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Small Business Marketing – Using Video Reviews To Generate Traffic and Sales

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:22:19 +0000

I have been on small business marketing training seminars that talked about using product reviews to get more traffic and increase sales. I admit it, I just could NOT get my arms around how actual small business owners would use these (I can see how spammers or one hit wonders would use them for quick hits, but not real business owners!)

So today, I figured out how using video reviews could actually work to generate traffic and sales for small business marketing…BRILLIANT!

The Back Story…And The Ways That This Works…

I have been doing paper crafting things like coloring, stamping etc. for a little while now and am looking for some tools to make my job easier (cutting little pieces of paper is not my sweet spot).

Step 1 – So, I was on the YouTube looking up how to do cutting and I found Sizzix Big Shot as a recommended product…

The person making the video I watched might have missed an opportunity to sell me one of these bad boys, had she directed me to HER website with an additional post and video I might have bought through her affiliate link. As it was, I had to go to the Google to research what a Big Shot was and…

Step 2 – Who pops up but Amazon?

Go figure. Their site is HUGE, their web score is great…SOOO many people use it. As small business owners we could never hope to get even a tiny portion of the traffic they get a day! So I found the machine and there were reviews done by users, one of which was a video review by June Campbell…check out using video reviews in action

Step 3 – She has her web address at the end of the video…

Now, one important thing to note about June’s review is that it was NOT a sales pitch. It was a 7 minute long, how to video that showed how to use this product, with a TEENY WEENY little reference at the end to her website.

Please, please, please also notice that it is a simple video. It is not production quality or perfect. SERIOUSLY, NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH COMMERCIALS anymore, that ship has sailed. They would rather watch real people doing real things than have a slick, professional, TV quality video (stepping off my soapbox now..:)

Step 4 – June sells videos on how to do scrapbooking…BRILLIANT!

So when you go from her review (which has 37 thank you comments itself) to her website…which sells an information product teaching people how to do things WITH the product, she can sell you something…the heavens part and it all makes sense!

Video Review Examples

Okay people, I am not great at making things up so I need some help, put your product or service in the comments and I will see if I can come up with a video review that you could with a complimentary product! Here are a couple to get us started…

Bookkeeping Services > QuickBooks review (there are no video reviews at this time) > Sell your quickbook services by having additional how to videos on your blog!

Craft store > Reviews on EVERY product you sell in house that is on Amazon or Google Product or anywhere else with lots of traffic that allows video reviews > sell locally using the power of Amazon

Small Business Marketing – Are you a farmer or a hunter?

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:17:19 +0000

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!

Small Business Lead Generating Sales Funnel

Small Business Marketing – Having A Plan

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:44:40 +0000

So today I am working on small business marketing plans for some of our clients. While I love the thrill of coming up with new ideas, the most important part to assuring success to have a rock solid, laid out, step-by-step plan!

I am a student of time management and goal setting who uses tools everyday to make my life a little easier (I help my coaching clients with this too!). That having been said, I spend a lot of time watching other people work and it generally looks like this:

Get up sometime, have some coffee, check some emails….SHIT, there are problems
Put out a fire, stress, run late for a meeting…SHIT, I don’t have everything ready
Duck into the meeting, event or appointment, apologize for being late, apologize for not having all your stuff
Rush out, get to the office, check your voicemail….SHIT, there are problems
Etc, Etc, Etc

Instead of that, what if you had a plan for your entire business and knew every morning what the most important things were overall. These could be getting speaking events if you are a speaker, geting listings if you are a Realtor, selling product if you are in direct sales, lead generating if you are a sales person. I KNOW, sounds simple right? BUT if you think about your number one, most important job for your business, I would be willing to bet you do that MUCH less often than you think you do!

Everyday something will come up that will try to knock you off your goals. Problems, opportunities, shiney squirrels and all kinds of things are much more interesting than putting your nose to the wheel and grinding out what you need to do to succeed.

Sometimes, all it takes is someone looking at your business with a fresh set of eyes to see what you need to do to get to the next level. Sit down with us for an hour and come away with REAL action items that will get you on the road to business success.

Click the link to find out more about our 1 Hour Marketing
Coaching call. Just make sure you get your spot NOW because
space is limited… and these phone consulting sessions are scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Soooo…. here is my hope for you today:

Start work everyday at the same time
If you work at home, get dressed, no jammies!
Write down the three most important things to do today BEFORE you do anything else
Have daily things you have to get done BEFORE you do anything else (blogging, social media, send personal notes, make phone calls)
THEN check your emails or voicemails! If there is something you can do in 2 minutes or less, do that, if it will take more of your time or soul, put it on the list of your todos AFTER your three important things
Get to work!

