As recovery creeps up on the U.S. economy like molasses going uphill in the winter time, small businesses are starting to feel the pressure ease, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to go back to “business as usual.”

That’s the opinion of consultant Jim Muehlhausen, CPA and author of The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How To Avoid Them (www.51errors.com). He has devised six basic rules that can help steer businesses clear of the pitfalls of recession:

Here are six basic rules that can help steer businesses clear of the pitfalls of recession.

 
·    Focus – Pay more attention to your business model and your business, and pay less attention to the economy.

·    Don’t Throw the Hail Mary – Don’t make dramatic changes. Keep moving and keep working at the tasks that have traditionally helped your company succeed.

·    Stop Fretting – This is a terrific time to tune up systems and make large time investments in future products/services that you just did not have time for when times were good. Focus on two years from now.

·    Buy a Competitor – Now is a great time to buy weaker competitors. Prices are low and rolling their business into yours can add valuable employees and sales at bargain prices.

·    It’s not the economy, it’s your model – The weak economy has hit businesses with weak business models much harder than those with solid models. If hit hard, it is a sign that you need to tune up your business model.

·    Ignore Web 2.0 at your peril – At its core, Web 2.0 is nothing more than an automated referral system. If your business does not need additional referrals, ignore Web 2.0, but beware that traditional marketing methods will continue to loose effectiveness while Web 2.0 methods will continue to improve. HBM
 
Jim Muehlhausen CPA, JD is the author of The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How To Avoid Them. He graduated from Valparaiso University with a B.S. in Accounting, passing the CPA exam while still in college. While subsequently attending the Indiana University School of Law, he became the youngest franchisee in Meineke Discount Muffler history (1987-1991). After successfully selling that business, Jim founded an automotive aftermarket manufacturing concern. Over the past eight years, Jim has personally coached hundreds of business owners in more than 3,500 face-to-face coaching sessions and has clients in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.  V19-2  Add: 3.11.12  Car: ??  HP:?

It Is Not A Sales Plan
By Nathan Jamail

Social media is powerful, and there are many experts that have shown and believe that social media can really help a company become better known, or take the “word-of-mouth” to another level.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are some of the great social media forums, but they alone will not increase a company’s sales. It is a nice added inexpensive media outlet (and highly encouraged!), but if social media is the primary source for a company to attract new customers or to sell their product and services, then they are sure to fail.

Social media should work in conjunction with a marketing and prospecting plan that is based on network marketing, cold calling, vertical marketing, and other key prospecting activities. Prospecting is still the most difficult part of any company’s sales process, but it is not complicated. Prospecting is 90% discipline and 10% skill set. Sales professionals should take the time to learn how to maximize their social media, but they should not rely on it to make their sales. In the old days, sales professionals were taught to follow their dollars. This means where a sales professional spends money, they should look there for future prospects as well, including friends and family — the “old” social network.  Just like then, as it is now, social networking is not the only way to grow business and should not be relied upon exclusively. HBM

Nathan Jamail, president of the Jamail Development Group and author of "The Sales Leaders Playbook," is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur and corporate coach. To book Nathan, visit www.NathanJamail.com or contact 972-377-0030.
 

By Paul Groth

Your business needs to define its target market. Without a defined group to target your marketing message to, all of the associated costs will be lost and your message will be sent out to a majority of people who are not interested. One of the worst steps you can take in business is attracting and accepting the wrong type of customers —“any customers.”

Attracting the “any customers” is often a quest by businesses to get the ball rolling in their businesses quickly, but also to build up great portfolios of work to show off to their potential customers (their real target markets), to show off that they have a long list of customers who like their work, and to generate instant income. To attract these customers meant that businesses’ pricing had to reflect what these customers were after, which were the best prices they could find in the local area. This quest might sound like a reasonable one, and to some – a good plan of attack to start out in business. But businesses should not fall for this quest. Here’s why…

- The products and services offered become more and more aligned with the low-priced “any customers,” and therefore not in line with businesses’ real target markets.

- The output or finished results of the businesses’ services are not of a high enough quality to be attractive to those higher-priced clients (their real target markets).

- Their pricing attracts customers who only want the cheapest, and those customers will always shop around and get it elsewhere if it’s cheaper.

- “Any customers” are always expecting businesses to do more work and produce more samples for no cost.

    When you want the higher-priced clients, you really need to seek them out one-by-one. Finding the clients calls for other, more time consuming methods.  Avoid  the mistake of attracting the “any customer” instead of going only for  your  real target market from day one. Define your target market, make sure it’s a good one that will bring you plenty of profits, and stick to it. Do not under any circumstances do any work for people outside of your target market with one exception — if you find a client that’s a step up from your target market, you might want to consider it, but beware that there could be some business killing problem that arises from taking on that work.

