Marketing Tips to Keep Your Small Business Going During a Crisis

1.    Take a look at opportunities for organic traffic growth. Check out your Google My Business listing. Can you update your store hours, business description, photos? Keeping this fresh may help to improve your rank locally for mobile searches. 

2.    Reach out to happy customers and ask for a Google review. More positive reviews can equate to an increase in online exposure and local SEO plus a boost for your brand.

3.    Set up online ordering. Now’s the perfect time to add a shopping cart to your website for customers who want your products mailed or delivered.

4.    Use video. Can you adopt a new video strategy to boost your business? Engage with clients/prospects in one-on-one video consultations or virtual group webinars. Can you supplement your offline products with online video content? Video consumption is increasing during this crisis, so give it a try!

5.    Gather up and organize your client and prospect email addresses. Help your business ride out the storm by emailing your current customers and giving them coupons, free items, or other things they deem valuable. And use email to keep your customers and prospects informed (ex: change in business hours) and/or reassured (ex: precautions your business is taking during the crisis).
If you don't have an email marketing tool for your business, try out a free trial of Constant Contact which gives you all the tools you need to create professional-looking emails to keep in touch with prospects and clients. 

6.    Remain active on social media. If you have a passionate customer or fan base, they want to hear from you! Even if you're forced to temporarily close or cut back, stay in touch virtually. You'll probably see a lot of support come your way and you'll stay top of mind with your community for when you re-open.      

7.    Run a gift card promotion. Run a special offer on gift cards. This can bring in revenue now and foot traffic or attention to your business later.

Have other ideas or suggestions? Please share in the comments. Or contact me for assistance with your business marketing. jocelynm@marketing-er.com

5 Tips for Managing Social Media When You Have Limited Time

With the massive number of people actively participating in online social media platforms, it's become a necessity for your business to get organized with your social media marketing.  As social media continues to change the way people communicate, it is an increasingly important tool for small businesses.

But where does a small business owner or manager find the time to create and post content and keep multiple social media profiles active?

Keeping up with social media for your businesses doesn’t have to mean a heavy time commitment.  Here are some tips to help:

1. What’s the Plan?

Every action you take on your social media platforms should be part of a larger strategy and plan. Define what you want to achieve on social media (ex: build your brand, increase sales through offers, drive traffic to a landing page, promote a new product line, etc.) and develop a strategy to get there.  If you map out a plan, the more effective you’ll be in its implementation.

2.  Create Content in Bulk

Set aside time once or twice a month to create your content. Follow industry keywords, relevant people in your industry or trending hashtags to keep up on the latest news.  Create your social posts from all the info you collect.  In addition to info and news about your products and services, offer valuable industry info to keep readers coming back.

3. Advanced Scheduling

Use automation to make your life easier. Who has time to post on multiple social sites daily? Schedule the bulk of your social posts in advance.  Facebook has a built-in scheduler. Just click the drop down button next to the Publish button to select the exact date and time when you want your post to publish.

Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer can connect to all your social media accounts so you can create and schedule posts for future dates. 

4. Share and Repost

Sharing, retweeting and reposting content from others will save time while providing strong content. But be sure that the content is related to your brand, products or services in some way and be sure that it offers value to your target audience/followers.

And save time by reposting some of your old content. Not all posts get read the first time around republish your evergreen content.

5. Hire an Expert

If you find that you just can’t keep up with social media, it might be time to hire a professional. Depending on your budget and goals, a freelancer or a marketing agency may help you better leverage social media to grow your business.

Leverage Videos & Virtual Events to Increase Your Reach.

“Show the readers everything, tell them nothing!” - Ernest Hemingway

Yes, show and don’t tell. It is a powerful storytelling technique that can help us gain attention from our audience. It becomes more important in this day and age when businesses are driven by technology, and videos and social media are also quickly becoming more important in our marketing strategies. Every business is competing for “eye balls” and “face time” so the question is, what do we do to increase our reach in less time?

1.     Videos

Video is the perfect format for quickly grabbing busy audience’s attention. Remember, facts tell, stories sell and here are 3 reasons why marketers use videos:

·         To put emphasis on showing (not telling)

·         A video becomes memorable due to the storytelling process.

·         Videos can be used to measure success using video analytics.

“A picture says 10,000 words and a video says 50,000 words!”

This year, in 2015, video marketing and the play button will take center stage. More marketers will realize the importance of video as part of their digital marketing strategies.

As our devices get smarter, so should we! More than 50% of viewers watch more than three quarters or a given video, and more than 70% of marketing professionals report that video converts better than any other medium. Take YouTube for example. It is a great channel for distributing videos because it can help us increase and expand our reach, and most importantly, attract new audiences.

