Entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create. - David Karp, founder of Tumblr

Happy Easter from Blue Dog Marketing!

Happy Passover from Blue Dog Marketing!

Blue Dog Marketing speaking at RPCN Small Business Success Conference

Rochester Professional Consultants Network (RPCN) is holding the Small Business Success Conference on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. This all-day conference is being held at Monroe Community College and Blue Dog Marketing is presenting two workshops.

Laurie Enos is presenting “Marketing Essentials” which covers all the basic marketing a small business needs to know about to be successful. She will talk about basics such as having a stand out logo to establishing yourself as an expert in your field by blogging. This is a great workshop for marketing challenged small business owners.

If your business needs to submit proposals, join Mary Sperr for “Highly Effective Proposals and How to Write Them.” In this session, you will learn all the steps necessary to create your own winning proposals. You will walk away with a template that you can customize for your business that looks professional and polished.

 Join Blue Dog Marketing at the RPCN Small Business Success Conference on Tuesday, April 7. To register or for more information, visit www.rochesterconsultants.org. 

6 Tips For A Great Landing Page

Turn website traffic into revenue by using six proven techniques for your website’s landing page.

1. Use Customer Testimonials

Testimonials are compelling stories that tell a visitor what they can expect when using your product or service.  Let your customers speak for you on your landing page.

2. Talk About The Benefits

Customers really don’t care about your products or services. What they care about is their own problem. Because they have probably already done research online, your prospective customers already know the solution to their problem. You can mention the solution on your landing page because your visitors will know they are in the right place, just don’t only talk about the solution. Talk about the benefits because that will set you apart and that is what your visitors are looking for. 

3. Keep Your Writing Simple

Simplicity sells. Use simple sentence structure and keep them short. Use short words that are easy to read quickly. Be clear and describe what you do using the most basic words.

4. Be Human

Just like having conversations with your customers on social media, use your landing page to start that conversation. Don’t let your content sound mechanical and forced. Write like you speak, in a friendly tone.

5. Use Numbers

People like believable data. Use specific numbers to promote the benefits of your products or services.

6. Have A Call To Action

If you don’t ask readers to do anything, they won’t. What do you want your visitors to do when they are at your home page? Start writing the content of your home page with the end goal in mind – what action you want your visitors to take. Do you want them to sign up for your free white paper? Do you want them to contact you for a demonstration? A call-to-action button should reflect the action you want them to take and your content should easily bring them to the button and make them want to click through. 

8 Marketing Strategies To Increase Your Reach (Part 2)

On Tuesday, we posted Part 1 of this article. Here are the last four marketing tips to help you increase your company’s visibility.

5. Use Social media to market your business – You need to be where your customers and potential customers are. They are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and many other social media sites. Research which one(s) your customers use most often and participate in the conversations. Post about what’s happening at your business, post your blogs and let your followers in on what new products you have coming out. If you don't have the time to manage a robust social media campaign for your business, hire a marketing firm to handle that for you.

6. Build a great website – You know your business because you are the expert in what you do. Unless you are an expert in web design, you should not attempt to build your company website. You don’t want to direct your potential customers to a website that looks homemade. You want and need a website that reflects your professionalism and expertise. If you do not have the necessary skills to build a website that represents your brand, hire a marketing firm to design and build it for you.

7. Create the right copy for your website - Your website should not be all about you. Your website is a tool that should talk about your target market’s pain points and how you can solve their problems. Your content must to speak to your ideal client in a way that connects with them emotionally and convinces them in a matter of seconds that they have found the exact solution they are looking for. 

8. Launch your product, program or service – You are ready to let the world know about your awesome products or services. How do you share this information? Some great suggestions are to write an e-book and offer it for free on your website. You can offer free webinars to introduce people to your services and give them some introductory level information for free. If they want more, they can hire you. A business coach can help you decide upon the best way for you to launch your particular business.

Did you notice a common theme through many of these marketing tips? Hire help to get your marketing done for you while you do what you are good at. You can try to do all these things on your own and missing out on opportunities or you can hire a skilled and experienced marketing team, like Blue Dog Marketing, to do the work for you.

8 Marketing Strategies To Increase Your Reach (Part 1)

You started your small business because you are good at what you do and you have great solutions or products to offer. You may be struggling with how to reach your target market. The answer is to consistently get your message out.

How can you do that? Here are 8 smart marketing ideas that will help you spread the word about your company and increase your sales. You may have tried one or more of these already but haven't stuck with them the way you should for them to work. Follow the suggestions Blue Dog Marketing is sharing in this post today and Thursday to drive traffic to your website, create visibility with your ideal clients and solve problems for your target market.

1. Blog about the problems your ideal client is facing – If you are not blogging you should be. Blogging is one marketing strategy every business owner can and should use. You position yourself as an expert in your field when you blog. You don't have to be a writer to have a great blog. Your posts can be short or long. They can be short video snippets of a webinar that you deliver. Your blog can be whatever you would like it to be. Just remember to have your content relate to the problems your target market is experiencing. Pick a schedule to blog and stick to it. If you don't have time to maintain a blog yourself, hire a marketing firm to do it for you.

2. Promote your blog – Once you have a blog up and running, you need to let people know about it. Attach the blog to your website, include a link to your blog in your email signature and put your blog link on all your marketing materials, including your business cards. If you don't let people know your blog is there, no one will read it.

3. Send your clients an email newsletter – You want to stay top of mind with your customers and prospects. An email newsletter is one of the easiest, least expensive and most effective ways to do this. Regularly publish an email newsletter, once a month or once a quarter, whatever works best for you and your company. When you choose a publishing schedule, be consistent. If you do not have time to create, write and send out an email newsletter yourself, outsource it to a marketing firm.

4. Following up from networking events – Networking is a wonderful way to increase your visibility in the community. You can make some great business connections at networking events. Don’t just collect a bunch of business cards. Follow up with the people you met to turn those conversations into opportunities. Call or email them to set up a time to meet for coffee so you can each learn more about the other’s business.

Check back on Thursday for tips 5 through 8!