Okay, we didn’t even touch your calendar, but that is a post for another day!

If you are serious about your business and sales, you HAVE to have a plan EVERY day to stay on track and get ahead. I KNOW, your business is different. You have emergencies that you have to deal with immediately OR you HAVE to be available 24/7 OR you can’t have a calendar and a schedule because every day is different OR you are too busy to make a plan.

I hate to tell you this but that is everyone’s life. You are not different…you are just making excuses. So, vow today to start putting yourself and your business goals first and everything else will fall into place!

I KNOW, the dream of owning your own business was to be free as a little birdy, but I have to say, if you schedule and plan and stick to it, you are MUCH more free, guilt free, time free and stress free than if you are chasing your tail and running around and around after every shiney squirrel that comes along!!!

Marketing Artfully

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:32:06 +0000


Social Media Svcs	Marketing Speaker	Small Biz Coaching

Looking for someone to do all those pesky social media and blogging tasks? We do it all!	Want a fun, informative Marketing Speaker who will make a huge impact on your audience?	Need a boost to get your business to the next level? Systems to get you more success!

Google Plus Pages for Small Business Marketing

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:02:57 +0000

Google plus business pages for small business marketing are here! Here is my take on how to make a Google Plus page for a small biz (which may be a little different than what you would do for a giant corporation!)

Check out the Marketing Artfully google plus business page!

Let’s start at the beginning. You get your page at the right side of your Google Plus Profile. Then up jumps the question of whether you are a location (brick and mortar business), a brand (like Snickers or Crest), a Company, Institution or Organization (that is what Marketing Artfully is!), Arts Entertainment or Sports or Other (don’t pick other, it is hard to classify other and you may miss opportunities).

Next comes your tagline – 10 words that describe your business (these should be your 3 main keywords!). Add an avatar – this is a square like the other Google Plus Profiles so no big, beautiful banner yet. Tell your friends – DO NOT do this yet, there is nothing on your page!!!

Post some stuff, circle some people and bang – you are ready to go!

HUGE NOTES – Make sure to circle your own page so you can find it (there didn’t seem to be an immediate link in google search to it, even using the plus sign). Also, fill in your about us (looks like a good place to drop a couple of targeted backlinks and add some photos so it is pretty!)

Google Plus Direct Connect

Okay, this looks like a biggie and something that is out of our control! What it functionally is the ability to add that page from google search by using the plus sign (+) before the brand. In the description below the Google Plus text says, “You can automatically add Google+ pages to your circles from Google Search. Just add + in front of the page you’re searching for. Directly connect with pages this way from now on?”. I answered yes!

Google Plus Direct Connect looks like it should be a post all by itself as this is what hooks to google search and adding to the circles, BUT since we are not able to DO anything about it, lets move on to a FACEBOOK to GOOGLE comparison.

Facebook To Google Translation

Okay, they say there are only like 6 stories in the world and that every other thing comes from that. Social media is like that and if you can figure out what make them similar, the learning curve can go down considerably!

Share on Google+ Is Like Share on Facebook – functionally this takes the page you liked and shares it on your human profile.

Circle on Google+ is like Like on Facebook – I made a circle named brands so I can keep all my businesses together for now!

Google Plus Pages Terms of Service Notes

If you would like to read the entire Google Plus Pages terms of service, click the link. Here are my top notes that apply to our clients:

You may not display third party advertising on your Google+ Page. – Functionally this means that you can sell any of YOUR products or services on the page but not have anything like affiliate marketing or paid for ads from a third party.
Subject to the Google+ Pages Terms, any Google+ user may create a Google+ Page, but only users with authority over the subject matter may administer the Google+ Page. – YAY! We can work on our client’s pages legally!
Any contests, sweepstakes, offers, coupons or similar promotion on your Google+ Page must also comply with the Google+ Pages Contest and Promotion Policies. – Looks pretty liberal if you are doing good not evil!

Nothing amazing here. If you are conducting your business above board and simply trying to get the word out, you should be fine!

Social Media Marketing Services

If this all seems like to too much to do, check out our social media marketing services and we will get you set up on this and all the other social media properties right away!

Small Business Marketing – How To Finish The Year Strong!

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:11:09 +0000

Small business marketing is not sexy (there I said it!) It is ALL about the grind and getting things done. Today we are going to talk about the grind and how the next two months can be the most productive ones that your business has seen!