    If it’s confidence you lack in getting those higher-priced clients, do something about it there’s plenty of self help media available. As for fear of inferior products or services, more research will help you with that. Keep researching from multiple sources until you find the answers you seek, and take it from there. HBM

Paul Groth is a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and author of M+M=M Motivation Plus Marketing Equals Money.
 

Launch Your Brand Online Without Losing Your Money or Your Mind

By Karen Saunders

A great idea can hit you anywhere. It can wake you at 2:00 a.m., so compelling that you jump out of bed, put on a pot of coffee, and begin outlining your business plan. Remember, though, in the heady rush of dreaming up the business, to build a launching pad for it. In other words, a presence on the Internet. Because in today’s buzzword search-engine climate, a web site is the most powerful marketing and sales tool available to any company, large or small, cottage industry or inspired solopreneur.  

You don’t need to be a cyber-genius to go online and get results. But unless you have a clear business objective and message, you could waste a lot of time and money without accomplishing much. Here are seven steps to guide you in developing your web site. Use this system as a clear roadmap, so you don’t find yourself wandering in circles.

Step 1: Strategize
Talk strategy with your web site designer. Clarify how your business goals and objectives translate to a web site. You can’t create an effective web site design if you don’t know what you want the web site to do for you.
 
Step 2: Define Your Target Market and Niche
What overall customer base do you serve? That’s your target market. Who are they? Any particular field or industry? What characteristics, interests, or needs do they have in common? Within that customer base, find a smaller group that’s a more specific fit for your product or service, and which may not be served by your competitors; or both — that’s your niche. If your target market is comprised of people in job search, for instance, your niche might be people in job search, over 50, who don’t just want to change jobs, they want to change careers.
    Why do you need to define your target market and niche? Because: (1) you can’t be all things to all people; (2) you and your customer base need to find one another; and (3) the more specific you get, the more your niche will feel you understand them and can serve their specific needs.

Step 3: Position Yourself
If you’ve done your homework, then you’ve researched the competition. Who are they? What sets you apart in terms of customer base, quality, service, and other aspects? What makes you unique? Look for gaps in the market that aren’t being served — those gaps will help you position yourself and define your niche. Plus, it’ll help you hone your offerings, making you the expert who is sought out for your know-how.

Step 4: Describe “What” and “How”
Whether you’re selling a product or a service, what you’re offering has to solve something or offer something for your customers. How it does is key to making them choose you. If you can’t describe the “what” element, your customers won’t know you have a product or service that might benefit them. If you can’t describe the “how” element, your customers won’t be clear that it is doable, usable, and of value. The “how” element also gives, in precise terms, the ways in which the product or service will provide the results customers want. It is a descriptive roadmap from Point A (their need or want) to Point B (the results or benefits).

Step 5: Brand Yourself
Let’s say you’ve already named your business. Now you need images, words, feelings, to make it distinctive. To make it a brand. Branding involves several elements:
·    Perception — How do you want your customers/clients to think about your business? How would your customers describe you and your business? What value do your products/services provide, and how do you want the world to perceive that value?
·    Logo — Clarify your message based upon the perception you want your customers to have about your business, your niche, and how you want to position yourself. Distill that into an image that will be the visual representation of your company: your logo.
·    Tagline — Then translate that into a powerful, compelling tagline. Keep it brief (3-7 words). Make it memorable. Be sure it fits your business. The best taglines are evocative, meaning they conjure images, thoughts, and feelings.
·    Graphics — Choose visuals that best express and integrate with your logo and tagline. Support your message with every visible aspect: colors, typeface, styles, and other graphic elements.

Step 6: Create Your Web Site
The nature of your business will drive and designate your web site by topic — e.g., content, features, directions, contact info, blogs, links, biography, photos, itineraries. Then start writing your copy, making sure its tone fits the web site design. State the key benefits clients will receive, the key values you deliver, the key concerns you share.
    What topics does your web site need to cover? Use that list to create your web site pages. For example, a lecturer or public speaker may need a:
·    Home page
·    About page
·    Who We Serve page
·    Presentations/Keynotes page
·    Workshops, Classes, and/or Retreats page
·    Products (books, CDs, DVDs) page; Shopping Cart
·    Meeting Planners page; Contact page
·    Blog page; Resources page; E-zine; Special Reports
·    Media page/Press room

    Design and develop your site using your visual brand elements (logo, color). Review and test it before going live, to make sure everything works, error-free. Offer a free report or e-zine that provides value to web site visitors, while building your list at the same time.
     Subscribe to an auto-responder program, to make it easy to follow up with prospects and send out broadcasts to your clients. Then go live and do a final testing to ensure accuracy on all platforms.
    