Almost everyone I know, and especially business folks, either owns a computer, a smartphone, a tablet, or all three. So the fact that many are spending less time watching the TV and migrating to their favorite devices in search of “on demand content”, it is almost essential that every business leverage videos to reach their audience faster. At the touch of a “play” button, we are able to access the information and/or content, and the best thing is, we can do it on our time

2. Virtual Events

Virtual events are very valuable because they have the ability to increase and expand the reach of our events to an unlimited number of people who can attend from anywhere in the world. The best thing about it is, they don’t even need to leave their desks! Many companies are trying to serve a global marketplace and virtual events are the perfect tool to amplify the power and reach of events.

When Are Virtual Events Right for Your Business?

1.     If you want to expand the reach of your target audience beyond a specific region.

o    They help dramatically increase participation especially when in-person marketing tools like live seminars and large physical events are limited in scale by demography and behavior. This is why many companies and organizations that run large physical events are now adding a virtual component, enabling anyone to attend, from anywhere.

2.     Budget

o    Virtual events can be significantly more cost effective than traditional in-person events and they often deliver increased value for our investment.

o    Removing the challenges and expenditures required to deliver a brick and mortar event allows us to focus on more important content.

3.     Virtual events are savvy and cool because they help build and connect online communities!

o    In many post event surveys, virtual event participants say that they really enjoy the virtual experience. They are able to easily participate without disrupting their work and personal lives.

ABOUT ZEF ZAN

Zef Zan is an entrepreneur and the President and Founder of Entrepreneurs That SOAR!, a New Media Marketing company where she is known for being a “High Tech, High Touch Marketing Strategist” who helps entrepreneurs and business folks leverage videos, webcasts, and virtual events via Hangouts to increase reach and humanize your brand. She also aces at helping individuals and teams harness the power and reach of social media to build connectivity and communities globally.

Zef is also an inspirational speaker, and the creator, producer, and host of two web shows, Creative Chat Cafe, The Business Talk Show Hangouts, aired every Wednesday at 12:30 pm ET on www.EntrepreneursThatSOAR.com , and Zef’s Zest TV on YouTube.

Online Holiday Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

The holiday season is the busiest selling time for many businesses. If you haven't started, now's the time to plan your holiday marketing campaigns to maximize your seasonal selling success!

Here are a few marketing tips to help you make the most of your online holiday sales:

1. Holiday Season Kick Off

The official holiday season begins right after Thanksgiving. Keep in mind these key shopping dates when planning your marketing campaigns:

• Black Friday 
• Small Business Saturday 
• Cyber Monday 

2. What's the Deal?

Your customers and prospects will be looking for great holiday offers, deals and discounts.  Put some thought into creating the most compelling offer for your target audience.

Try attracting new customers by offering holiday specials on daily deal sites such as Groupon and Amazon Local.  Offer deals that are only redeemable for a short time and extend discounts on high margin products or services.

Email continues to drive traffic and sales. It's consumers' preferable method of contact with brands. Use email to offer holiday coupons to your targeted list of customers and prospects. Treat your customers to specials, free shipping and secret sales tailored just for them.

3. Social-ize

Social campaigns should play a significant role in your holiday marketing. Your customers and prospect will be scanning social networks for gift ideas and the best offers.  It's crucial to create a social posting schedule to ensure that you don't miss a beat. Map out all of your posts for the social networks that are right for your business during the weeks leading up to and through the holiday season.

Remember to balance your promotional posts with useful information. Offer product advice, tips, and include fun stuff like videos and photo contests to keep your audience engaged.

4.  Stay Connected

Don't forget to build your email list! Capture contact information of any new customers and prospects and ask permission to send specials, tips and newsletters, etc. throughout the year so you can drive business beyond the holiday season.

Need help pulling your holiday marketing campaigns together? Contact Jocelyn Murray to set up a complimentary consultation to see how I can help!

Holiday Business Marketing Tips for a Holly Jolly Season

The holiday season is the busiest selling time of year for many companies. Experts (National Retail Federation) predict that sales increases in November and December will be greater (3.9%) that last holiday season (3.5%)!

If your business earns a majority of its income during the holidays, here are a few marketing tips to help you maximize your holiday success:

1. Pursue repeat business from existing customers by offering them specials, free shipping and secret sales.

2. Bundle products or services to create holiday "packages" to sell more.

3. Now's the time to post your holiday tips, advice or gift ideas on social media (use lots of pics and video). This timely info will get you noticed on your social sites.

4. Attract new customers by offering holiday specials on daily deal sites such as Groupon and Amazon Local.  Extend discounts on high margin products or services.

5. Target local customers through print ads in newspapers (always include a coupon!). For easy local online advertising for small businesses, check out Google Adwords Express.

6. Send a press release to local media with your business' holiday related tips. Follow up with a phone call to the editor/reporter you emailed the information to and you'll increase your odds of getting it published.

7. Give affordable gifts to your best customers or throw an open house/holiday party for all your customers and business partners.

Need more marketing ideas or help putting together your business' holiday campaigns? Contact me to set up a complimentary consultation to see how I can help!