The Top 5 Small Business Marketing Tips for Budget-Minded Business

When it comes to running a successful business, marketing is essential. For a small business, marketing often seems like a daunting task - especially when it comes to marketing your business on the web.

Many times, budget-minded business owners fear that small business marketing needs to be expensive in order to be effective. Fortunately - this isn't true. Here are five simple tips for small business owners who are looking to save dollars, while still running an effective online marketing campaign.

1. Optimize Your Website

There are three simple steps to take so that you can be sure that your website is working for you.

The first is to use a descriptive title for your site as well as keywords and a description that allows search engines and site visitors alike to know what they will find when they visit your web page. Once that's taken care of, make sure that you are placing keywords appropriately in the text of your website.

Your keywords should be specific to your products and services, and should be chosen with consideration for the terms prospective customers would use when searching with Google or Yahoo or whichever other search engine they use.

Finally, these keywords should also be used in the alt image tags as they relate to the photos and illustrations that you post to your website.

2. Market Your Website with Articles & Distribute Press Releases

Article marketing is an extremely effective way to draw visitors to your website. By creating an informative short article that relates to your business, your area of expertise and your keywords, you can show readers a bit more of what they'll find from your business - which you can link to in your resource box at the bottom of the article.

Online press releases are another effective marketing tool. Like conventional press releases that let local newswires pick up a story about a new staff member or a new product line, online press release distribution will allow you to get the word out to those who publish online newsletters or who review products and services like those that you offer.

Both articles and press releases published online create valuable, relevant inbound links to your website (via the link to your site in your resource box at the end of each article or press release). Search engines place a great amount of value on the number of inbound links you have to your site, so this is an excellent way of building popularity with the search engines, as well as your human customers.

Both article marketing and distributing press releases will enable you to establish yourself as an expert and your company as a source for products or services. Each is effective, and often, submission to article directories is free - that's right, free marketing for your business, all it takes is a little bit of time.

3. Start a Blog

It's a common statement when it comes to Internet marketing: content is king. A blog - short for a weblog - allows you to create fresh content at regular intervals, driving traffic and search engines to your website.

Like article marketing and press release distribution, having a blog allows you to establish your expertise about the products and services that your small business offers. Unlike article marketing and press release distribution, however, a blog allows you to begin to carry on a dialog with your current and prospective customers.

Your blog works like search engine magic for your website. By linking your blog to your website, you draw the search engines to your website. Your site will rank higher and your customers will have a much easier time finding your site.

4. Commit to a Link Building Campaign and Submit Your Site to Directories and Search Engines

As a small business owner building and promoting your business on the web, having quality inbound links is important. Links allow your site to be found by those who visit similar sites looking for the products and services that your company offers.

Links - like those at the end of your articles and press releases, like those that link back to individual products or services from within your blog, and like those from others who have purchased from you in the past - help to improve your site's search engine rank.

By submitting your business' website to relevant directories and even to industry-specific - niche - search engines, you'll begin to generate additional links. More importantly, however, these niche directories are increasingly used by those looking for very specific sites. Having your listing present will make it even more likely that your prospective customers will find your page; that makes them a particularly valuable marketing tool for your business, and, again, it's often free to submit your site.

5. Look for Joint Ventures with Other Like-Minded Business People

It's not uncommon for small businesses to work together - a movie theater and a restaurant offering coupons for a discount if you spend the evening at both places. In my past life working with large corporations I realized that the largest companies grow by means of joint ventures all the time. However, many small businesses do not look into joint ventures when it comes to marketing their businesses.

Is it always easy to find the right joint venture for marketing your business? No, of course not. But it is possible to find like-minded business owners whose customers could benefit from your products or services just as your customers could benefit from those that they offer.

As a result, both small businesses will be better able to extend their outreach and develop a wider customer base. If you are going to enter into a joint venture, search for companies with similar goals and a similar customer base but a different type of product or service. Stay on the lookout, keep an open mind and you just might find the perfect opportunity to market your business to a new audience.

A perfect example of this principle is a recent joint venture I did with a company who specializes in teaching business credit skills to small business owners. This company markets to the same clients that I wish to add to my customer list, but they offer a completely different service. By working together, we were able to market our services to each other's mailing lists, resulting in both of us attracting new customers we would not have had otherwise. The great part about this joint venture was that there was no out-of-pocket cost to either of us - just our time and a little creativity in coming up with suitable promotions to each other's lists!

Taking your business to the web does not need to be difficult, nor does it need to be expensive. By taking a creative approach, small business owners on a tight marketing budget will be able to find traffic and increase their customer base.

Focus on reaching the search engines: use the right keywords and use them appropriately. Let people know that you have the information they need with articles and be sure to get the word out by distributing press releases. Interact with your customers with a high quality blog, and focus on getting great links. Lastly, take advantage of partnerships with like-minded business owners.

