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Small Business Marketing – What is your call to action?

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:44:28 +0000

Small business marketing happens for only one reason, to get someone to buy something sometime. Without a call to action, you are flopping around, hoping they get your message!

Ladies, have you ever had a fellow hit you up for a date in such a round about way that you weren’t sure at the end if you were actually going out for a “date” date, or just hanging out with a friend. This is what a sales message with no call to action leaves us with…a feeling like you should, could be doing something but there is no definitive action associated with it!

I call this being factually correct versus having a call to action and it happens ALL THE TIME. Just last week our company did not do anything for a client, although we DID receive an email about some things they needed, sort of. The email was factually correct and stated that there were changes that need to be made but a) it didn’t assign a leader to make sure they got done and 2) there were no call to actions. So let’s break this down so it is easy to understand!

A factually correct statement was, “we are going to use XXX’s Facebook Profile going forward”. Hokey doke, works for me, check I read the email…la la la. A call to action is, “we are going to use XXX’s Facebook Profile going forward, TARA I need you to switch them over to the new timeline and make a cool picture please!” DOH, goes on my calendar with a to do item and the picture comes out the other side!

So what if you are the one who is requesting stuff, do you have to hold everyone’s hand throughout the process and put all the details in? Um, yes you need to ask explicitly for what you want and no, you don’t have to micromanage it, but you do have to take some ownership for it!

Whenever my staff is not doing what I want them to do I think, “how have I screwed this up”. NOT why are they so lame and lazy. My staff is decidedly NOT lame or lazy so if they are not doing what I want, then the blame lies with me!

Call To Action Marketing

Okay, so now you get it with managing your peeps, how the hell does this work in the marketing world? I have been making display banners for number of clients lately and so have done a TON of research into what looks good AND what would make me DO something.

Many of the banners out there are factually correct. They have a picture of a brand and I THINK they think I will know enough about them to spontaneously figure out that it is a button to push AND that there is something wonderful waiting for me there. Huh. I am pretty busy and rarely have time to go “exploring”.

So parts of good banner design (and good marketing in general) are something eye catching, a WIFM (what’s in it for me) and a call to action. Could be a “click here”, could be a “go”, could even be a little arrow, just SOMETHING to let busy people know that they should DO something.

The banners in the pictures are some that I found doing research. In every case, the top one is factually correct while the bottom one asks you to do something. My favorite are the ones for women in Spanish (I think). Whatever language it is, I could tell on the second one that they wanted me to DO something by the button!

What Is Your Call To Action?

Okay, so banner ads aside, what is the call to action in your small business marketing? Does your brochure ask people to call you, do your business cards prompt them to “friend you on Facebook”, does your website ask them to sign up for your list with a free offer?

At every point in the process of designing your marketing you should ask two questions, what is in for them AND what action do I want them to take after they see it!

Gary Vaynerchuk The Thank You Economy – Is It Scalable?

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:30:32 +0000

Okay, gotta get this out on the table first so there are no unpleasant police surprises…:) I am semi-stalking Gary Vaynerchuk…not in the creepy way, but in the way that my dog (who is a super scaredy-cat) thinks that it is okay to stay at home alone if one of Gary’s keynotes is playing in the background because I listen to them so much! Oh and I have seen him a couple of times in person, have both of his books…well…maybe need a 12 step…BUT…

He sent me a present!!! Okay, I know he sent LOTS of people a present BUT I still felt great about it and think he is an even cooler guy than before!

For those of you who do not know, Gary’s book, The Thank You Economy is about how having a connection with people from the online world is super important and vital to your small business marketing going forward. BUT, the one thing I hear about all the time is people asking him, “is it scalable” to have thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of “friends” online? How do you make them ALL feel like they know you?

Well, you send them an email asking them to help get your book higher on the Amazon rankings, PLUS a promise to send something super out later. No promises when later, just later. No promises what later, just later. No expectations, just a good communication.

Then, many months later, another email verifying an address. Asked and answered. Then….drumroll please…a box of really cool stuff comes in the mail!!!!

Now I am surely not on the scale of Gary, but I have some big networks, speak a lot in public and KNOW that a lot of people look down on the fact that I cannot honestly be “friends” with all of them….well no. Seriously, they are all not someone who I would see or talk to on a day to day basis, but they are people who at least know me a little and probably feel like they could reach out for help if they needed it!