Step 7: Optimize, Market, and Network
First, identify your search engine optimization (SEO) goals and your return on investment targets. Hire a specialist to do foundational search engine optimization with meta-tags and images. With your specialist, set up monthly, robust search engine optimization strategies, driven by your specific goals.
    Next, establish search engine marketing (SEM). Set up pages on and participate in social networking sites. Post comments on blogs that relate to your business, customer base, and overall market. Write and publish articles offline and online for inbound links.

    These seven steps aren’t simple, and they take work, but they generate results and this year you just might watch your business take off — with a powerful brand, backed up by a web site that delivers. HBM

Karen Saunders, owner of MacGraphics Services, (toll-free 888-796-7300), leads an outstanding team of professionals who can lead you through her integrated 7-step branding and web site launch system. Visit her web site to receive a FREE 60-minute audio “Put the Bling Into Your Brand” and to learn more about her extraordinary branding, graphics, and web site design services: www.BrandingAndWeb siteDesign.com.   V18-6 Add: 2/12 HP:

A Steady Stream of Customers

By Chuck Blakeman

What’s the biggest issue you face in selling your products or services? Market positioning? What to say? Collateral? Bad Product/service? Too many potential customers (don’t we wish)? For most businesses — it’s not any of those, but simply a lack of interested prospects to engage in the proposal and acquisition process.

    My family and I spent 10 years in New England before moving to Denver. We bought a home with a woodland and were told it needed thinning in order to grow strong. The romantic in me saw how fulfilling it would be to go back to the earth, and this woodland management problem seemed the perfect opportunity. I installed a wood boiler in our home next to the oil boiler (that I planned to never use again), bought the biggest chain saw I could find, and decided to play woodland-management-guy. I told a neighbor of my plan to use the wood to heat my house the next winter and even my hot water year round.
    It was June when I started. He laughed, then explained that I needed to go buy some firewood because the green wood I was felling wouldn’t be dry enough to burn for another year. Undaunted I called and had dry wood delivered in 16 foot logs, cut, chopped, and stacked them outside, and put together a great system to move the outside woodpile to an inside woodpile to the boiler.
    It was a great system until the outside woodpile was depleted some time in early February. Oops. Fortunately, the oil boiler I never intended to use again kicked on and got us through the winter. We learned a valuable lesson: A hot fire (or boiler) was not the key to heating the house, and neither was a full load of wood in the inside woodpile. And how many trees there were in the woods was completely unhelpful. The only thing that mattered was if we had enough wood in the outside woodpile to move to the inside woodpile and to the fire to get us through a full winter. The outside woodpile was everything. We paid much more attention to the size of the outside woodpile in the years that followed.
    I have come to find out that business development in marketing support services shares the same requirement — the outside woodpile is everything.

Business Translation

    My New England experience translates to business pretty well. My woods is my target market, my outside woodpile is potential customers with real names and phone numbers with whom I have easy access (they’ll take my call), my inside woodpile is those potential customers who are actively talking to me about my services, and my fire/boiler are those with whom the pricing and proposal process are complete. The only thing left is for us to get a “yes” or “no” decision.
    Where does the sales process break down for most for us? If we had a steady stream of potential customers who need what we have and are interested in possibly buying it, how would that impact our sales? If all you have to do is call the next person on the list and begin a buying conversation, would business growth be an issue? It’s not a far-fetched idea, but a very practical way to grow our business that most of us are missing. And it’s the only way to even out the peaks and valleys we experience in the sales cycle.
     

Customer Acquisition

    Mort Murphy, a friend, says there are four major ways to focus on customer acquisition — advertising, public relations, direct marketing (including cold calls), and relationship marketing. In all my conversations with business owners and sales VPs about how they obtained most of their customers, the 80/20 rule always kicks in. 80 percent or more (usually more) of their business comes from existing relationships, and 20 percent or less (usually well less) comes from advertising, PR, direct marketing, or other non-relational forms of marketing.
    Relationships are clearly the key for us – relationships fill up the outside woodpile with people who need what we have to offer and want to talk to us because they trust us. And these relationships, referrals or migratory relationships (moving from one company to another) are the key to our growth. Ironically, most of us have budgets for advertising, PR, and direct marketing, which account for the smallest percentage of our sales, and no budget whatsoever for building relationships.
    Random hope is not a good sales strategy, but too often it’s our central un-articulated strategy. There is nothing wrong with advertising, PR, or direct marketing, but why do we put all our energy in these when all the evidence says we get our clients from existing clients, past clients who moved to another company, friends, referrals from friends or clients and other relationships?

