Marketing Solutions for Small Business

August 2004 Issue

Feature Article:
Stretch Your Advertising Budget

Welcome to the August issue of Five Sparrows Biz Talk! This publication is a free, subscription-based resource sent to our clients, friends, and associates interested in tips and techniques for helping small businesses make the most of their web sites and marketing efforts without spending a lot of money. We hope that you find this publication helpful, and we welcome your comments at editor@fivesparrows.com. Enjoy!

- The Five Sparrows Staff
Lauren, Don, Patti
and Leanne

Feature Article

Stretch Your Advertising Budget

Advertising can be expensive, especially for small businesses with small budgets. Check out these tips to help you get the most from your advertising dollars.

Target Your Market
You need to reach your target audience, but there’s no need to overbuy. Advertising in newspapers and on television in large markets can be pricey, and the audience they reach might be much larger than your business serves. Instead, try to find targeted media in your service area, such as community or local newspapers.

Search for Regional Possibilities
Major publications, especially those with large markets, sometimes offer regional editions where you can advertise for a fraction of the price of advertising in the regular edition. For local advertising, consider cable TV stations, as they often offer local advertising that will be broadcast only in certain markets.

Agency Discounts
Many publications offer an agency discount, commonly set at 15%. You may qualify for the discount if you act as your own advertising agency. You should also check out the frequency discounts for advertising several times in the same publication.

Fill in the Gaps
Often, you can buy “remnant space” from a publication or other media. Purchasing leftover space or airtime that a publication or radio station can’t fill can save anywhere from 30% to an amazing 80%.

Think Classifieds
Classified ads aren’t just for job openings, and they are available in both magazines and newspapers. They are often way less expensive than standard display ads, and some publications will even let you run mini display ads in the classifieds.

Repeat Performance
If an ad is really working for you, stick with it! Run it again, and in a variety of publications. You’ll get the added bonus of repetition, and save money by not creating new ads.

Recycle Creative Work
If you have an ad you really like, get the most out of your investment in the creative work. Reprint it, and use it as a postcard, handout, or direct-mail piece.


Tips

Increase Email Productivity

As more and more business is conducted with email, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of messages you receive every day. Here are some ways to cut down on the time and frustration of managing your inbox, so you can get back to managing your business!

Create folders. Use your Inbox as a to-do list, with each email an action item. After you read a message, move it to a folder based on the project or client. A folder structure that makes sense to you will keep your inbox manageable and information easy to find.
Use filters. Filters can be used not only to block spam, but also to look at incoming messages and automatically sort them into different folders based on boundaries set by you. Using filters will help you prioritize and categorize your incoming messages.
Label your messages. Many email programs will let you color-code incoming messages. Labels can visually separate your messages into subcategories, making later organization simpler. Urgent messages, for example, could be colored red, contracts green, invoices blue, and completed tasks orange.
Consolidate accounts. If you have multiple email accounts, configure your email program to check all of them for incoming mail. You can set up filters to move mail to folders for specific accounts, or color code the messages for easy differentiation.
Make use of your address book. Typing long email addresses repeatedly is a waste of time, especially since you can easily store them in an address book for automatic retrieval. Using your address book also allows you to find email addresses quickly, without having to remember them or sort through old messages to find them.
Use Signatures. Instead of typing your name and contact info at the end of every message you send, set up a signature file with the information you want to include and have your email program automatically put it at the end of every outgoing message. Some email programs will allow you to set up different signatures for clients, friends, and coworkers.
Create Stationery. Electronic stationery is a template that you can reuse for a given type of correspondence. Using stationery will save you time while creating consistency in your email correspondence. Just be careful to keep it simple and professional – lots of colors and graphics are not always supported by the recipient’s email program.
Discard email. Don’t be afraid to delete messages that have no value to you or your business. Remember to empty your trash folder regularly to save disk space, if your email program doesn’t do it automatically.

Tech Talk

What are Blogs?

Many of us have heard the term “blog”, but not everyone knows what it means. A Blog is an abbreviated term for “web log”. It is a web page that gets updated regularly, usually every day, and often contains postings or contributions from readers. Blogs are built around a specific topic or interest, such as politics, hobbies, personal lives, or any other topic that a group of users may have in common.

Blogging is a great way to keep fresh, interesting content on a web site. Businesses are finding that by regularly updating their web site’s content, they can improve search engine positions; but more importantly, it gives their visitors a reason to keep coming back to their web site. In addition to keeping the content fresh, creating a blog for your company’s web site can really showcase your expertise in your area of business. Existing customers will find your new, updated information useful, and it may even attract new customers to your web site as well.

If you are looking for a blog, there are many websites that act as "blog search engines" to help you find a blog to match your specific interests. If you are considering adding a blog to your company’s web site, make sure to submit your web site to these “blog search engines” to increase your exposure and make it easier for customers to find your web site.

Whether you use a blog to find useful information or to provide information to your customers, blogging is a great way to keep readers interested and provide fresh, relevant content for web sites.

Suggest a Topic

This month we decided to tackle a question regarding confusion about search engines and where results actually come from. Who supplies search results to whom? How does a particular engine get its directory listings? Where do paid results come from?

We actually found an excellent animated graphic that will help you understand all of this in a fun and visual way! This website shows the interrelation between the major search engines today, using arrows of different colors to illustrate the different aspects of search results. You can tell, at a glance, where listings for main search results, secondary search results, directory results, and paid results originate. You can also view a single search engine at a time by clicking on the desired search engine in the list on the left-hand side of the screen.

This fun and informative tool can be found at http://www.ihelpyou.com/search-engine-chart.htm.

Remember to send in your questions and comments for next month to editor@fivesparrows.com!

Do you have a question about your web site? Are you curious about marketing and what you could or should be doing for your business? We'd love to hear from you! Just send us your ideas, questions, or topics, and we will be glad to feature them in upcoming issues of Five Sparrows Biz Talk. Simply email us at editor@fivesparrows.com and we will do our best to answer your questions or give you some helpful tips about your topics.


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