Small business marketing can either be active or passive…so what’s the difference? Basically it is whether you are working like a farmer or a hunter!

I felt like I have to write this post because of meetings I have had with clients lately (coaching and social media marketing). All were with favorite clients and they were very telling in how much resistance I got for my suggestions! So this is what happened at my meetings…

• Yesterday I met with two of my favorite clients and was talking with them about their marketing efforts. During the talk I suggested that they do “popbys” which is hand delivering a small gift to your customers and prospects. They said that doing that would be very time intensive and that they would rather do things that are more time-effective. Fair enough.
• Day before that, I was talking with a Realtor client and asked if she was doing open houses. She said she was too busy working on transactions to take the time to do open houses and that she wasn’t sure that doing them would be time effective. Fair enough.
• Last week I talked to a coaching client who is ROCKING it, but she needed some ideas about how to get more targeted business. I suggested she do in-person networking and sell a $97 consultation. She seemed to think that, having tried that in the past and not had too much success (before she had a GREAT product), she felt that it would not be time effective. Fair enough.

Huh. I was starting to sense a theme here…:) So what were “time-effective” strategies? Some of them were doing cold calling, a couple were doing email newsletters and one was relying on the internet for leads. NONE felt that getting belly to belly with humans would be a good idea. Sigh.

What Do Small Business Marketing Farmers Do?

DO NOT get me wrong! I love planting sales seeds and watching them grow. I DO think you should build up lists that will eventually turn into business. I DO think that consistent marketing done over time will result in consistent sales.

What I don’t think is that farming is ALL you should do (especially if you are doing it because it saves time and effort – you will get the best results from doing things that are hard which other people refuse to do!)

Farmers…

• Do one-on-one meetings with people who are not looking to buy their products right now but who could be a good referral source in the future
• Work for years on their website, getting ranked for keywords that will get them traffic and sales – my favorite!
• Hold informational seminars where they collect names of people who are in an industry for later use
• Grow large social media networks of people interested in their industry
• Start an email newsletter list and send out emails once a month
• Attend networking groups, mixers and leads groups

Now, many of you may be thinking, gee Tara, isn’t farming what you sell? SURE! I have built a highly sustainable, income producing, sellable business over the last 10 years PARTLY by farming. We have gotten clients AMAZING sales and opportunities through these methods and if you follow me at all, you know I am a HUGE proponent of growing big lists and communicating with them regularly.

BUT, if you want to sell something SOON, you need to get in front of humans that can buy your stuff NOW!

What Do Small Business Marketing Hunters Do?

• Call targeted prospects who have expressed an interest in buying their product or service – we ALL have leads that have fallen through the cracks and feel crumby about it, CALL THEM!
• Stop by targeted prospects offices with TWO popbys (small tokens of your undying affection), one for the gatekeeper and one for the prospect
• Speak at an event where you are the featured guest and sell something to the people there (I use a sort of passive approach by having a signup form for an hour long consultation, you could be more aggressive about it – selling from the stage)
• Taking a prospect to lunch
• Holding an open house or brokers opens if you are in real estate – people DO NOT stop by an open house unless they are thinking of buying or selling
• Asking EVERYONE who wants some of your time, “Are you planning on buying my product or service in the next 30 days” before agreeing to meet with them (tire kickers are not a good use of time!)

So, should you do ONLY hunting, flitting from one prospect to the next, kicking them to the curb if they do not buy in your timeframe? A resounding NO! But I will say that as far as I can tell, most small business owners are MUCH more comfortable farming than they are hunting.

I don’t know if time is REALLY an issue either. YES, it does take time to meet someone in person or get to an event, BUT people who have looked you in the eye and shaken your hand are much more likely to remember you than people who joined your email list or only talk with you on social media. Think about it, the person on the other end is busy too, they get your call and think, “yeah should call her back” and something comes up.

When I ask someone if they are busy, they say YES like it is a individual thing happening only to them. I have to say that whenever I ask it, EVERYONE is busy. You are not ESPECIALLY busy, your tasks are not ESPECIALLY hard, everyone had lots to do, is on overwhelm and doesn’t have time to waste. The difference between people who are busy and happy and those that are busy and frantic is time management, calendaring and saying no.