Relationship Marketing Strategy

If we want to even out the peaks and valleys of client acquisition and see consistent, predictable growth, we need to have an intentional, well-developed, written strategy for relationship marketing, including a significant budget to support it. Here are a few elements of a good relationship marketing strategy:

1)    Define for your business what would describe raving fans and advocates. Raving fans are people who refer to me without asking, advocates are those who are glad to help if I give them very specific direction.
2)    Make a list of your raving fans and advocates.
3)    Figure out how to help continue to develop these relationships so advocates become raving fans, and raving fans send you even more potential clients.
a.    The best way to do this is to become intimately acquainted with what will actually help them in their businesses and figure out how to help them get there. All businesses talk about and even believe in serving their raving fans, but few of us actually do it.
4)    Make a list of people (not businesses! — people buy from people) who you would like to have as advocates and raving fans.
a.    See #3a above.
5)    Which of your existing clients are not already advocates or raving fans? What actions do you need to take to get them to become one?
a.    See step #3a above.
6)    Put marketing money into events that serve your raving fans, Advocates, clients, and potential clients (inside and outside woodpile). Don’t sell them, serve them where they are at, even if it has nothing to do with your business. People become our friends because they find that relating to us serves them. Why do we treat our business relationships differently? Recreation such as golf, wine-tastings, cooking classes, education on business principles, co-sponsoring of charity events — the list can be endless of things that you can do to develop relationships that will lead to more sales.
a.    See #3a above. Picking up a pattern here?
7)    Strategic alliances. What other business owner is chasing the same customer base as you, but isn’t competing with your company? These are just about the best source of new clients. You could rain on each other for years to come.
8)    Follow-up. Events or meetings are only a beginning. How many trade show booths and/or wine socials have you sponsored where follow-up wasn’t done well if at all? And how many of these were actually well-planned to specifically develop your intended relationships versus a company-sponsored “mixer” for all conference attendees?

    The key to successful relationship marketing is an outside woodpile full of people who know you. This moves you away from “contacts” to “connections” and creates a much higher close rate. Make relationship marketing a central part of your marketing strategy and budget. Shooting a gun in the woods is not bear hunting, and throwing money at advertising, PR, direct marketing, or even relationship marketing is not a marketing and sales strategy. Identify the relationships that are feeding you business and the ones you wish were, and focus deeply and intentionally on serving them in their businesses. This will make them want to refer to you and help you build your outside woodpile.  HBM
 
Chuck Blakeman has experience with companies as small as $100,000 and as large at $120 million. He re-positioned, started and sold businesses. His company, TeamNimbusWest, provides outcome-based mentoring, peer advisory and consulting for business owners, CEOs and their growing businesses. He can be reached at 720-641-2033, emailed at chuck@TeamNimbusWest.com.

Previously published in the August 2011 issue of HOME BUSINESS® Magazine, an international publication for the growing and dynamic home-based market. Available on newsstands, in bookstores and chain stores, and via subscriptions ($19.00 for 1 year, six issues). Visit http://www.homebusinessmag.com

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See How Much Money You Can Make When You Use Them!

Excerpted from the Secrets of Power Negotiating – 3rd Edition from Career Press
By Roger Dawson

Good negotiating skills are essential to the success of your home business. It’s important to realize that a negotiated dollar is a bottom line profit, not a gross revenue dollar. All of your expenses are going to stay the same whether you negotiate well or not. The fun parts of negotiating are the tactics: Using them and recognizing them when they are used on you. Here are my top 20 negotiating tactics. See how much money you can make when you use them!

TACTIC ONE: Never Say “Yes” to Their First Offer. When you say “Yes” to the first offer, you automatically trigger two reactions in the other person’s mind: Reaction One: We could have done better: If they are eager to accept our first proposal, we could have gotten more.
Reaction Two: Something must be wrong. If they are saying “Yes” to a proposal that we didn’t think they would. There must be something going on that we don’t understand.

TACTIC TWO: Ask For More Than You Expect to Get. International negotiators call this the key to success at the bargaining table. It’s deceptively simple, but there are many profound reasons for doing it:
- You might just get what you’re asking for, and the only way you can find out is to ask.
- It creates some negotiating room. This makes it easier to get what you really want.
- When you’re selling, it raises the perceived value of your product or service.
- It creates a climate where the other person can have a win with you.
- It prevents deadlocks when dealing with an egotistical negotiator who is determined to have a win with you.

TACTIC THREE: Bracket Your Objective. Assume that you will end up midway between the two opening negotiating positions. It’s not always true that you’ll end up at the midpoint, but it’s a very good assumption to make.