What Small Business Marketing Is

People are always amazed when I talk to them about small business marketing! They think we are going to be talking about Twitter and Facebook (the current darlings of the marketing scene) or about what their logo should look like. Well, for me it is all about:

What products do you have for sale and how are you going to get the word out about them?
What services do you offer and it is CRYSTAL clear to the people who you are selling to
Is it easy to buy something from you or are you being “cute” or just not clear
What is your sales funnel and how are you going to get people in the top of it?
How are you going to followup with those people once they have raised their hand (hardly anyone buys right off the bat)
What is your sales message and are you selling YOU or what THEY want?

I have to stop now because I could go on and on with problems that I see in small business marketing today! OH, one last one… Are you focusing on important things or are you obsessed about something that matters to you but will not get you more sales? Sigh. I see this all the time! A client REALLY wants to have tiny logos under his email signature but doesn’t know how to write the code to make that happen but is still spending time worrying about it. I wanted to have a popup on one of my blogs and spent over 10 hours trying to get it to work (wish I could have that time back now!) Another client took over two months to figure out the name and right font for his logo (let’s not even talk about how many colors and styles he looked at).

Whatever you are obsessing about, finessing until it is perfect, worrying over, STOP IT!

How To Finish The Year Strong

I see too many business owners this time of the year “winding down”. They actually say, Halloween is coming like it is the start of the end. Don’t get me started about the whole, shut down from Thanksgiving to New Year’s model that many business owners have.

I have to tell you that I cannot afford that in my business and if you read my blog and like marketing, I have a feeling that you can’t afford to take off two or three months a year either. I say three months because if you start stopping in November, it will take you well into January to get things going again.

So what can you do? Let’s break it down!

1. You can be the one in your marketplace with a strong presence throughout the end of the year. If you blog, post more. If you network, network more. Phone calls, you get the picture! When everyone else goes away, this is your time to SHINE! Market share you take over now never goes away!

2. You can get all your “stuff” in order. My site went down yesterday and I had to do a quicky re-design and update BUT had that not happened, it would have been on the calendar to fix in November or December. I needed to get some SEO work done, but additionally, I needed to make sure that my products and services were easy to find and buy. On social media, you can get your lists in order, email you can start growing your list or segregating your list.

The best way to get on track with this is time block and set up systems for your marketing, lead generating and followup tasks so that they become second nature (writing blog posts has become like breathing to me, just happens).

3. Hire a coach. Seriously, I hired a coach for the last three months of the year and the insight and accountability that comes from having a third party look at your business and give you direction is invaluable. If you are thinking about hiring a coach, check out our small business marketing coaching options.

4. Develop new products or services. Don’t get me wrong, I KNOW that there will be a slowdown for most businesses during the Thanksgiving week, and the week between Christmas and New Years (for all my retail readers – I KNOW this isn’t your problem BUT use this info for your after the returns slowdown…:) During the time that you are slow, sit down and figure out what you can offer, write a sales letter for your current products that shows them in a new light, write those autoresponders you have been putting off. Using this time to create new products is SUPER VALUABLE and will serve you well in the new year!!

Want to finish the year strong?

I KNOW that having systems, written goals and action items are the only way you are going to succeed with your marketing efforts! If you are thinking about hiring a small business marketing coach to help, I work with a handful of business owners each month to get them on track and moving up to the next level. Check out our small business marketing coaching programs today!

Small Business Marketing – In Store Events

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:09:12 +0000

In store events are a great small business marketing ploy to get people into your brick and mortar business! They can be big or small, but all are effective if you are committed to making them AN EVENT!

What Are In-Store Events?

In store retail events are not just about having “a sale” (please say that with a sigh in your voice!) Having a reason for people to come to your brick and mortar business does not have to be a cause for losing revenue, in fact, I think that it should be a cause for increasing revenue and making more sales!

There are many types of in-store events across many different types of businesses, but I thought that this one was especially well thought out!

Designing With Wow

One of our friends, Dale Jaworski (an Denver interior designer extraordinaire and specialist at WOW Furniture) sent us the above Meetup email about her interior designers group. The content of the email was:

Our group will explore ways to innovate and inspire interior design. We will be looking to enhance the private designer’s business with education, ideas and special product offerings. Each month we will have a speaker and highlighting of a brand to meet your customer’s needs. Supporting each other to build a better design community in the Denver metro area!

We are collaborating with WOW! furniture store, who has offered us their conference room and refreshments each month. They offer a great designer incentive program, along with wonderful high end, custom vendors to order from. If you’ve never been there you owe it to your clients to check it out! To participate in the Designer Program you will need a copy of your sales tax license and a business card.

