Start Your Daily Marketing Habit
Marketing can slip to the back burner when you are trying to manage a business. But small business owners must move it to the front or there might not be a business to manage! I understand, though, that working with staff, customers and product can suck a lot of time and energy from the guy or gal who runs it all. But despite understanding, I can't encourage you enough to make a habit of marketing. And to help, here are some things. Do one or two each day. Add them to your planner, your Outlook task list, whatever productivity tool you use and be consistent. Small consistent steps trump occasional large ones. Add a variety of these marketing tasks to your daily "to do's":
Check results: This means taking a look at your pay-per-click campaign and email blast results, blog traffic, web traffic, keywords, Facebook ads and more on Google Analytics and other analytical tools.
Network online: Hop onto your company's Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook account. Say hello, follow some new people, check out Tweetgrid to see what's being said about your industry,
Think of a compelling offer: What offer can you ad to your website that would draw traffic in? BE SURE you change these up, at least every few months. Send reminders of the offers in your email blasts and newsletters, blog and do social networking status updates about them.
Tell a story: Walk around your business and look for a story. Do you have an employee who has been with you since the company opened? Do you have an employee who was recognized recently by a customer for their service? Do you have a new production process? Look for your story and then film or photograph it and share it on your company site, blog and/or newsletter!
Comment on a post: If you aren't using a blog reader to keep up on industry and general business news, set one up immediately (Google Reader is an easy choice). Review recent posts as part of your marketing habit and look for posts to comment on. Adding your voice to the conversation draws attention to your business.
Shoot a video: Teach your customers something. Providing free information is a great compelling offer. Sit down and have a video conversation or training moment with them. Add it to all of the main video sites as well as your site.
Place an online ad: Read The Long Tail to understand how lots of tiny ads across a variety of platforms can reach huge results. Look for smaller sites and do a banner ad. Check Alexa.com to get an idea of a sites traffic to see if it will generate enough interest for your potential customers. Consider targeted keyword ads on Facebook or via Google Adwords. Whatever you do, strive to do one or more of these things on a daily basis. Let us know how this works for you in our marketing forums.
by Steven Schlagel