TACTIC FOUR: Options Give You Power. This principle underlies all power in a negotiation. The side that has the most options has the most power. Work to let the other side know that you have options. Limit their perception of options by positioning yourself as different from your competitors.

TACTIC FIVE: Flinch at the Other Side’s Proposal. This is the number one mistake that poor negotiators make. They don’t flinch at the other side’s proposal. Always react with shock and surprise that they would have the nerve to ask you for a concession.

TACTIC SIX: Play Reluctant Buyer. When you are buying, you can squeeze the seller’s negotiating range with this three-stage tactic:
Stage One: Listen very carefully to their proposal and ask all the questions you can think of.
Stage Two: Tell them that you appreciate all the time that they have taken with you, but tell them it’s not exactly what you’re looking for.
Stage Three: At the last moment, call them back and say, “Just to be fair to you, what is the very lowest price you would take?”

TACTIC SEVEN: Use the Vise Technique. Listen carefully to the seller’s proposal and then say, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to do better than that.” Then be quiet! The next person to talk loses. The next person to open their mouth will make a concession.

TACTIC EIGHT: Taper Down the Size of Your Concessions. The size of your concessions can create a pattern of expectations in the other person’s mind. If each concession is bigger than the one you’ve made before, you encourage the other side to extend the negotiations.

TACTIC NINE: Patience is a Virtue to a Negotiator. The longer that you can keep the other side in a negotiation, the more chance you have of getting what you want. When you’re beginning to think that the other side will never come around to your point-of-view, think of the tiny tug boats that can move those huge ocean liners around — if they do it a little bit at a time.

TACTIC TEN: Position for Easy Acceptance. Sometimes a negotiation will deadlock at the last moment. When a negotiation deadlocks like this, the ego of the other side probably got in the way. They want to accept your proposal but they don’t want to feel that they lost to you as a negotiator. Position them for easy acceptance with a very small concession made just at the last moment.

TACTIC ELEVEN: Retain your Resort to Higher Authority. Don’t let the other side know that you can make a decision in the negotiation. Tell them that you have a higher authority that has to approve the final deal. You can put a lot of pressure on the other side without creating confrontation by blaming your higher authority. “I can never sell this to my people at this price. You’ll have to give me a better price.”

TACTIC TWELVE: Never Offer to Split the Difference. Instead, try to get the other side to offer to split the difference. “How far apart on this are we? We’re not that far apart. There must be some middle ground on which we can both agree.” When they offer to split the difference, you can reluctantly agree to their proposal, which services their perception that they won.

TACTIC THIRTEEN: Look Out for People Nibbling on You. You are most vulnerable when you think that the negotiation is all resolved. You have probably been the victim of a Nibble. You’ve been selling a car or a boat. The pressure and the tension of the negotiations have faded away. Just as they’re about to sign their name on the check, they say, “That does include a full tank of gas, doesn’t it?”

TACTIC FOURTEEN: Don’t Let Other People Give You Their Problems. International negotiators will tell you that when the other side tries to give you what is essentially their problems, you must test for validity right away. They tell you, “We just don’t have that much in the budget.” Test for validity. Ask them, “Who has the authority to exceed the budget?”

TACTIC FIFTEEN: Handle Impasses with the Set-Aside Gambit. If you are a long way apart on an issue, set that issue aside and create momentum by reaching agreement on smaller issues.

TACTIC SIXTEEN: Only a Mediator or Arbitrator Can Resolve a Deadlock. A deadlock is when neither side sees any point in talking because past meetings have not changed either side’s position. Only a mediator or an arbitrator can resolve a deadlock. You need to bring in a third party. To be effective, the third party must be perceived as neutral.

TACTIC SEVENTEEN: When You’re Asked for a Small Concession, Ask for Something in Return. Say, “If we can do that for you, what can you do for us?” Often they will make a concession to you, and you will be pleasantly surprised at the size of the concession.

TACTIC EIGHTEEN: Look Out for Good Guy / Bad Guy. Whenever you are negotiating with two people, look out for them using this tactic on you. One of them appears to be mean, tough, and totally opposed to your proposal. The other is warm, friendly, and very sympathetic to your proposal.

TACTIC NINETEEN: Always Make the Second Effort. Perhaps the other side is agreeing to your core proposal but is balking at the expensive extras. Understand what goes on in people’s minds when they make a decision. They fight the decision up to the point when they make it. Then their minds do a flip-flop, and they want to do things to reinforce the decision that they made earlier.

