March 2010 Biz Talk Articles

Feature Article:

Low-cost or No-cost Ways to Leverage Social Media

Today, most small businesses know that using technology such as web sites, email marketing, and online advertising can be much less expensive and often more effective than using older, more traditional methods of marketing like print ads, radio, or television. But with the explosion of social networking sites now covering the digital landscape, small businesses have a new low-cost marketing channel to explore: Social Media.

While social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are probably the most popular types of social media today, social media channels for businesses also include bookmarking sites like de.li.cious and Digg, corporate blogs and blog-related sites like Technorati, video sharing sites like YouTube, and photo sharing sites such as Flickr. The list goes on, of course, but the point is that there are lots of ways to use these low-cost or no-cost social media sites for marketing a small business.

The trick for most small businesses, though, is to select only the social media channels that make sense for their particular business, and then learn how to use these channels as an effective marketing tool. Here are some tips to consider if you are thinking about leveraging social media as part of your small business’ marketing mix:

• Stick to the “biggies” (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube). This is where the greatest number of users are each and every day, so make your time investment count and put your efforts into the sites that will give you the most visibility with your target market.
  
  
• Be consistent. You must post fresh information on a regular basis to keep the interest of your visitors and the search engines, since no one wants to read old, outdated information. (The same goes for your web site, but that’s another article!)
  
  
• Re-use your existing marketing information. Put your e-newsletter on a custom Facebook tab and share it with your fans. Add how-to videos or testimonials on your YouTube channel. Upload your latest press release to your web site and tweet a link to it using Twitter. You can get a lot more mileage out of what you are already doing if you promote it using social media as well.
  
  
• Integrate all of your social media channels to work together. Cut down on the time it takes to post information by integrating, rather than leaving each profile as a separate “island” that must be updated individually. Integration means that you don’t have to re-enter information multiple times, and ensures that each social media channel will always have the most recent information without adding any extra work for you or your staff. (Need help with this part? Check out our Integrated Social Marketing ISM® services for small business.)
  
  
• Track and measure your results. There is an abundance of free web tools available for tracking and monitoring social media, so use them to follow what’s happening with your efforts online. We highly recommend using Google Alerts (www.googlealerts.com), a free service that delivers a list of each instance of your company (or keyword phrase) being mentioned anywhere on the web, and emails it right to your inbox. Tools like BackTweets (www.backtweets.com) and Techrigy (www.techrigy.com) are also useful free tools that can help you track and measure your results.
  
  
• Put links to your social channels on your web site, and vice versa. This is also part of Integration, above, but bears extra repeating. These links will provides your social networking visitors with direct links to the high-value content on your web site, plus gives all visitors an easy way to learn more about you through direct links between your web site and social channels.

Adding social media to your marketing mix doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming, especially if you have a plan for selecting the right social channels for your business, re-using your existing marketing materials as content, and integrating your social channels to work together to save you time and effort.

Online marketing is already a great way for small businesses to cut their marketing costs, since it is typically so much less expensive than traditional print or mass-media marketing. Plus, now that social media is reaching such huge audiences (e.g., Facebook now has more than 400 million users, and half of these log in to their account EVERY day), it's a natural extension to online marketing. By adding social media to your small business marketing mix, you can easily reach a much larger target audience, while still keeping your marketing costs low.

Marketing Tips:

Tips for Building Your Opt-In List

E-marketing is one of the most effective online marketing tactics a small business can use, and it becomes even more powerful when new contacts are regularly added so the email list continues to grow. But other than adding an e-newsletter signup form on a web site, how can small businesses get more people to opt in to their email lists?

Offer Something of Value

One very effective way to grow your email list is to offer your customers and web site visitors something of value in exchange for their email address. To get started, think of a few items that would be valuable give-aways, then build marketing campaigns around those offers. For instance:

• Have a monthly drawing to give away a free product or a gift certificate, and gather email addresses for this in a fishbowl at your place of business.
• Add a special “offer” to your home page that gives visitors a free report, e-book, or whitepaper but requires them to enter their email address in order to download the piece.
• Implement a direct mail postcard campaign with an offer redeemable at your web site. Have recipients go to your site and enter their email address to claim their report, money-saving coupon, discount, etc.
• Start a social marketing campaign announcing a special deal, then provide a link to your web site and ask for an email address to claim the offer.
• For online forms or web downloads, always make the email address a required field.

Make the Most of Special Events

Special events and networking functions are great venues for capturing email addresses, as long as you remember to ask permission before adding your new contacts to your email list.