Hope this helps your small business marketing efforts, that you do a little more hunting, still keep on farming and get out there and SELL SOMETHING!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Lead Generating Sales Funnel

Small business lead generating is a big deal over here in our marketing world! We are really good at helping you fill your sales funnel, but if these leads never follow through to a conversion and a sale then it is a wasted effort.

While working with our small biz clients, we often hear that they have gotten “no leads”. Huh, that is weird since I see leads coming across the email, in blog comments and as requests for info on Social Media. I think what they are saying is that they have gotten no “sales” or new clients. This can happen because of a breakdown between leads and sales.

Today we are going to look at all the pieces that go in making a successful lead to sales transaction.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel (also known as the sales pipeline) is the term for the process by which we add A LOT of leads into the top of the funnel and sales come out of the bottom, losing some along the way. The parts of the sales funnel can be called a lot of different things including prospects, suspects, and customers; leads, visitors and pre-qualifications.

We are going to look at some of the normal sales-funnelly things, but then we are going to talk specifically about where your process may be failing your conversions. It can be VERY easy to get caught up in the labeling and not look a the practical aspects of going from propects to sales.

The Practical Sales Funnel

Leads – Opportunity

Leads can look like many things. They can be a message sent through Facebook asking about your services, an email info request, a response back to your email newsletter, basically any time someone talks to you about the goods or services that you sell. THE FIRST THING you should do after getting one of these messages is to add this person to your database, CRM (customer relationship management software), or spreadsheet of prospects. Make sure to note what kind of service or product they were interested in.

This is the first step of your sales funnel and just consists of collecting their contact information so that you can communicate with them on an ongoing basis.

Sales Call – Connection

The first time that you contact this prospect (whether it be by email or phone), your goal should be to set an appointment. An appointment for a formal phone call or in-person meeting where you can talk over your offerings at a time that is convenient and when the prospect will be receptive to listening to you.

I think that this should be over the phone as you have not pre-qualified this person enough to know if they are a good fit. Can they afford your product or service? Are they ready to buy within the next 30 days? Have they researched any of your competitors?

These are all vital things to know and you are just wasting time meeting with someone who is not ready, willing and able to buy your product or service.

Follow Up – Timing

I am going to tell you something that you may find shocking. Most prospects do not buy right away, gasp. Honestly, I have asked some of our clients how many times they followed up on a sales lead and they say that they never followed up because the person did not buy after the first contact. This is what we in the business call BURNING LEADS. The prospect raised their hand and said they were interested, but probably did not have enough information to take out their credit card and buy.

You should follow up a phone call with an immediate personal note or email, thanking them for their time. You should then reach out with offers of additional info at least two or three times more over the next couple of weeks (put it in your calendar). After that, make sure they are on your newsletter list so they receive ongoing communications from you, which could remind them why they called you in the first place!

If you are a typical small business owner, you are probably a TERRIBLE salesperson. If this is the case (as it is with me) you are going to need to hire someone to follow up for you. You can pay this person a fixed rate or “spiff” them an amount for each appointment they set for you. DO NOT skimp on this, a good salesman can make you more money than you ever imagined possible!

Conversion – Obstacles

Okay, you have a lead and they want to buy BUT they have not pulled the trigger (ie paid you yet). This is the most frustrating part of the sales process and one you need to look at very closely because it is probably your fault that the sale is not moving forward!

First off, make sure it is VERY easy for your prospect to pay. Just this week we had a lady call and say she had been waiting for us to send her a link for payment. Now I KNOW that we sent that link over a week or so ago, BUT what matters is that we re-send it to her right away while she is paying attention to us.

Another great example about how a process can fall apart is one of my bookkeeping clients. She takes her prospects, sends them to her salesperson to follow up, gets them excited about her services, they say they want to buy and then…NOTHING. In my opinion, the sale is falling apart because she expects them to gather their receipts, bank statements and other financial documents together themselves. To me it feels like, if they could do all that themselves, what would they need her for?!?!?! We suggested that she make a part of her services a two hour, holding-your-hand and getting your documents together startup meeting. This way, she will get the client on board AND she will be losing less of them due to the fact that they are terrible at accounting tasks.