TACTIC TWENTY: Project that You’re Prepared to Walk Away. The number one pressure point in negotiations is your ability to project that you are prepared to walk away if you can’t get what you want. You have fallen in love with the car or home for which you’re negotiating and the seller knows it. Before you go into negotiations, research your options and let the other know that you have options. It doesn’t mean that you won’t get the one that you want. It does mean that you’ll be a more powerful negotiator, because the other person will sense that you have options, and that gives you power. HBM

Roger Dawson is the author of Secrets of Power Negotiating. You can contact Roger at Roger@RogerDawson.com. Website: www.RogerDawson.com. Direct phone: 562-694-5306.

Previously published in the August 2011 issue of HOME BUSINESS® Magazine, an international publication for the growing and dynamic home-based market. Available on newsstands, in bookstores and chain stores, and via subscriptions ($19.00 for 1 year, six issues). Visit http://www.homebusinessmag.com

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Promoting and Growing Your Business Using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Blogging, and More!
By Renata L. Lerch

There are many ways to promote your business online, even when your budget is tight. However, the options you pick should be based on your audience’s behavior. From social media and online retail stores, to group buying sites and public relations, make sure you take advantage of most, if not all fifteen opportunities mentioned in this article. But before you begin your online efforts to market your business, focus on your own website, as it is imperative that your website is search-friendly

1. Your Own Website
    Your website is your company’s virtual face — a perfect location to promote your business. It is quite surprising how many business managers don’t pay much attention to such an important aspect of their company’s brand. Visitors often react negatively when they see poor quality content and clutter. A well-designed website provides content with the least amount of clicks and unnecessary pages. It also motivates visitors to learn more about what you offer as they navigate through the site. Make sure the content is relevant, clear, and direct to the point, as customers should be able to get their answers effortlessly.
    Products and services should have specific landing pages featuring photos, quality descriptions, and videos. Landing pages should be coded for search, including keyword-rich copy, header text, title tags, a unique URL, and Meta information that describes the product.
    For more information, read the article, How to Spring Clean Your Website: Freshen Up Your Site and Bring New Life and New Customers to Your Online Business, in this issue.
 

2-8 Social Media and Online Networks
    Social media is an amazing way to promote your business and receive immediate feedback from potential customers. It is perfect for small and mid-size companies as it facilitates your communication with thousands of targeted people easily, effectively, and quite inexpensively. It is a great investment to dedicate at least an hour a day to send appropriate messages, ideas, and comments of interest to your audience. They will get hooked on your postings, opening a key line of direct dialogue. It is a communication channel that allows you to develop branding and promotions. Social media applications give merchants opportunities not only to learn about their customers, but to connect with them in real time.
    Start with social media channels your audience is likely to use:

2. Facebook
    If your customers are composed of direct consumers, there is a good chance that most of them are Facebook users. Creating a business page on Facebook is a tremendous opportunity to announce promotions, product launches, and general information about your products and services. Research shows that promotions are one of the top reasons why people become fans of (a.k.a. Like) business pages. It is also a valuable tool to receive feedback. Because of Facebook’s informal environment, readers tend to react to postings, and their comments can give very important feedback to your company. You can manipulate your postings to receive specific insights. It is a perfect tool to develop relationships with potential customers and business partners.

3. Twitter
    Twitter is another excellent channel to connect with customers and followers, offering quick messages (maximum 140 characters) on product announcements and promotions. It is also ideal to develop business relationships with your followers and the people that you follow. What’s more, Twitter allows you to track industry leaders and stay current with the latest trends.
    In addition to creating your own stream of followers, connecting with social media influencers can be a very useful strategy. Find them easily by searching key Twitter players in your industry through applications such as twittergrader.com. Influencers already have a targeted group of followers that respect their opinions. Developing relationships with them may land you a recommendation. Actually, even a simple mention of your product or service may generate high quality exposure to potential buyers and business partners.

4. LinkedIn
    Are you maximizing your profile on LinkedIn? As a business owner or manager, you can take advantage of LinkedIn for your personal and business connections. In order to grow your network, search for people you know. Don’t be shy to ask customers and associates to post testimonials. It can be very valuable for networking and future connections. Use LinkedIn as an imaginary trade show. Update your status like you do with Facebook and Twitter. You may benefit from keeping your network up-to-date on your business progress. Your new products or services may be a solution for their personal or business needs. There are several forums and groups posting questions that your business may help answer. Post your comments and answers to business needs. Search on LinkedIn for industry-related groups and become a member to be aware of trends and questions from your business audience. It is your chance to post answers and promote your business.
    For more information, read the article, LinkedIn Profile Secrets: The #1 Reason Why Your LinkedIn Profile Fails to Attract More, in this issue.