What They Did Right

If you are looking to start bringing in more in-store traffic, this is the way to do it! Here are some of the things that I LOVE about this event:

It is FREE – they are not trying to get people to pay for the pleasure of coming to the store! Instead, the store is offering a space available to interior designers who are their target market for sales.
It is VERY specific about what the attendee will get, “enhance the private designer’s business with education, ideas and special product offerings.”
While the speakers will be highlighting the product offerings, if they do it right, the overall feeling will not be SELL, SELL, SELL on Dale or WOW’s part, the feeling will be that they showed them great ideas, and, amazingly enough, they are available right downstairs!

So you have this meetup and get some people in the door. What now? This is how I would follow up with the meetings:

Send a handwritten thank you card for attending – there are currently 5 signups so that would not take a huge amount of time! PLUS 5 highly targeted, engaged designers is better than having a hundred schmoes in the room.
Set up a postcard program to invite them to the next event (Meetup.com will send them an email – you should send them a card).
Call them in the meantime to take a “back of the house” tour of WOW. Everyone likes to see behind the scenes and this will build your rapport with the designers.

There are about a thousand other things you could do, but this is a start!

Small Business Marketing Say EXACTLY What You Are Selling

Small Business Marketing – Layering Your Marketing Message

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:49:44 +0000

Small business marketing is all about getting prospective customers to notice you. I KNOW, you think that small business marketing is about getting them to BUY from you, but first they have to know you exist!

The easiest way to get people to notice you is to show up everywhere they go, from in person, to their mailbox, online at social media and in their email inbox. This process of being everywhere is officially called layering and should be part of a planned structured marketing campaign.

LL Bean is stalking me. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the LL Bean gang! They have American made clothes (I am from the rust belt near Pittsburgh so this has always mattered to me). Their clothing is unbelievably high quality and they have a no questions asked return policy. Seriously, you can wear your shoes, clothes or coats for YEARS and if something goes wrong, they will make it right, no questions asked.

Years ago I got on their mailing list and they have continued to send me catalogs, even though I have not ordered in quite some time. Sort of nice, but did not compel me to buy.

Social Media Marketing

So today I opened my Facebook and they had posted a message about extreme weather clips on the LL Bean Facebook page. Not a picture of their product with a link (although they have them too!), a video from the weather channel about terrible cold weather.

Small Business Marketing Tip – So NOW I am thinking about cold weather in conjuction with LL Bean! They have snuggly warm coats and slippers in case it snows like that here.

Email Marketing

After cruising the Social Media and noticing the LL Bean clip (I didn’t watch the video but got the gist and the association stuck). I popped open my inbox to delete messages (I mean read my email…hehehe). What showed up there? An email from LL Bean!

Now I am in marketing so I tend to notice when things happen like this, but I am also human and the urge to buy something from LL Bean is getting greater and greater!

Direct Mail Marketing

So, as most of you know I am an internetty kind of gal. I get leads from the internet, teach internet marketing classes and have every whiz-bangy kind of appliance needed to access the internet at my disposal.

That having been said, I rarely BUY things on the internet. I go to stores and look at catalogs (doh, I just happen to have an LL Bean catalog handy!). Sending me a catalog will definitely make this layering marketing work better for the Bean!

How To Do Layering For Small Business Marketing

So you are a small business owner or entrepreneur and you are thinking to your self (in a really snarky tone, I can hear you) that you do not have the millions of dollar advertising budget that LL Bean has! That figuring out all that technology is going to take time and money you don’t have.

Here are some easy ways for small business owners to capitalize on what we have seen here today!

Direct mail marketing – There are two ways to do direct mail marketing on a shoestring. Print dinky postcards on colored paper, 4 to a sheet or buy them from Vistaprint for pennies on the dollar. I checked yesterday and the cost for a postcard stamp is 29 cents so the cost to do a 100 piece mailing should be less than 50 bucks total. I am getting ready to send a 100 piece dinky postcard mailing this week and will let you know what the response rate is!
Email marketing – if you are not using an online database like Constant Contact or Office Auto Pilot (the one I use) yet, start today. Figure it out and start building a list! Send them informative emails. I KNOW, you are all clamoring about what to send, send something that is related to your business!
Pick up the phone – Call them to see if they got what you sent! Your mailing made this a much warmer call.
Social Media Marketing – Post something about this on your social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus or LinkedIn. Be careful not to be too salesy, just something good and interesting for them to enjoy that is related to your business.

With my coaching clients, I recommend that we have “theme months” where we pick a theme and market to that using multiple sales channels. I can’t stress enough that you should pick a theme for this month RIGHT NOW, set up some of these layered sales outlets and get started bringing in more prospects and sales!

– — –

If you would like to find out more about my Small Business Marketing coaching programs today, give me a call 727-415-9165.