Sale – Persistence

Overall, sales takes persistence and can be absolutely, soul-killingly hard if you are not geared to enjoying being a salesperson. BUT, if you make it a game to see how many people you can move down your small business lead generating sales funnel, removing speed bumps along the way, you WILL make more sales. This in turn will make it much more likely that you will want to do it again and and again!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Marketing – The DISC and Your Sales Funnel
2. Lead Generating – What Is A Lead And Are You Following Up?
3. Twitter and Google Great Lead Generating Tools

Small business marketing is full of fun things to trip you up! How your disc personality index and your sales funnel can keep you from making sales from all those leads.

Your sales funnel is the process by which you get people to buy from you. They move through the funnel from Sales Leads to Followup to Conversion to Sales. Very rarely will someone call you from a piece of your marketing and be ready to buy on the spot. This is where your DISC personality type can get you into trouble!

My DISC personality type is a D – driver. When I buy something I do not research 1,000 different options, ask for referrals or angst about the buying process. My sales process usually goes like this, I hear about something interesting, I buy it. This makes it VERY hard for me to sell to other people of different personality types. They generally do not make decisions that way and so I have to have systems in place that will allow them to learn more about my products or services (followup), give them buying options and a little time to decide (conversion) and then, bang they buy. This process can take MUCH longer than I think it should and requires that I have an active part in making the sale.

One of things that I do, knowing that I am that “D” type personality, is to slow down when I am talking to a prospect who is NOT like me. I talk lower and slower so that I do not scare them off. I answer ALL of their questions, even if I think that it is crazy to ask so many. I also have other people involved in the sales cycle who are better than I am at calling to followup and also to send information that is going to be vital to making the sale.

D types are good rainmakers and can help drive new leads into your sales funnel.

I Personality Type and Sales – “I” or intuitive type people are GREAT salesmen or women. They like the social interaction that comes from talking and getting to know new people. They truly care about the prospect and want to make sure they understand what they need. The one thing that can hurt an I is wanting to “make the sale”. A lot of times I’s will not want to lose the sale because the company is not able to perform a certain task. If you are an I, watch out for trying to make your prospect happy at the detriment of your business going forward!

Another thing that I’s have to look out for is the high-highs and the low-lows. Every lead feels like a win and they are ready to run with it, BUT every no feels like a loss or even a personal rejection. This can cause disappointment or frustration and if enough come at the same time, I’s can get thrown off of their games for weeks at a time. My suggestion to I’s if this happens is to call one of your favorite current or past clients to get a warm fuzzy about what you are good at and get right back on that horse again!

I types are good rainmakers and can also drive leads into your sales funnel.

C Personality Types and Sales – “C” Type people are analytical and facts driven. They want all the details of the process to be outlined and would like the sales funnel to be linear. I have a client who is a Denver Bookkeeper, TOTALLY a “C” type. To her the sales process should run like a well oiled machine. A sales lead comes in, a phone call is made, a meeting is set, facts are given and then the prospect buys. Easy-peasy! Well, we have been tracking how that is working in function and initially there was a gap in her followup. If the person did not buy on the first call, she wrote them off as not a “real” lead, not thinking that the sales cycle for most people is longer than one call. She has implemented a great followup call system using a true salesperson who stays in contact with her prospect, but still has a hard time closing the sale.

We talked yesterday and the gap is now at the prospect preparing their documents in order to be able to hire her. They want bookkeeping help, they need bookkeeping help, but they are not functionally doing the tasks required to make this possible like collecting bank statements, filling out spreadsheets or getting their receipts in order. This gap actually makes sense! If the person is not generally good at keeping these things together then they will be overwhelmed at the thought of having assemble them in order to hire a bookkeeper. My suggestion was to make part of her services a “hand holding” hour or two where she gets together with the prospect or client to get those items together. To her it feels silly, “why can’t they just get those things to me”, but to the people who need help, this could be a HUGE value add!

C type people are technically good at details and followup.

S Personality Types and Sales – If you are a D or an I type personality and need help with your sales, go TODAY and find a “S” to help you! S type people are stable, steady and caring. They will take all of the crazy ideas that you have and help you to implement them. They will followup on prospects and help them make good buying decisions that are win-win for you both.

