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Content Marketing seems like all the rage these days, but what does it really mean for the small business owner and how can you use it for your business? Before we get into the meat of things, let’s define content marketing, according to Content Marketing Institute,
“content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” For the small business owner, it means you need to get on board and figure out your content marketing strategy and start sharing your valuable expertise. This can seem overwhelming to some, but it does not have to be. Content Marketing for the small business owner is simply giving your customers what they value from you: advice about an issue they are having, conversation when they enter your place of business, inspiration through sharing something positive or uplifting to brighten their day, education and any information you know they will find valuable. Your customers will thank you which can mean leads you can turn into sales. It is not a quick process, it is a long term commitment like any good relationship with a high potential for customer loyalty. As a guideline here are 5 types of content you should share with your customers.
3. Inspirational: provide relevant motivational images, videos or a funny customer story. Use hi res images for motivational posts, I find these to be much more inspiring with a great quote.
4. Entertaining: everyone loves to be entertained, show a lighter side to your business by sharing a fun video you found online, however keep it as relevant as possible to your business, then again who doesn't love a good video of a cat chasing his tail.
1. Advice: give your target audience advice on a problem they may have, offer valuable solutions and ideas. Make sure you follow up with your advice, to see if the problem was resolved.
2. Educational: provide information where your customers are sure to learn something, this can be in the form of e-book,a simple cheat sheet with helpful tips and tricks or a how to information. This type of content depending on your business should be the bulk of your content marketing strategy. You can include some promotional information here, but keep it very limited.
5. Get personal: customers love reading personal stories, share something about you, like how you got started or a sneak peek into a new product/service you are working on.
For a detailed list of content ideas check out this link from QUICKSPROUT 15 types of content to drive more traffic. I hope you find these tips helpful and please let me know if you have any questions or comments. 7. If you need to give your images a face lift here are 2 easy to use tools to edit and get free images from: a. www.picmoney.com b. www.canva.com I hope you find these tips helpful and take the next step to implement them now. Email me with any questions or comments. farzanahmo@gmail.com 1. Add your Facebook URL to your email signature. Here is an example of my signature and as you can see, it is easy for anyone to click to my social media pages and website. 4. Include your Facebook URL on your business cards. Here is a simple and effective example. 5. Talk more about your brand benefits and reason for being versus your product features on your Facebook page. Follow these simple rules when posting, educate, entertain and inspire people when they come to your page. People buy from you because you are able to solve a problem or you are able to improve their lives in some way, show this on your page by giving tips and advice. This tip can be tricky as you want sell at the end of the day, so you may not be able to help yourself, however keep in mind people buy into the why more than what! 6. Have text treatment over an image. This can really make both the image and the message for the image stand out when done well. Here is a nice example of how it’s used in this post. By the way this beautiful image is from www.canva.com and it is free. Check it out for other amazing free images. 2. Link your profile to your Facebook page – do this by showing it as your place of work on your personal profile page. 3. Email your list and invite them to become a super fan of your page – for me I emailed a special list of supporters who I know who would be fantastic brand ambassadors, take a look at your list and start segmenting it to send out a special invite. You can make it exclusive by sharing the inside scoop of what you are working on and ask for their advice. Everyone loves to give their opinion so why not ask for it. Last week was Canada Day(July 1st) and soon followed was Independence Day (July 4th). This year I was lucky to be home in Canada celebrating with my fellow Canadians and family as I currently call Miami home. I have to say, it felt good to be there and was happy that our annual trip coincided with Canada's birthday, it has been at least 10 years since I was in Canada for this particular holiday. These fantastic days, July 1st and July 4th, also made me reflect on how great celebrations are for the soul, they really make you feel good to be around people who share the same uplifting feeling, the mood is usually different and there tends to be a sense of joy and friendliness. Now wouldn't it be great to feel a sense of celebration everyday and even better how can we translate this joy into our small businesses ? Here is my take on how we can turn any ordinary day into a celebration for your business. 1. Make your customers feel special every time they enter your store. Welcome them, learn something about them like their birthday or name so that you can follow up with a special email offer. 2. Create a celebration in your store. Who wouldn't want to be in a store that feels festive and where everyone is in a good mood. You could do this by simply celebrating the non traditional holidays on the calendar, like chocolate day. Make sure to get your employees involved and taking part. 3. Offer a sample or gift of some sort. It could be an item you may already sell, a coupon for a discount or a useful promotional item. 4. Have a block party in your store or social media page, this doesn't have to be extravagant, simply invite customers for champagne Fridays, or virtually pop a champagne bottle on your social media page every Friday. The idea is to keep it festive and fun. 5. Have a special shout out on your social media pages for customers, this could range from taking a picture of someone in your store and posting it, to giving away an online prize for guessing something simple, like how many days of the month have "r's" in it. Celebrate the winner! I hope you have a great celebration everyday in both your personal and business life. Please add any other celebration ideas you may have, I would love to hear from you. The summer for some businesses can mean slower times and less traffic on and off line.