Small Business Marketing - The Power of a Market Review

Conducting a market review is one of the most important steps in the small business marketing process as it provides together with a business review the information you need to create a dynamic marketing plan. All big businesses conduct these reviews as they know it can save time and money for their business.

A market review does not have to be complicated and a lot will depend on what information you can source. The important factor regarding a market review is to understand the key elements of your market and how these elements can affect your business now and in the future.

The key elements you need to look at when conducting a market review for your small business include:

Size of Market
Your market is simply the overall industry in which you compete. For example if you sell juice then you compete in the Beverage Market. If you sell holidays as a travel agent then you compete in the Tourism Market. Analyzing the size of your market can tell you whether it is growing or declining, help you to identify growth opportunities and for a new small business can determine if the market is large enough to compete in and operate a profitable business. There are many sources you can use to gather information on the size of your market and these include trade magazines, industry associations, search engines and local government websites and resources.

Market Segment Analysis

Segmentation is a process that looks at the total market and then divides the products or services into broad groups that have similar characteristics. In the examples above, whilst the total market is beverages, the segment that is the most important to a juice manufacturer is the Juice Segment. Looking at the total beverage market today throughout the world the leading soft drink manufacturers have entered many of the market segments such as bottled water to expand their business. Market segment analysis also helps you to determine where your small business marketing efforts should be concentrated.

Distribution Channel Analysis
A distribution channel is the way in which your product or service is made available to your customers so they can purchase it. Examples are supermarkets, personal selling (face to face selling), distributors and the internet. Analyzing the sales of each distribution channel in your market enables you to identify which channels are the most important for you to compete in to grow your business.

Market Trends
A trend is any significant change to your market that your business may need to respond to. Examples of market trends include changes to the economy, changing customer demographics, social and global factors (to name a few). If you conduct business in the USA at the moment or are intending to compete in the USA then the concerns about a possible recession and how it could affect your small business needs to be identified so action plans can be put in place to minimize the impact.

Market Seasonality
If a product or service is seasonal it means that the majority of the sales occur at one or a few times a year. Tax accountants obviously have increased sales when the end of the financial year occurs and tax returns and other government reporting are required. Understanding market seasonality factors can lead to your small business maximizing sales through this period and also may highlight opportunities to spread your sales throughout the year.

Competitor Analysis
Your key competitors need to be analyzed in order for you to identify their key strengths and weaknesses and how they compare to your own small business. Reviewing this area means that you can be smarter with your marketing efforts and be proactive against their weaknesses and of course defend against their strengths. One tip that all big businesses do is to have a competitor file with examples of their marketing activities, products or services.

Big businesses know the value of reviewing the market in which they compete and you can to. Remember you can start slowly and just review one section at a time and then put in place activities or make business decisions based on the review to grow your small business.

Internet Business Marketing - How to Increase Internet Sales

Online business marketing continues to change along with the continuous changes associated with the internet. Any business today should be exploring internet sales to help grow company revenue. Online business marketing was once just thought of in terms of additional advertising. An online marketing system that consisted of classified ads or PPC (pay per click) campaigns. Internet sales have moved far beyond straight paid advertising with online business marketing today.

When you stop to take in all the network marketing avenues available in online business today, there are numerous referral sources you should be applying in your marketing methods to generate new business leads. If you're a business owner and you do not have a presence online, you should be educating yourself on what internet business marketing you should be doing. Internet sales are an extension of income for any business and certainly it's created great opportunities for many home based business entrepreneurs.

Why learn and implement an online marketing system?

There are many internet marketing tips and new business lead education materials available for online based business. Many internet sales can be generated from using free or low cost marketing methods today. Now, not everything is free but the web is full of free information and resources. When you consider internet business marketing is a lead generating system working 24 hours/7 days a week, you should understand the impact of internet sales associated with that type of marketing can produce.

An online marketing system today consists of marketing strategies from traditional offline and new concept online marketing methods. Here is a partial list of methods available for your internet business marketing that will produce new business leads daily:

• Ezines
• Email
• Joint Ventures
• Postcard Mailings
• Pay-Per-Click
• Magalogs (Catalogs That Look Like Magazines)
• Direct Mail
• Spots In Other People's Catalogs
• Radio
• TV
• Press Releases (Online And Offline
• Teleseminars
• Webinars
• Magazines
• Newspaper Classifieds
• Speaking At Seminars
• Writing Articles (Online And Off) (Many free internet business marketing sites)
• Inserts In Newspapers, Magazines Or Mail-Order Shipments (This Is Called "Insert Media")
• Blogs
• Viral Marketing
• Social Marketing (great free resource for internet marketing tips)
• Linking Strategies
• Free Search Engine Listings
• Forums
• Online Videos (very popular for internet sales growth)
• And the list goes on...