I have a S! She is great for me as she doesn’t get distracted by my wild flights of fancy, she is dedicated to helping our company grow and she is the one all the customers say “I LOVE Michelle”. OF COURSE they love Michelle, by personality type she is set up to be caring and nurturing.

C type people make great customer service and inside sales people, getting prospects through the whole funnel to the sale.

I will bet you a dollar that your DISC personality type is effecting your sales process in some way, making your small business marketing efforts less effective. Take a look and really see what you might be doing to cause gaps in the process, find the holes and fix them! If you are looking for ways to improve the process, take a DISC personality yourself AND give one to any new people your are considering hiring – while it is fun to have someone who shares your DISC personality type, more often than not you need someone who is NOT like you to help grow your sales.

Related posts:

1. DISC Personality Types and Small Business Marketing
2. Small Business Lead Generating Sales Funnel
3. How DISC Personality Types Affect Customer Service Models

We spend a lot of time talking about lead generating here. Marketing is all about getting opportunities to sell your product to someone who has a need. BUT what if your customer service is letting your lead generating down?

Last week Lowes sent me a really great email newsletter with ideas about how to make my laundry room a fun and functional place. It painted the picture so well that I trotted out this weekend in search of some paint, shelving and baskets to use on the project. Now, since the idea came from the Lowes email, I decided to visit that retailer rather than Home Depot where I normally shop for these kind of items.

Differentiating Your Business From The Crowd

As most of us know, Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware and other stores have the same kinds of products, much the same way that all Mary Kay reps, bookkeepers or Florists offer the same makeup, accounting or flowers respectively. So what can a small business owner do to differentiate themselves from the competition?

Offer ridiculously good customer service – With all the outsourcing overseas, it is rare that I call a company that has its call center in America. GoDaddy has GREAT customer service who are ridiculously patient with non-techy people. Most small business owners are the ones to answer the phone and make decisions about how problems are to be handled. What if you decided that each request or problem from your customers was a chance to make that relationship better?

Note – I started going to Home Depot because of marketing. Tony Stewart (a Nascar driver) is my favorite and he represented Home Depot for years so marketing got my feet in the door. What kept me coming back was the fact that all those orange people constantly ask if they can help me and then walk me over to exactly what I was looking for, that is customer service HELPING your lead generating efforts.

Keep Your Marketing Word – If you are going to promote the “best something ever”, it better be! Many times buyers remorse comes because the marketing promise is not delivered in the actual product. My pal Seth Godin always talks about how the marketing department should be on the development team. This makes total sense for small business owners. When you are developing a product or service to offer, make sure that your company is good at doing that function and that you have systems in place to assure that the same great experience happens each time for each customer.

Set Realistic Expectations – I see more small biz owners tearing their hair out because of their unrealistic clients. Funny that, most times it is because the business owner did not frame the product in such a way as to assure that the client gets a value and the business owner makes a fair wage. Too many times small biz owners want to make the lead generating sale and worry about the implementation later. The BEST way to have happy clients is to make sure they know what they are buying and you know what you are selling!

NO One Offs – Last one! Stop changing your business to fit the needs of your clients, it won’t serve you well and it will just wind up annoying them. For example, we make small biz blogs on GoDaddy. Now is that the best host, maybe not BUT we have a 6 page document that details a step-by-step process for setting up a blog perfectly on GoDaddy. A couple of years ago someone came to us and wanted to use a different web host and said that they would not hire us unless we used their choice. It was tempting to say, “well maybe we will get more people who like that host too”. We did not take the project and in the ensuing YEARS, no one has ever asked for that host again. There was a good chance we would have done a poor job because we did not have a system in place AND I can guarantee that it would have taken twice or three times as long as usual since we would have to learn a new system.

So what does all this say about lead generating and customer service? You better make sure all of the pieces of you small biz marketing puzzle are on the same page or your efforts will just be churning and burning more unhappy customers.