5. YouTube
    YouTube is an exceptional channel to visually promote your business, and it doesn’t require expensive equipment. A simple camera will do it, along with well-planned content and production. You can create several short videos teaching how to fix or build things, or for product demonstrations. Develop a strategy with objectives. Create a channel with a series of episodes connected by themes. Viewers should be able to understand your message by watching just one video, but embed some sort of hook at the end of each episode to induce the audience to want to watch the next one. It is a great way to position your brand and build loyalty. If your videos are good enough on YouTube, viewers most likely will distribute them virally, multiplying the exposure without any extra cost.
    Take advantage of YouTube’s versatility by posting your videos on websites, blogs, newsletters, press releases, and social media.

6. Geolocation
    Geolocation services are becoming powerful marketing tools. If you have a physical location for walk-in customers, utilize geolocation tools like foursquare.com. Offer special deals for your business’s mayors, and promotions for your best customers. It goes a long way in creating buzz for your new offerings and locations.
    Geolocation locally engages people by distributing rewards and combining friends and city guide elements with game mechanics. When they use the application within a few blocks from your business, a special offer can pop up on their mobile phones. Location-based services offer customer-relationship tools, rewards programs, social networks, games, business directories, city guides, and review sites. Other geolocation services include gowalla.com and loopt.com. Scvngr.com’s platform offers a quite flexible rewards program allowing you to reward customers for specific action such as posting a picture, checking in, etc. Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and Google are developing location-based functions as well.

7. Blogging
Many businesses can greatly benefit from blogging. You can write about your industry, your products, and your services. Blogging is a unique channel for branding, and to personally position you as an industry expert. Blogs can also be part of your website, giving it a dynamic flare. As visitors read your postings regularly, they will visit your website more often, resulting in more exposure to your line of products. There are cleverly designed free platforms such as blogger.com and wordpress.com available in the market, and you don’t need any programming skills to use them.
    Like Twitter, some bloggers can be hugely influential. They have thousands of followers that read their postings every day. Having your product or service reviewed or mentioned by these bloggers can be very valuable to your brand. Finding them is very easy by using online search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Make sure you have a good understanding of their editorial policies, styles, audience, and content before submitting your product or service. Your goal is to have them review and make a positive recommendation. Also, pay close attention to their feedback. It may be very insightful to your product development team.

8. Online Forums and Industry News Portals
    Forums and portals are great channels to get your brand and yourself involved in relevant discussions. You can unlock deals by posting solutions to business managers’ problems. You may also be able to visualize business opportunities or partnerships. What’s more, by placing your message and links to your website in comment strings, you will get additional significance in search engine rankings. Maximize your exposure, but make sure your comments are relevant. Follow at least the top two or three industry news websites on a daily basis.

9. e-Newsletters
    Another direct way to connect with customers and solidify your brand is through your own electronic newsletter. It is inexpensive (or even free depending on the size of your database), and you will be able to present first-hand your new products, service announcements, and a handful of useful information to your customers. E-mail platforms such as mailchimp.com and constantcontact.com are very user-friendly.
    Consider offering a sneak peek of your new product or service, exclusive only to e-mail recipients, or before it is available to non-subscribers. Rewarding your database will help you add and maintain subscriptions. Distribute your newsletter issues periodically, but do not spam your subscribers. Make sure your design is professional, and that your editorial follows some sort of guidelines with objectives. Your e-newsletter design and content should reflect your brand personality, which will help build your brand awareness.

10. Press Releases
    Issuing press releases is an important component of any effective communications plan. Embedding multimedia into your releases will enhance the reader’s brand perception and recall, and increase your chances to be picked up by mainstream media. There are multiple options of public relations services available for small and mid-size businesses. You can hire a service to write and/or distribute it online, or you can write it yourself and distribute it to your local media. Your distribution choices should reflect the geography of your audience. If it is a local business, distributing to your local media is as simple as sending your press releases to industry reporters’ addresses listed in the publications’ websites, via social media, and e-mail. Be creative and send journalists to customized landing pages. Embed YouTube videos with the announcements and demonstrations. The overall content should be succinct, avoiding wordy and long messages. If your audience is spread nationwide or internationally, it may make sense to hire a public relations agency. For text-only and multimedia options, you can use services such as prnewswire.com, prweb.com, or mindtouch.com. Less expensive services include freepressrelease.com and prlog.org.