• For events that you attend, gather business cards at each one (seminars, industry training, Chamber events, etc.). Then in your follow up emails (“It was nice to meet you at such and such…”), be sure to ask if they would like to be added to your email list.
• For events that you present or sponsor like seminars, training, or anything that would require an RSVP or registration, ask attendees to use their email address in order to register or reserve their spot.

In Your Everyday Routine

There are also some things you can be doing as part of your normal routine in your business, such as:

• When customers call your business, be sure to ask if they would like to receive your e-newsletter, then ask for their email address.
• If you have an online checkout system, make sure email addresses are required.
• Add a spot on your client intake forms, customer profiles, or member applications (depending on your business) where customers can add their email addresses.
• Make sure your existing customers have an email address on file; if they don’t, make sure you get an email address as you update your records each year.
• Add an email signup form to all of your social profiles. Facebook allows you to do this with a custom application, but you can also provide a link to the email signup form on your web site in your other social profiles.

Remember, one of the main goals of email marketing is to encourage people to visit your web site where they can DO something; whether it’s to download something of value, register for an event, claim a prize, or find more information and details about your business, all of which contributes to a positive impression and experience for visitors.

When visitors feel good about your company, they are more likely to forward your information or recommend your site to others, creating more opportunities for new visitors to join your email list and keep it growing for your business for a very long time.

Building Effective Web Sites:

How Is Your Web Site Working For You?

Unfortunately, many small businesses view their web sites as an item on a “to-do” list – as if it were simply one more task to be crossed off when finished and launched live on the web. But is your small business web site ever really “finished”? Can it be left alone; letting the information become outdated, and not keeping pace with technology or your customers’ ever-changing needs and expectations? Of course not – not if you want your web site to actually work FOR your business!

The official launch of your web site is definitely an accomplishment – chances are you and your web development firm have worked very hard to create the right design and branding, and to fill the pages with compelling, action-oriented content. You’ve also invested time and budget to implement the right web features and functionality that will motivate web visitors to take action – ultimately generating leads, converting new sales, supporting your customers, and establishing you as an expert in your industry. Like I said – it’s quite an accomplishment.

But once your site has been launched, how do you plan to bring traffic to the site? How will you measure that traffic? After a while, your information will become outdated – how do you plan to make updates, and keep adding fresh, interesting information to the site? What steps will you take to get on the first page of Google or the other major search engines? How do you plan to keep your site listed higher than your competitors?

Your web site is one of the most important, versatile, affordable marketing tools that you have, so you need to treat it like the marketing asset that it is – and get the most value possible out of your investment. To make sure your web site is truly working for your business, here is a checklist you can follow:

• Update your web site each month; add an article, update a product page, add a video, or use an RSS feed to ensure that your visitors and the search engines are seeing something new on a regular basis.
  
  
• Optimize each individual web page for the search engines; if you are not comfortable doing this in-house, hire a professional firm to do this for you.
  
  
• Measure your SEO results every month; if you see pages begin to fall in the rankings, take immediate action to reverse negative trends.
  
  
• Review your web site stats every month; pay attention to any pages that seem to “leak” visitors and make the necessary adjustments to these pages.
  
  
• Use social networking sites to promote your web site; make sure all of your profiles are cross-linked with your web site.
  
  
• Use e-marketing campaigns to drive traffic to your web site and convert new customers.
  
  
• Take some sort of online marketing action each and every month; issue an online press release, send an e-campaign, update your Google Place Page, build new inbound links, place an online banner ad, etc. You cannot just ignore your web site and hope that it will bring you results, you need to actively work toward creating good results!
  
  
• Keep up with technology; if the search engines cannot read your image based site (or Flash-based site, etc.), then fix it. The longer you wait, the more outdated and useless your web site becomes.
  
  
• Keep up with your customers; since a huge percentage of web users now turn to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to get information, you need to meet them where they are and demonstrate that your business can meet their needs. Engage them in your social spaces, and then provide links that direct them to your high-value web content. Get a social marketing strategy in place before your competitors do.

Don’t treat your web site like a one-time task to be completed and then forgotten – it takes ongoing effort and attention to get real value out of your web site and show your customers (and prospects) that you take your business seriously. Put a plan in place to maximize your web investment and make sure your web site is truly working for your business. You don’t want to risk sending the wrong kind of message about your business by letting your web site just sit there becoming older, more outdated, and more irrelevant.

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