PS – Because I am so happy with Home Depot, I thought Lowes would be comparable. Their products might have been, but their customer service was lacking. 3 people were at the paint station but only one (somewhat incompetent and grouchy) lady was actually help mixing paint so it took almost 20 minutes to order a gallon of paint. Then the shelving lady was barely mobile and took a 10 minute phone call in the middle of selling us some shelving. I thought I was going to have peel my mother-in-law off the ceiling, she was so mad at being ignored. Needless to say, we are back at the depot now and will just take all the great lowes ideas there!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Marketing – GREAT Customer Service
2. How DISC Personality Types Affect Customer Service Models
3. Great (and not so great) Customer Service

Lead generating is an art not a science. You need to try all different kinds of things before you will find a couple that will work for your business.

Leads come from a variety of places including referrals, websites, social media, in person networking, public relations, open houses, putting your business card on a bulletin board, teaching classes and many other places. If you are a good lead generator, your leads should be showing up from all different sources. Our current clients come from speaking, Facebook, my sphere, a referral, networking, a referral, past client and more!

Having you client base come from a variety of sources means that you can never lose all of your leads at one time. If all of your leads come from the internet and your site goes down, you are out of business. If all your leads come from your networking group and it shuts down, bam, you are back to square one.

Additionally, make sure that the contact number you use in your marketing goes to a salesperson, not the switchboard or an answering service. The warm fuzzy that sales people give them is PRICELESS!

What is a lead?

I was talking with a client today and she said she had not gotten any leads from her website. WEIRD – she had told me of at least 3 or 4 people who had called or emailed her requesting more information about her services. Well to her, a lead was someone ready, willing and able to sign up for her services with one phone call – that doesn’t happen too often to many of us!

So let us break down what a lead is – In your sales process, a lead comes in and then you take them down a progression of steps that could look this:

• A call comes in requesting information
• You send them an email with your info
• You send them a nice postcard thanking them for asking about your services
• They do not call back
• You put them on your email list and drip on them
• You call them again and leave a nice message
• They do not call back
• You call again and hit them at the right time for them to buy – cha ching!

All those steps are vital to getting the sale. If you send one email or make one phone call and do not follow up, you lead could fall prey to someone else who is more aggressive about staying in touch!

How Should You Follow Up On Your Leads

There are many ways to follow up on a lead, here are some that I have used or heard about!

• Phone them once a week until they die or buy! My friends who are aggressive prospectors say this. The best line I get from them is that they are pleasantly persistent.
• Send a card or postcard in the mail. I use a database that allows me to send out postcards for about a buck. This is a good way to make them know YOU are interested in THEM!
• Email them a personal note talking about your services.
• “Friend” them on Facebook and keep in touch that way.
• Invite them to an event you having.
• Send them your email newsletter with great information.

Basically do anything you can to stay top of mind with this person. They have expressed an interest in your services or product, do not drop the ball now!

PS – In talking further with my client, we found out that she is as bad at followup as I am. If you think this all sounds like too much to bear, hire a sales person. Many will work for commission or a stipend with bonus paid for signups. The really good ones are worth paying outright AND adding a bonus!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Lead Generating Sales Funnel
2. Crazy Goal Setting and Lead Generating Ideas
3. Twitter and Google Great Lead Generating Tools

If you are a bit of a procrastinator, like me, fooling yourself with crazy goal setting and lead generating ideas can get you motivated and keep the drive to grow your business going!

Everyone thinks that I am a go-getter with unlimited enthusiasm for my work. They say things like “I see you all over the internet” and “I could never do as much as you do”. Well, I am here to tell you, NO ONE likes doing most of the things that I have to do to grow my business, INCLUDING ME! I read the best quote the other day, “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.” Sir Winston Churchill. Most of what you have to do to grow your business is NOT what you love, it is doing what is required to succeed.

I have friends who are great at lead generating and who spend two hours every morning, EVERY day, calling prospects. If they miss their time slot, they do their calling later in the day. I know people who attend 15-20 networking events A WEEK. However you decide to focus on lead generating, you must do it A LOT and with uncompromising focus!