For example:

Yesterday a fellow who had attended one of my classes called me and asked if I do website hosting, I DO NOT! But gave him a really great referral for a lady who could help. SCORE – helped the man AND gave a referral to a friend-friend.
Also yesterday, got an email from an old friend-ish. He was writing an ad and had some of his HTML messed up on a link. He sent me an email and I fired right back with the fixed code. Now, could/would I do that if I was super busy speaking or meeting with a client? Nope. BUT if I am there and he needs help, HELL YES I am going to help!
Lastly, I am often able to use my social capital to help charities who need a new roof, or a Facebook page like or even just a bump in traffic, all cool things I sometimes do for “friends”. I don’t do it every time someone asks, but if it is something I support I am glad to help!

So is The Thank You Economy scalable – pretty much! Do some people feel left out, ignored or otherwise disgruntled, I am sure they do! Are there always going to be that type of people? Yep!

Long story short (too late I know), so if you are worried you will have TOO MANY FRIENDS or TOO MANY CONNECTIONS, stop that. Get more friends, be nice to them and see what happens!!!

Thanks Gary…I think it is scalable!

The Thank You Economy – gary vay-ner-chuk

Small Business Marketing – Creating New Habits

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:27:05 +0000

{EAV:5da08477a9fda337} – funny little empire avenue thingy to verify my blog! Oh the things I will do to be popular on social media…:)

Small business marketing is a grind. If you were looking for something more uplifting and easy, move along, nothing to see here.

BUT, if you want to learn how to grow a marketing empire or really start creating some new habits…this is the post for you! Creating new habits is easy, it is not simple but it is easy. Just start doing it, TODAY!

Let’s start with the creating new habits timelines that I am talking about:

One week – you should feel GREAT if you are successful at doing your new “habits” for a week. One day, bah, anyone can do a day, but doing it for a whole workweek, that is SOMETHING!
Three months – this is the timeline that I use for setting habits in place and goal setting. Three months is a good amount of time because you can see the end of it and it doesn’t feel like forever!
One year – this is how long I use to judge if something is working, GASP! Yes, that is right, I use a social network or blog or make videos and products about something for A WHOLE YEAR before I give up on it! The reason for this is, if I don’t I am just jumping around after shiney objects all willy-nilly getting nowhere – more about this later!

Creating New Habits – See If They Are Worthwhile!

Ok, I am great for making bold pronouncements of new habits that I want start (cleaning my kitchen sink is a biggie!). But for business, I have to make sure that what I am setting in stone is a good habit to have, that it will help me sell more and that it will actually ACCOMPLISH something.

Watch any webinar and you will find something you are not doing right now, that if you could start doing it would make you a ton of money! I love webinars and watched one the other day about affiliate marketing (where you promote other people’s products). I thought, hum, if I just found a product every day, wrote a post about it, pinned a picture on Pinterest and talked about it on Facebook, damn I could be rich in three months!

But….hmmmm. I have my own products I haven’t promoted to the best of ability. I have lists of social media and friend contacts who would disappear if I spammed them with a new product a day and MOST IMPORTANT, I would not enjoy doing that every day. Sigh…another one bites the dust.

So what new habits ARE appropriate for me? Well, one is sending a personal note a day. I did this before and it got me business but then I was busy and stopped (that one ever happened to you?) Another one is to work on an ebook or information product every day. I could go on and on, in fact I have a list in front of me and am working out which are going to make the short list for the next three month period!

Creating New Habits – Be Realistic About Your Time!

If you are like most business owners, you are either really busy or really bored. New biz owners often do not have clients to work with, do not know what will work small business marketing wise and have nothing but time to devote to marketing. You guys, do a lot of different things to find out what you like to do and what works, then finesse later.

This part is actually for the really busy small biz owners (like me). If I had my way, I would do nothing all day but research marketing ideas, check them out, write about them, make videos and get Sonic sodas to keep me going.

Unfortunately, no one has stepped up to pay me for drinking soda, so back to work I go. My work work is running a social media marketing company that works with small biz owners. A lot of the time that means talking with clients, paying bills, making sure we are on track, talking to prospective clients and setting up social media empires for other people. No sodas and no researching.

So any new habits need to have realistic timelines to fit into my super busy schedule! With that in mind, I am adding a personal note and doing custom graphics for blog posts (like the one on this post). This will increase my visibility on a medium I already use (blogging) and add a new area (Pinterest). The personal notes are just a no brainer for me, I like stamps and going to the post office! I ordered a bunch of notecards with my new branding on them.