Lots of people take vacations with the kids out of school and for some cities, like Miami, where it can get too hot, people find ways to escape by leaving. However, your business doesn’t take a vacation, so you need to keep customers interested with a reason to come in on or offline. With years of experience creating promotions for brands, like Fiji, Red Bull, Kellogg’s and many more I’ve found they work. They are a great way to engage with customers, build brand visibility and in turn sales. Here are 8 fun low budget ideas to do just that.
The idea is to create fun interactive promotions that entertain your customers, keeps your brand top of mind, and most of all builds loyalty. Recently, I was trying to make a purchase for additional services at a place I frequent. I went up to the nice lady at the front desk asked a few questions, got a quick response but still had a few more follow up questions that would have led to me pulling out my credit card to make my purchase. But before I could finish asking, I got the one finger in the air signal to hold on. The phone rang, so she proceeded to answer it versus finishing up with me, I waited one minute got side tracked with my phone and decided to leave as she was taking too long. At the time of this interaction, it all seemed harmless, as the people at this business are usually helpful. After a day, this interaction lingered with me (my marketing hat on) and made me think, that was not good customer service for the business. They missed out on an immediate $1100 sale to take a phone call, which also made me wonder, who is more important, a customer right in front of you, or some guy or girl on the phone? My strong advice to business owners, being on the receiving end of this, I strongly suggest to never let a customer who is right in front you walk out the door. It is far easier and better business to make a sale to this person than to take a phone call. Leave it to voicemail, or answer the call and place the person on hold for a reasonable time. I also hate being on hold too long. Now that I’ve had too much time to think about this, I am debating whether I want to make this purchase, ever! Have you had this happened to you? Whether it’s in life or business we all need a strategy to get where and what we want. You can say, it’s like a road map to creating and delivering the life you seek personally or professionally. For some, it can take a long time to figure this out and one can spend a great deal of time and energy on useless tactics or guys that reap no rewards. For others, they know what they want and they go for it! It's kind of like dating. In my experience, most women, no matter how much of a free spirit, free love type they claim to be, deep down want a stable, honest, reliable relationship with a man they can trust and feel a sense of security with. However, their strategy to this ultimate goal can be flawed and they do the same things or in this case date the same type of guy over and over again expecting different results, the true meaning of insanity! To help solve this insanity and shed some light on developing your marketing or dating plan, here are my 5 tips for creating a successful plan whether you are seeking love or a marketing success. 1. Determine who your target is, whether it’s looking for the ideal partner or the perfect customer, you need to understand who your target customer is, where they are and how to attract them to what you are selling. Please note ladies, do not target the same type of douche bag guy to date over and over again, branch out try different methods to meet the right guy. 2. Know what your unique selling proposition is and communicate it effectively or in this case it should be your personality, values and beliefs, don’t lead with your cup size or superficial assets to find the right guy for you. 3. Make sure you have clear quantifiable objectives in your marketing plan and stay focused. For instance if you want a decent guy, do not go on several dates with a guy who is not right for you. Trust me you are not going to be the one to change him. 4. Identify the steps you need to take to get what you want, this is the most important part of creating a strategy. You must lay out a step by step plan as to how you are going to meet your goals. Keep in mind you may need to adjust your tactics as you go, so be fluid in your decisions not your bed mates. 5. Finally assess the risk and outcome of your decisions and always measure your results against your objectives. If not you do not measure your results, then there is no point in creating a plan and executing it. In doing so you have a better chance of success in business and dating. In conclusion, I hope you found this fun analogy helpful and it gave you a different perspective on how to determine your marketing strategy with dash of dating advice thrown in. Once you have a plan, I guarantee you, it’s a lot easier to obtain your goals, but keep in mind be fluid in your thinking and stay true to your purpose and adjust accordingly but do not sacrifice your brand integrity. There is so much information on the web to help you market your small business, but sometimes it can be overwhelming to digest it all and execute. I certainly think so. I am forever a student and love learning about new marketing tools and strategies that I can implement to help small business owners get ahead of the game. I want to share with 4 excellent resources on the web that I visit often for valuable content. These sites and bloggers cut through the clutter and provides inspiration on those much needed moments. 1. www.entrepreneur.com offers a wealth of great articles, how to pieces and inspiration to help you figure out your business and marketing game plan. I especially like this section Marketing Basics which provides valuable how to information about marketing your business. In addition, there is a section that highlights how other real life small businesses are succeeding. 2. www.smallbiztrends.com pretty much has everything you need as a resource for your small business. The categories include marketing, finance, advice, events and many more. This is definitely a one stop shop. Here is a great article I found for inspiration: How an Old School Business Discovered the Internet and Grew 350 Percent 3. www.socialmediaexamier.com is where the social media gurus live. It is the largest online social media magazine and is full of great information on how to market your business on the various platforms. I like that you can listen to podcasts on this site which gives us a break from reading. If you are getting started on social media, here is a getting started tool you can use - Getting Started with Social Media. 4. Lastly a few blogs I like to follow and read for perspective includes; Jeff Bullas, Convince and Convert and Online Marketing Addicts. These blogs are not necessarily the best of the best, but for me they provide good valuable insight on what these experts in their respective fields see working for them and how we can apply it to our business. Read and decide for yourself. If you have any suggestions on where to get valuable easy to digest content. Please share with me. Thanks. As a small business owner, you cannot afford to turn any customers away and must always put your brand forward.