Here are some crazy Goal Setting and Lead Generating Ideas to get you started

• Make a grand pronouncement – This December I stated that I will write a blog post EVERY day for the entire month. This accomplishes two things, I will rank better for my target keywords which will bring me more blog traffic, BUT more importantly, it will set the habit of writing more frequently in stone. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit and I will definitely have gotten in the swing by the end of the year! Notice I did not say I will “try” to do 31 blog posts in a month. REALLY, there is NO reason that I have to try and do it, I am just GOING to do it. No excuses, just action. Like Yoda says, “Do or do not, there is no try”.
• Make goals not wishes – I have already decreed that I will get 20 new clients in 90 days. That is an attainable goal with a set number of clients I have to add. Basically if I focus on my activities I will get more leads and if I follow up on leads religiously I will get more clients. Saying that I want more clients would be a cop out. Two more could be more clients. I tend to be on the side of setting attainable goals rather than huge ones I cannot achieve but some people like to have huge goals and are still happy if they miss them, your choice, just do SOMETHING.
• Have a contest with your friends – When I was trying to grow my facebook fan page I got in a stupid contest with a friend. She got more fans and I cheated by buying Facebook ads to try and get more fans BUT the whole way through we had fun and picked at each other unmercifully. If you are competitive, this one works great!
• Get an accountability partner – I do not need someone to hold me accountable every day, BUT you might! An accountability partner is someone you call every day at a set time and report that you have accomplished your tasks for the day. The best suggestion for this that I ever heard was to give your accountability partner a check made out to an enemy for $500. If you fail to do what you are supposed to or fail to call, the accountability partner sends your check to your enemy. Now that would motivate me!
• Set up a mastermind – I am not talking about a sit around and chat mastermind. I am talking about a mastermind where you have goals, accountability and FEAR. Fear that if you do not do what you promised to do the other people in the group will lose respect for you. Once or twice a month is good for this kind of thing. ALSO, make sure you ask your mastermind group for suggestions about what they think you should do and take the ones that make you the most uncomfortable – suggestions you like will not move your business forward.
• Enlist your friends – I set up a facebook group called 31 Days of Business because I was going to be working the entire month of December and wanted company. If you can sucker your friends into doing what you are doing, the momentum of the entire group can get you going, even when you are not excited about working.
• Death March It – When I have something that I hate to do, I Death March it. I sit on a chair, curled into a little ball and do nothing but that until it is done. If it takes 16 hours, I sit for 16 hours (potty breaks and beverages are fine). No email, no chatting, no fun until it is done. This is ABSOLUTELY the best way to get something off your plate but it will make you grouchy and your family nuts so use it sparingly!

I KNOW, all of these lead generating ideas sound hard, well sorry to tell you, that is why they call it work BUT I am here to tell you that the results will be GREAT and you WILL get more business. If you are doing one or two of these things consistently, your business will increase!

Some things that motivate me:

Brian Tracy’s Blog
Gary Vaynerchuk’s Keynote Speeches

Related posts:

1. Goal Setting – Where is the finish line?
2. Lead Generating – What Is A Lead And Are You Following Up?
3. Twitter and Google Great Lead Generating Tools

I am just going to say this once, online leads are REAL leads! Not all of them, but enough to make your online marketing efforts worthwhile. Today I thought I would share some success stories with you.

I spend most of my day working on and looking at the internet. I talk with small business owners, marketers and Realtors about how their online efforts are working. Oftentimes I hear that internet leads are somehow worse than other leads. Off the top of my head…

• One of my business pals Stacy Hansen, specializing in Clearwater internet marketing, throws off the term “oh they messaged me on Facebook” like it happens everyday. And for her, sometimes it does!
• One of my Realtor buddies had her agents look at where their “A” buyers were coming from and at least 60% were “internet leads”.
• A customer got a message this morning that EXACTLY matches what he does as an inquiry. NOW, will that turn into business? It might.
• Colorado garage door guy, Rick Smith, gets requests for quotes about once a week.

The list could go on and on BUT what I want you to consider is the effort and money that goes into these leads. A blog was set up, they do a regular post about once a week, and they answer those leads promptly. Where else can you get generally free leads?

Do you have to wade through people who sent in a form but really didn’t want to be contacted? Sometimes. Do you get spam from people who promise to get you to the top of the search engines? Probably. But really, what do you have to lose except a little time and some optimism that it will work!