Small Business Marketing – Systems and Results

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:23:57 +0000

Small business marketing is not as fun as you would think it would be. While there are times that you get to look over creative, pick a new brand or colors or even roll out a new product, most of the time it is just grinding through the standard tasks that really make a difference in the long run.

To make those tasks easier, I have a system, in fact I have multiple systems and forms that I use to make sure that I know my goals and the steps it takes to from Point A (a really good idea) to Point B (actually doing something) to Point C (seeing results). I find that too many people fall off somewhere between A and B, then are sad that it didn’t work and they never get any results at all, good or bad!

In my post last week, Small Business Marketing – When You Start, No One Is Listening! I talked about what happens when you start anything new, but I didn’t really give you any tools to help you. That made me think that it might help to take a peek into what I do when I roll out a marketing channel plan for my business.

Small Business Marketing System – Video Blogging and YouTube

We tell our clients that video is the way to go in the upcoming marketing realm so I have to practice what I preach! With that in mind I am posting at least a couple of free videos a week on the YouTube, adding to my membership site videos and also writing blog posts that take advantage of this medium (like this one!)

The thing about creating small business marketing systems that hangs up people the most is perfection. They spend time planning and plotting and working to get it perfect BEFORE they try it out. I basically sat down and made a goal that I would post 3 videos and blog posts a week and set up a form. As you will see in the video, I used it for a while and then needed to fine tune it to make it work. Your systems should be a fluid thing until you are sure you have the process down, then set them in stone for a few months and set up a new system for something else you want to accomplish!

So there you have it, my small business marketing system for getting videos out the door and published! Please – start your own system today for something you would like to accomplish and tell me what it was in the comment section (extra credit if you make a video and post it to your YouTube channel!)

Small Business Marketing Training

Need to know more about how to actually DO all of those great marketing ideas you hear about. Check out Marketing Artfully University! We have answers to all your marketing questions with step-by-step instructions and videos to walk you through! Find out more about these Small Business Marketing Training Videos today!

Small Business Marketing – Common Email Marketing Mistakes

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:02:04 +0000

Small business marketing has MANY shiney objects to chase and it may seem like the latest and greatest new gizmo is the most important. Today we are we are going to talk about what may seem a little antiquated (smile) email marketing and some common email marketing mistakes!

I see A LOT of mistakes out there with small business owners who are using email incorrectly or who have not even thought about how or why to set up their email marketing in the correct manner. This post is going to go over common mistakes and what to do to fix them. Sorry to my friends who, as always, know that they are loved and who will be my goats for anything that makes me crazy!

Common Email Marketing Mistakes

Not having a professional email address

If you are still putting a gmail, aol, road runner, comcast or other free or obviously system emails on your business cards or handouts, people notice and assume that you are not professional (at the very least they will assume that you are WAY behind technology-wise, which in this day and age is not cute or funny, it is a red flag to potential customers!)

Using your company email address

While I understand there are some situations that you need to use a corporate email address, this is a SMALL BUSINESS BLOG. Most of us do not work for IBM or Lucent, we have a little more flexibility with our personal branding. So, why SHOULDN’T you use your company email?

One of my friends, who shall remained unnamed, Brian P, has changed his email address no less than 4 times since I have known him. It started with BrianP(at)homebank.com and went to BrianP(at)countrywide.com and then BrianP(at)tricountyfl.com and finally today, BrianP(at)VanDyke.com. The worst part of it is, he had a website about mortgage banking and could have used BrianP(at)mortgagecommunicationspot.com the WHOLE TIME!

I will tell you, most people are not hiring the company you work for, they are hiring YOU and Brian has to have lost some people who would have worked with him again but they are two or three email addresses back and don’t know how to get a hold of him.

Not Having An Email Marketing List

This is a biggie. I talk to many people who network often who have said they have stacks and stacks of business cards on their desk and have not put them in a list yet. Arggg. This means that all that networking is for naught. You HAVE to follow up with an email newsletter or some other followup method you are missing the boat.

If you are not using a service like Constant Contact or Aweber, you CAN email easily by just having an excel spreadsheet with First Name, Last Name and Email. You can then cut and paste the addresses into most email clients and send your message (NO MORE THAN 50 at a time so it is kerfuffly BUT it WILL work). The nice thing about doing it this way is that when you ARE ready to do your real email newsletter, you will already have your list ready!

Free Resources From Past Posts

Email Newsletters – Email Marketing – Good Email Subject Lines and Super Duds
Email Marketing – Email Newsletter Marketing Topics and Ideas

Marketing Artfully University Resources

NEW – Setting Up Your Email Addresses Effectively
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Secret Email Marketing Strategies

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