Still in the realm of time, remember that something that you just start doing always seems harder than doing nothing (deep, right?) The first time you do a custom picture you have to get a graphic, find a quote, do the formatting, size it, say dammit that was wrong, re-size it, save it, post it, etc. The next time you have all those bits already done so it takes half the time. By the forth or fifth time, you will have a plan and a system and be cruising. Too often we take the time amount that comes with the FIRST time we do something and brand our new habit with that HUGE number!

Creating New Habits – Make It Easy To Succeed

If you made it down to here you are probably well on your way to making your new habits stick (willing to listen to all this creating new habits talk means you are committed – or should be committed, it is a toss up!)

To make it easier to do your new habit, make sure you make it easy. For example, I went to the post office and bought two sheets of stamps, put my cards right next to me on the desk and had return address labels printed. Kind of takes the pain out of sending personal notes when I can do it in 3 minutes without leaving my desk!

Online I will oftentimes make a folder on my browser (Chrome or Firefox) with all the pages I need bookmarked there. I can then just right click and open them up all at once. Soooo, for my social media I have a folder with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Klout bookmarked. Simply by right clicking and saying “open all bookmarks”, each of these pages is opened and ready to fly through!

Creating New Habits – Making It Stick

Because I am careful about what I add to my list of todos, I generally can make a new habit stick pretty quickly. But this is the part that I promised to come back to…if it makes the list, I do it for a YEAR! EEEK!

Being an entrepreneur and working with entrepreneurs, I KNOW how fun it is to chase shiney squirrels. Seriously, coming up with a new product, service, plan, strategy, idea, concept…all in my sweet spot. BUT, the problem with that is the herky-jerky stop start that never gives anything time to get off the ground!

Since I decided that I LOVE Pinterest, I am giving her a year. I am going to make videos, like pictures, share pins, etc. for a YEAR. If I do three pins a day for the work year that is 5 (days a week) X 3 (pins a day) X 50 (weeks in a year). That is 750 opportunities to connect with someone new, share something and even have fun doing it. If I do videos about how-tos even once every couple of weeks, that will be 20 plus Pinterest videos.

How often have you decided to do something, tried it for a couple of weeks (or a couple of days) and then decided that it didn’t work? Exercise is like that for me, if I don’t have a 6 pack abs after THREE STRAIGHT DAYS of doing situps, I slither back to my slothful ways. Marketing is like that too! I will see people do three blog posts, no one comments, they say it is stupid and give up. That makes as much sense as exercising for and hour and a half and expecting to look like Jennifer Anniston!

Here is your mission if you choose to accept it…figure out one new marketing habit that you are going to embrace for the next three months! It can be phone calls, door knocking, personal notes, sending a daily email, Facebook, Pinterest, postcards. I don’t care what it is, you have to pinky swear that you will do it every work day for the next three months. No whining about, “its hard”, no crybaby, “but no one likes me”. Just do it!

If you could use a little help creating new habits, or heck even thinking about WHAT your new habits should be, check out my marketing coaching programs – they start with a tiny commitment of an hour and go up to 3 months!

Small Business Marketing Where Do You Find The Time

Social Media Marketing – What You Should Be Doing Now

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:54:40 +0000

Social media marketing is HARD! I have never worked with a marketing platform that changes more than this giant kerfuffle of sites and places that you need to have a presence on, oh and they change it constantly so that you have to be on top of what you should be doing now!

A little bit of social media marketing background. I just checked the “when did you join Twitter” website and it says I started my Taradactyl twitter account on November 30,2007. WOW, That is going on 5 years now and over that time I gathered well over 10,000 followers. The reason I start there is that this was my first foray into using social media as a marketing platform. According to facebook, I started over there July 21, 2008 after talking with a friend who said it might have some further marketing implications than posting pictures of kitties and puppies.

Upon discovering that social media marketing would work for me, we decided that we would take our mad marketing skills and start doing social media for clients. At the start, this was relatively easy as it was just a dorky LinkedIn profile, a Facebook Profile and a Twitter account that was fed by a blog. BOY did we think we were cutting edge, and dang, looking back was it easy-peasy compared to today. Basic graphics and post some stuff, and BANG you are done.

Today I have to say that if you are NOT a graphics artist or video maven, social media, website design and blogging are out of the reach of most small business owners. We have targeted for our clients the top social media sites that are effective for small business marketing today (I will break out what we recommend below, just remember that if you are reading this tomorrow it may have changed again by then…:)

Blogging for social media marketing

I am a HUGE proponent of blogging for social media marketing. I have this site and get SCADS of opportunities from having a big robust site with lots of content. People find us through SEO (search engine optimization), I have a place to put my speaker stuff, talk about entrepreneur marketing and discuss small business and social media marketing. Because I take the time to write good content and have a strong opinion, people read what I write and I have become an expert in my industry.