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Links and Leads
2. Clearwater Local Internet Marketing For Tampa Bay
3. Internet Marketing Keyword and Product Names

This post about small business marketing is a follow up to “There is no one marketing thing that works“. In that post I gave small business marketers the bad news that there is one marketing thing that works like the old yellow page ads used to. Well get ready for more bad news! If you would rather that the world go back to the way it used to be, then this may not be the post for you.

I LOVE the infomercial pitchmen! They are brilliant at separating you from your money with catchy taglines and REALLY strong call to actions. The best tagline I ever heard was “set it and forget it”. This was for a product that cooked an entire meal for you using one appliance and the salesman had the audience chant that over and over during the commercial.

Neato kitchen appliance notwithstanding, there is no set it and forget it for your small business marketing. Buying a website and blog, then ignoring it for a year will not get you top google rankings. Just setting up a business Fan Page will not grow your sales by thousands. BUT worse than that even, learning to use Facebook or Twitter will not carry you over then next 10 years of marketing.

If you had asked about the biggest social networking site a couple of years ago you would have been talking about MySpace, which has now fallen off the face of the earth marketing-wise in favor of Facebook and Twitter. If you built a state-of-the-art website 3 years ago, you may be surprised to find that an affordable blog may be the best way to drive traffic to your sales page.

Nothing stays still and if you are thinking that you can just “set and forget” your small business marketing, you may find yourself losing ground fast!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Marketing – Success Is HARD!
2. Small Business Keyword Marketing
3. Airports, Snow Boots and Your Small Business Marketing Message

Social Networking for Small Business

This is not a “how to use social networking” post. It is more a why social networking can help your small business and how you can set up systems that will allow you to use it the right way – not as a stand alone marketing magic pill but as a stable part of your small business marketing plan.

What Kind of Effort Will You Have To Make For Your Social Networking Marketing Success

If you are looking for a get rich quick scheme to do 5 minutes of social networking a week and getting major benefits, you are going to be disappointed. That having been said, it doesn’t take much time to get your social networking set up and then minimal time a day to keep it going.

It should take you about 4 hours to set up Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter plus your other programs that make using them easy. There are some tricks that make a real difference but mostly you need to make sure you:

• Pick a hub to drive everything to! I drive people back here to Marketing Artfully from Facebook but send people from LinkedIn and Twitter to my Facebook page sometimes instead of right to my site
• Include a link to your website, blog or whatever you are using as your Hub to send all of your people to
• Fill out anything they ask you to – many times they use the information in past jobs and volunteer activities to find connections for you
• Remember to use a call to action that benefits your readers like “check out our information to help you..” or “find out more about making the most of your..”
• DO NOT try to overtly sell on Social Networking sites, do that by driving people to your home page and then sell there

I offer a social networking how to video series that will help you get up and running fast if you like to do it yourself. NOTE: We offer lifetime updates and will be raising the price to $47 starting January 1^st so if you think you are intested in it, please buy now before the price increase – you will get all the new videos too!

What Kinds of Leads Can You Expect To Get

Social networking leads are strong leads! They are from people who have some kind of relationship with you, not just people who stumbled upon your website and filled out a contact us form. Some leads that I got recently are:

• Digital Pickle – a digital conversion for photos and vhs tapes company to set up their social networking
• A social networking class attendee who found me through Facebook
• Blog prospects and LOTS of website hits from twitter!

If you have any great recent social networking success stories, please make sure to leave them in the comments!

What Tools Should You Use To Make Social Networking Easy

The two primary tools that I use to make my social networking easier are Twitterfeed and Hootsuite. These two tools allow me to spend about 15 minutes a day and get great results.

• Twitterfeed.com – sends all of my blog posts to twitter.com automatically
• Hootsuite.com – allows me to update all of my social networks at the same time AND also allows me to schedule tweets for later

Overall, it should not take more than a couple of hours a week to keep your social networking updated regularly!

If you would like to have your social networking empire set up for you, we do a $250 social networking setup that makes getting started effortless!

How To Use Email For Marketing | Learn How To Make Hyperlinks

Related posts:

1. Learn Use the Top 10 Internet Tools for Small Business
2. Social Networking, Blogging and Sanity
3. Building A Community – How it helps your social networking, email list and life!

