Insights on Social Media Marketing

 You're a small business, and you see the potential in social media marketing, because it's free, but are you confused on where you should be spending your time? Are there too many choices of different sites for you? There are so many social media sites out there, how do you determine how many to be marketing on and which ones are best for you? First, we recommend you pick one site and master it before you move on to others, because you don't want to be spread too thin and have too many sites that look like a ghost town because you can't keep up. That doesn't put off a professional image for your company.                                                                                Which site should you pick first? Well it depends on what you're selling and what the demographics of the different sites are. For example, let's say you sell power tools and you've heard about Pinterest, and how it's all the rage right now, so you decide to start a Pinterest page and you start pinning. You pin all sorts of tools and how-to articles for potential customers to see, and after spending hours putting your site together and days or months keeping up it only to rarely or never get repinned, or nary a comment. What have you done wrong? You didn't pay attention to the demographics. Pinterest is primarily made up of women users. It doesn't make sense then to put your time into creating a profile on there if your customers aren't the demographics for that social media site.                                      Just be sure to understand the social media site and demographics before putting your company name on a page. Also, be sure you have the time to devote to promoting your business on social media. If you don't have the time to update and check your page daily or weekly, then you probably should not be trying to promote your small business there. If you have questions about social media, drop us a comment.

 

(Graphic provided by MarketPlace Maven©.)

Have you seen a QR code and not known what it was? Well a QR Code is simply a tie between collateral marketing and online marketing. It's a way to connect your potential customer to an online location when they're looking at a marketing piece in person.

For example, QR Codes can be used on business cards, posters, brochures or signs and the customer simply uses an app downloaded to their smart phone that reads the QR Code and sends them to a particular URL address. So, instead of giving them a web address, you now have given them a link right to the site and they can view the page instantly on their smart phone. If you have a smart phone, download a QRReader app for FREE and try this one out. Also, be sure to check out FrontFlip, the app that uses a virtual "scratch off "QR Code to see if the customer wins a prize.

You can do some fun and creative promotions with QR Codes. Try it! Any questions?

Marketing Real Estate

Your marketing real estate are those places where you put your information out for potential clients to see. Think of business cards, brochures, signs, ads, postcards and other marketing pieces of the like as your marketing real estate. I'm not going to give you tips about all these places in this one post, rather we will just talk about 1 place in this post, but you can apply the principle to other places.

When you give someone your business card, you literally hand them your marketing information. Do you utilize both sides of your business card? Why not? It's prime real estate. You should consider either scrapping your current cards or updating them soon if not. The back of your card is prime real estate! If you aren't using it to either promote a product or service, invite them to connect to your social media, blog or a QR code to an online destination, then you are missing out on a potential click-thru, "like" or sale. Yes, it's a simple concept, but one that many people miss. What's on the back of your card?

Marketing with an Email Signature

If you aren't utilizing your email signature to market to potential clients, then you are losing out on some prime real estate to market an opportunity to someone. Think of how many emails you send in a day, a week or a month. Think what promoting 1 product, service or special a month could possibly do for your sales. Do you have a new video? Put a link to it in your email signature to boost your views. (See picture below)

Of course, most business owners have an email signature. You probably have your name, address, phone number and website, and maybe even your tag line in your signature. Why not cut out your address (who snail mails anymore anyway?) and put a special you're promoting or a blurb about a new service or product. As you can see, I'm currently trying to grow our likes on Facebook, so I added an email signature with a link to the Shoestring Mktg Facebook page and even when I send an email to my bunko girls, I'm working. Stop what you're doing right now, and go put up a current email signature promoting something for your small business.

PS Like our Facebook page if you learned anything in this post:  http://on.fb.me/FB_SSM

Current Shoestring Mktg email signature as of 9/24/12

YouTube & Video Marketing

Did you know that YouTube is the #2 search engine behind Google? Did you know that Google owns YouTube? Well, if you're a small business owner, this is important to you because that means that Google is now putting videos on most first page organic rankings in their search results.  If you don't have any videos on YouTube, you might be missing out on reaching a potential client.

People go to YouTube to learn all sorts of things from learning to play songs on a keyboard to how to change the transmission fluid in your car. The reality is a potential client  of yours is probably searching YouTube for information on something you sell right now as you read this. If you have no presence on YouTube, then you will miss out on potentially reaching them. Does this mean you have to have a professional commercial filmed and produced? Absolutely not, in fact, we don't recommend you film a commercial at all. Don't you realize with all the DVR's in the millions of households nationally that people don't want to watch commercials? Try a simple informative video on FAQ's and see if you get any hits.