Now let’s talk about blogging for the small biz owner. Seriously, who has the time to post 1-2 times per week, getting “pinable” pictures in there for your additional social media sharing (more about “pinability” later)? Additionally, aggregator sites like networked blogs and rss graffiti no longer have the impact of posting so you need to pop over to Facebook and the like to post your entry.

Having a blog means having graphics, the overall look and feel, marketing buttons, and blog post pictures.

Facebook for small business marketing

Okay, I go back and forth on this one. Originally, we used the customer’s profile (human) to do marketing, then we switched when Facebook launched business pages, and now I am in a quandary. I REALLY like some of the new features of the business pages and you HAVE to have one like the old yellow page ad was mandatory, BUT…and I think this is a HUGE but for our small business people (not corporations, small biz owners) people don’t like to talk to your brand, they like to talk to YOU.

What does this mean marketing-wise? We manage lots of different types of social media, restaurants, resorts, doctors, realtors, art sites, etc. Some of them have great results talking as a page (our restaurants are especially effective this way), but the realtors, spa owners and the like bomb as pages. If you are considering hiring a new hairdresser (ladies, you KNOW what a big deal this is), you don’t care as much about the salon as the service and personality of hairdresser right?) This makes it hard. How much personal information to share while still keeping a professional demeanor.

I share mostly marketing on my Tara Jacobsen profile but do have pictures of my puppy after having tater tots. The tater tots post got a lot of likes and comments, while some of my marketing posts fall on the floor with a thud. Seriously, most people are on the Facebook for socializing and learning more about people, and not so much for buying stuff.

Does this mean you can ignore a page and only use your person, nope! It could change again and you would be WAY behind the curve AND it is just a cost of doing business today. You have to have a presence, both as a person and a business.

Twitter for small business marketing

Everyone who loves twitter, raise their hand. Okay, the two of you can put your hands down now. But seriously, twitter is a GREAT platform for social media marketing. It allows you to post your message, target specific geographic or cultural users and computers love twitter.

WHAT? Why would computers like Twitter? Twitter has what is called an “open API” which means developers can make programs that pull from twitter. You can hook your blog directly to Twitter and there is nothing to stop it from appearing to all your followers. You can use hashtags (#) to mark your posts as being in #denver or about #marketing.

It is also easy to connect with people on the Twitter. I have “talked” with best selling authors, my marketing heroes and even a politician (accidentally) once.

Google+ for social media marketing

Google+ is still in it’s infancy. The thing to know about it is that THE GOOGLE owns it. Seriously. Right now, that is all that we need to worry about. You need a business page, you need a profile and you need to post on there.

The other thing you want to do is to start circling people (same as adding friends on the Facebook). You can have 5,000 people in your circles and can target different industries.

As a business tool, right now, it is not that great, but it will be!

YouTube for small business marketing

Videos, that’s right, videos are going to be half of the backbone of the new internet within a few years. People do not have time to read anymore, they want to watch a quick 2 minute video that gets the point across. Think about it, what if I had a video right below here where I TELL you my top pics instead you reading them. I can tell you that I had to CRAM all of this into 2 minutes which was not easy BUT now I will have a place to put a backlink to my blog and you get to “hear” my picks instead of reading them!

Pinterest for small business marketing

Again, this is a rather new entry to social media marketing scene and I have heard from more than one person that Pinterest is for women. Not so and I will tell you this one or one like it will be a hot player in the next few years.

So what is pinterst? It is a visual photo sharing site. You can make “boards” with your interests and save things to look at later. So let’s talk about this. I have a board with marketing (of course), a board for good website buttons for future reference, a board on crafting and a board on bees. Most of my repins (sharing on Facebook) come from my success quotes, but I am building a circle of friends on here just like I did on Twitter and Facebook in the past.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP

Okay, I know for many of you who have reached the bottom of this page, doing this type of marketing is out of the question time-wise and ability wise (believe me, I KNOW, I was sad this morning thinking about all the changes we would have to make our clients new Facebook business page timelines next week!!!)

That having been said, if you think this is too much to handle and would like to find out how to hire a top-notch social media marketing company, give us a call today to find out more!!! 727-415-9165

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!