How to do email marketing

How to use email for marketing is simple. It is not easy but the benefits you get FAR outweigh the time it takes to become proficient! In Learn Use the Top 10 Internet Tools for Small Business, I talked about 10 things that I thought were super vital for your internet success. Here you will find out about how to make the most of email marketing.

For each of these items I am going to start with advanced ideas and work back to beginner basics. The reason for this is that there is A LOT of information out there about basic email marketing and I have found that if I tell my readers hard concepts they get them (after a while..:)

EMAIL MARKETING – THE MONEY IS IN THE LIST

When you have a list of people who have agreed to receive emails from you, you hold great responsibility. They have said that you can take their time in exchange for providing them with good information.

What software should you use for keeping track of your lists?

Email Marketing Software Programs – If you have over about 250 people in your database I highly recommend that you start having your people in a “real” email program.

• Aweber – This is the one that I recommend to all my non-realtor clients considering starting with a “real” email marketing program. Aweber has great email and autoresponder capabilities, meaning that if you are targeting different types of prospects you can do it from one place. The one drawback is that you cannot manually add people individually after your initial upload so be careful if you are wanting to use this as a general contact database (you can have them signup via a web form). Sign up for their FREE trial and see if it will work for you.
• Constant Contact – This is a friendly email program that is great for beginners but it really makes me mad that they do not have multiple autoresponders so you can not target multiple types of clients (although you can set up multiple types of lists). That being said, it is SUPER easy to use and has really pretty email newsletter templates if you have only one type of client.
• Brokers Helper – BEST Email marketing program for Realtors with lots of templates and ease of use. They have a FREE trial also!
• My Red Tools – Brokers Helper program for KW Realtors (you get a little discount) They have a FREE trial also!

Almost every small business owner I speak with wants to know what database they can use for everything. Their shopping cart and email marketing and direct mail and the list goes on and on. I wish that there was one UBER program that could handle all of these things well that was affordable for everyone but I have yet to find it. Once you know that you will be managing multiple lists you can get to the business of marketing and stop complaining about how hard it is!

Here are some things you can do to monetize your emails:

1. Send out information about your product or service. This can be done in a non-spammy way by providing great information and then adding a link to find out more about your offering. This is number one because generally your highest ROI is from selling your own products or service. For example – a garage door guy could send out an email about how to winterize your garage door and then put a link to his page or post that offers that service on a paid basis.
2. Send out emails with affiliate offers in them. This requires that you sign up to be an affiliate with a company or to have a referral agreement with a partner. Almost any business has affiliate programs that are relevant to them and it is easier than ever to get information about available offers. I like to use www.offervault.com to find great offers easily.
3. Email information about your industry. This is the most passive kind of email as there is no call to action to buy anything. That having been said, Lori Crawford of Trinity Eastlake Real Estate gets a lead almost every time she sends out a newsletter about local real estate information to her list. You would be surprised at how just contacting your list on a regular basis will get you more business!

ADVANCED EMAIL MARKETING

So now you have a regular email marketing program set up..what’s next? Autoresponders! Autoresponders work by sending out a series of emails once someone has signed up for your email list online. All of the email marketing software programs that I recommended you use have some sort of autoresponder built in.

Top Autoresponder Mistakes – Here is my take on the top autoresponder mistakes people make once they get people on their list

• Sending out too many messages – I KNOW, everyone says you should send out messages to your list daily or at the very least weekly. I think that people can get overwhelmed when you send out too many messages and that the impact can get diluted. I like to send out two messages a month and have had great feedback on that amount.
• Numbering their messages – I have one list I am signed up to that tells me I am on message number 235, etc. I think that they did it for ease of use in setting up their autoresponder series BUT it just reminds me that they have sent me LOTS of messages.
• Not adding their blog posts to their autoresponder series. I know that I am a prime offender for this one. DO NOT assume that everyone who signs up for your lists reads your blog posts regularly. This is a great place to get extra content for your autoresponders.

This post is a part of my ongoing posts Top 10 Internet Tools! If you would like to learn more please visit…

Top 10 Internet Tools Writing Great Headlines | How To Use Social Networking

Related posts:

1. Writing Great Headlines from Top 10 Internet Tools
2. Learn how to use Social Networking from Top 10 Internet Tools
3. Learn Use the Top 10 Internet Tools for Small Business