Let’s face it we don’t have big budgets for massive brand building campaigns so every little bit we can do to create a better customer experience goes a long way. And from experience, I’ve noticed these 5 essential customer service elements are not always met, and it’s a sure way to lose business. These are:
I hope you found these tips helpful to deliver a better customer experience. Contact me with any questions. Thanks. There are so many tools and resources out there to help you run your business, but who has the time to decipher which ones will work the best. For me, I like to keep it simple, my everyday marketing online needs are covered by these 5 basic easy to use digital assistants. They help me create, mail and share to get the job done. 1. Canva - do you need free great looking images for your social media posts, emails or blogs? Try Canva, it provides images with the proper sized dimensions for any of your online needs. In addition to pictures, it has great layout templates to help you customize your masterpiece with text or your own images. You can also purchase images for only $1 if the free ones aren't doing it for you. Check it out and use it for free at www.canva.com 2. PicMonkey - this is mainly an image editing tool. There are some free images, but not enough to choose from. The editing features are excellent with lots of choices for text, overlays, backgrounds, collages and more. You can use it without signing up or sign up for a reasonable membership fee and have access to additional features and layouts. A very easy to use image editing software especially if you are new at editing pictures. Check it out and use it for free at www.picmonkey.com 3. MailChimp - this is my favorite email provider. The templates and layouts offer a variety of choices for any type of email you need to send out. The list sorting feature is very versatile and allows you several practical ways to sort your emails, for example by last name, email address, location etc. You can send to various types of lists you create by using these filters as well. The templates are beautifully designed, have all the social media plugins you need and is mobile friendly. Importantly, you can send 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers for free. Check it out and use it for free at www.mailchimp.com 4. Dropbox - are you on the go, need to share files with others and want to access to everything while you are with clients anywhere ,anytime? Then Dropbox is a very practical solution for you and your small business. It is easy to download or login from anywhere to gain access at anytime. Store your files in the cloud, and only share what you choose to with the ability to remove file sharing access at anytime. You can also download Dropbox on your phone, or as a folder onto your computer and the folder automatically gets updated whenever you make changes online. Dropbox provides 2GB free space and you can buy more as you need. Check it out and use if for free at www.dropbox.com 5. Fiverr - so you don't have the time to do any of this yourself and have a very limited budget ,then try Fiverr to get a logo, Facebook cover, flyer, email header and just about anything done for only $5. The Fiverr site makes it very affordable and easy to use. It's free to sign up and you can review hundreds of providers before selecting the one that best suits you. Keep in mind you are paying $5 so you may not always get exactly what you are looking for, but I've gotten some great work from these guys at a very affordable price. Check it out and use it for free at www.fiverr.com 4 simple rules to deliver better posts, blogs and messages when writing for your small business.3/6/2015 As a small business owner, I am sure you’ve thought about blogging for your business or perhaps you've wondered how to write much more captivating posts or email campaigns to attract your target audience.
To help you do this effectively, I would like to share 4 simple rules I’ve learned from my writing course, “Writing with Flair”. It will help you get into the writing mindset faster and deliver with elegance and precision.
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Hi my name is Farzanah. I am a marketing pro with 10 + years of experience in marketing management and a busy mom dedicated to helping small business owners improve their marketing with copy writing that transforms their online visitors into taking action. Trending Posts
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