk you through 8 tips for getting the most out of Facebook Live.

Test it on ‘Only Me’ first

Before you hit the ‘Go Live’ button, practice making a video that only you can see. In your privacy settings, choose ‘Only Me’ so you will be the only person able to view your video. Make your mistakes here!

Keep reintroducing yourself

When you first start your video, you should introduce yourself and tell what your video is about. But keep in mind, you may not have anyone watching when you start. Your viewers will be joining your live video in progress, so you should reintroduce yourself a couple of times so your audience knows who you are.

Make your video visually engaging

Even though videos on Facebook autoplay in the Newsfeeds, viewers need to turn the sound on manually. This means your video needs to be visually engaging right from the start (for people who will watch it later) so that people will want to join in when they come across you live on their Newsfeeds.

What does visually engaging mean? Keep the camera moving. Don’t just sit in one place and talk to the camera.

Encourage viewer to like and share

The more people that like and share your video, the more it will show up in Newsfeeds. This is a Calls-to-Action – what action you want the viewer to take. So ask them to like and share your video.

Interact with your viewers

Use your viewers’ names, when possible. Call them out by name and interact with them over the video or answer their questions. They will certainly share a video that they are mentioned in!

Broadcast for at least 10 minutes

Because people will stop and watch your live video as they are scrolling through their Newsfeeds, it is recommended that you broadcast for at least 10 minutes so you more likely to be seen. You can broadcast for 90 minutes on Facebook Live.

Ask viewers to subscribe to live notifications

If your viewers are enjoying your video, you can ask them to subscribe to live notifications so they can be notified when you next go live.

Having them sign up for live notification is easy. All your viewers have to do is click on the small downward-facing arrow in the top right-hand corner of the live video post and choose ‘Turn On Notifications.’

Say goodbye

When you are finished broadcasting, be sure to wrap up the broadcast by thanking people for watching and saying goodbye. This is where you can ask people to share your video with their friends. 

If you are offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on. – Sheryl Sandberg

How to Use Facebook Live

Facebook recently launched Facebook Live in an effort to promote video content in Newsfeeds. Facebook Live is a video streaming service that lets anyone broadcast live videos from their mobile device straight to their Facebook Newsfeed.

This is an awesome way for small businesses to use the power of live video to communicate your stories and build genuine, personal relationships with your fans.

How can you make the most of this new service to promote your business? In this blog, we’ll walk you through how to broadcast on Facebook Live.

How to Broadcast on Facebook Live

To start your live broadcast, open Facebook on your mobile device. Open the status bar just like you’re going to write a post and tap on the “Live” icon. The Live icon looks like a human silhouette. When prompted, allow Facebook access to your camera and microphone.

Next, click on the ‘Continue’ button. This does not start the recording. Choose your privacy setting. If you’re sharing videos for your business, you want to make it public. 

If you want to test this out before going live, then choose the ‘Only Me’ setting.

Give your broadcast a description and make it compelling. You want people to watch! The description is what will show up in the Newfeeds.

Set up your camera so it is pointing in the right direction. Note that your video will be a square so it doesn’t matter if you hold your phone horizontally or vertically.

Click on the ‘Go Live’ button and start broadcasting. Facebook will give you a countdown…”3, 2, 1…” and then you’ll be live.

Your broadcast can be up to 90 minutes long. Keep in mind that the longer you broadcast, the more people who are scrolling through their Newsfeeds will see you live. When you’re done, click “Finish” to end the broadcast. This video will stay on your Page or Timeline just like any other video so others can watch it if they missed it live.

Interact with your viewers

Remember this is social media, so be social with your viewers. Interact with them. You can speak directly to people in your video or you can have someone else respond from a computer for you.

Have you tried Facebook Live yet? If so, share your experiences with us!

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody. – Herbert Swope

Happy 4th of July!