11. Online Advertising
    Keyword search programs such as Google Adwords and other pay-per-click services are valuable tools for promoting products and services for a wider group of people. These targeted groups are composed of web users actively looking for your category of products but are not necessarily familiar or connected to your brand. It is a great tool for brand awareness, and perfect for small and mid-size businesses due to its flexibility to manage daily changes with limited budget. Other online advertising services that should not be overlooked include social media platforms such as Facebook. While the audience may not be actively looking for a product or service, social media paid advertising allows you to target users by location, age, gender, and specific areas of interest.
    All online ads should be clickable and linked to a high-quality landing page on your website or blog. Landing pages should have specific information about your product offerings, including description, prices, and instructions for making a purchase. Don’t expect visitors to navigate many pages of your website to search for information, because they won’t.
    For more information, read the article, Expand Your Ideas Using Google: Six Steps for New Product or Service Development, in this issue.

12. Group Buying Sites
    People are becoming ever more connected to group buying sites, attracted by their great deals. They are valuable tools for brand awareness, or to eliminate extra inventory while promoting your business. The audience is quite targeted, which means that they opted in to receive daily deals for a particular location and product category. Users sign up to receive daily deals. Since group buying sites allow you to target a group by location, they open up great marketing prospects for brand awareness, and customized geographical reach. You can benefit by providing aggressive offers to specific markets while keeping mature regions away from low margin deals. Group buying websites include groupon.com, dealon.com, and livingsocial.com.

13. Online Retail Sites and Aggregators
    Big online retail websites offer a range of services that small and mid-size businesses can tap into. By selling your products through websites such as amazon.com, ebay.com, and etsy.com, you can reach nationwide customers that are already engaged in the search and purchase processes. You can also take advantage of their payment, fulfillment, and shipping programs, and benefit from their popular customer reviews. When using those services, you are providing peace of mind to potential customers that already trust these reputable online retailers or aggregators.

14. Quick Response Codes
    Depending on your audience, your company can hugely benefit from using QR codes in store windows, and product packages, posters, ads, and displays. A QR code is a matrix bar code with data and/or a URL encoded. Customers can access information by scanning the code with their smartphones. This technology opens up a wide range of customized promotional opportunities for brands. Basically, you can have a sign to guide customers to scan the code to access coupons, and product or contact information. It will be linked to a landing page with all promotional or demonstration details.
    Because QR codes are fairly new technology, you may need to help customers understand what they have to do to access them. For example, you can say something as easy as “Scan this code now using your smartphone to access…” Customers can download the scanner software for their phones’ cameras at i–nigma.com and scanlife.com. The software is free, and it only takes a couple of minutes to download. Since users will read your code’s landing page using their smartphones, it is important to create a mobile-friendly site.

15. Article Publications
    Lastly, as an industry expert, try to build your professional reputation by publishing articles online. You can indirectly increase your company’s brand awareness by adding to the credits a link to your website. Make sure readers can easily contact you to request authorization for syndication, and to obtain information about your company. Articles are an efficient way to spread your message and promote your company. Expert articles may vary from one to three thousand words, depending on hosting requirements and topic. Try to publish at least three or four articles a year to build your expert status and increase your company’s search engine rankings. Free portals include ezinearticles.com and associatedcontent.com. You can also submit articles to industry magazines. Look for their editorial calendar — your topic may fit their needs.

Your Core Message
    Now that you are aware of the value of many inexpensive opportunities to maximize your business exposure, it is important to think about the core message you want to communicate. Elaborate on the concept and sentiment you want associated with your brand. All communications through all media channels should reflect that core message. You have to take the lead on how your brand is perceived. Once you have established your objectives, you can decide which channels are best suited to your business.

    The cyber world is quite dynamic, so promoting your business online requires daily maintenance. You must keep your basis fresh by posting content daily, answering questions, connecting to followers, learning industry trends, and developing relationships. Don’t just post your content on social networks and walk away. There are many tools available to help you manage multiple social media such as hootsuite.com or socialoomph.com.
    Your master plan should be revisited at a minimum once a month. Your competitors change directions periodically, and you need to be alert to any movement. Realigning your strategies will allow you to maximize your marketing efforts. HBM

© Lima Lerch Consulting 2006-2011. All Rights Reserved. Renata L. Lerch is a recognized authority on strategic marketing and communications. She is the founder of Lima Lerch Consulting, and has worked with strategic marketing for over 18 years. Before starting Lima Lerch Consulting, she managed marketing and business development in large multinationals, covering the US, European and Latin American markets. Renata has developed and executed strategic consumer and trade marketing and sales plans across multiple channels, including communications, branding, market research, promotions, social media, online/offline advertising, partnerships and PR. Renata also has extensive experience with customer service. Lima Lerch Consulting (www.limalerchconsulting.com) provides leading marketing consulting services to small and mid-size companies in the US and Latin America. Contact us at customerservice@limalerchconsulting.com, or logon to limalerchconsulting.com. Renata’s direct e-mail address is renata@limalerchconsulting.com
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