Internet Attraction Marketing - Teach yourself the methods and techniques in How To Attract Clients and Prospects to YOU

Taking the time to educate yourself on how these and other marketing strategies will improve your internet sales. Remember to research for helpful internet marketing tips, many you can utilize for free or low cost. Implement them into your internet marketing system and track you new business leads and sales growth. Concentrate your efforts on the strategies producing the highest internet sales or leads. Make adjustments to your online marketing system as needed and enjoy your online based business growth.

Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small Business Marketing

Over the past decade more and more people are getting fired, getting downsized, or getting fed up with their corporate jobs and embark on the journey as a small business owner. Unfortunately, most of the new small business owners fail to consider their marketing plans or strategy. There are many marketing concepts for small business marketing to consider and plan for, but here is our list of Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small Business Marketing.

Marketing Concept # 1: Consistency

Consistency is the number one marketing concept for small business marketing only because it is left out of marketing concepts for so many businesses. I have worked with a long list of clients, big and small, that are extremely inconsistent in all areas of their marketing. Consistency helps lower the cost of marketing and increase the effectiveness of branding.

Marketing Concept # 2: Planning

Once small business owners decide to be consistent with their marketing, planning is the next major concept to engage. Planning is the most vital part of small business marketing or any level of marketing, for that matter, and so many owners, marketing managers, and even CMOs plan poorly. Put the time into planning your marketing strategy, budget, and other concepts presented here to ensure success.

Marketing Concept # 3: Strategy

Strategy immediately follows planning because your strategy is the foundation for the rest of your marketing activities. In the process of planning, you must develop your strategy: who you will target, how you will target them, and how will you keep them as a customer.

Marketing Concept # 4: Target Market

Target market is also another key concept for small business marketing. Defining exactly who you are targeting allows small business owners to focus on specific customers and reduce marketing waste. A well-defined target market will make every other marketing concept so much easier to implement successfully.

Marketing Concept # 5: Budget

Although it is listed at number 5, budgeting is important throughout the entire process. Creating a marketing budget is usually the hardest and most inaccurate part of small business marketing. Most small businesses owners lack a great deal of experience in marketing, so their budgets usually end up skewed. The most important part of this marketing concept is to actually establish a marketing budget. From there, you can worry about how to distribute your available funds.

Marketing Concept # 6: Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is usually defined as product, pricing, place, and promotion. As a small business owner, you must specifically decide on your products (or services), the appropriate pricing, where and how you will distribute your products, and how will you let everyone know about you and your products.

Marketing Concept # 7: Website

In today's market, a business of any size must have a website. I hate when I see businesses that have a one page website with out-dated information. Customers, be it businesses or consumers, will search the web over 60% of the time before making any purchasing decisions. This marketing concept contains a slew of additional components, but you must at least develop a small web presence of some kind and keep it updated.

Marketing Concept # 8: Branding

Many small businesses owners also neglect this concept. Small business marketing must focus on this marketing concept just as much as large corporations do. Branding consists of the pictures, logo, design scheme, layout, make up, and image of your products and even your company. Branding is how your customers perceive (please place a lot of emphasis on that word!) your products and company. Make sure to pay special attention to what kind of brand you are building through each step of your planning and implementation.

Marketing Concept # 9: Promotion and Advertising

Promotion and advertising is a very complex marketing concept, but must be considered for any type of business and its products and services. Once you engage the previous 8 marketing concepts, you must finally let your target market know about you and your products. Proper promotion and advertising will result in effective brand recognition, and, ultimately, increased sales.

Marketing Concept # 10: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The concept of customer relationship management has become a huge industry in the marketing world. There are many types of software and services offered to help businesses of any size handle their customer relationship management. Since there is so much available, usually for a large sum of money, small business owners usually look at this concept as something they are not big enough for or have enough money to implement. Don't be fooled by the massive industry that has evolved from this concept. Maintaining proper customer relationship management is essential to creating loyal and consistent customers.

This list of marketing concepts should be examined, researched, planned, and implemented, especially by small businesses, in order to be successful. Also, your marketing doesn't stop here. Each business is unique and will have additional components that must be considered, but this list will jump-start any marketing plan.

Offline Marketing Vs Online Business Marketing

This article is really to give you an understanding of the offline business marketing world and how it has now transformed to the online business marketing world. Come with me on a short journey from back in history to modern day and into the future.

Offline Business Marketing:

The world of offline business marketing is soon to be become redundant. Since advertising first began, smart business owners were always on the lookout for that something new that was going to give them the edge over their competitors.

In the beginning there was word of mouth advertising. A vendor sold a product or service to a customer who then went out and spread the word to his personal circle of influence. Word of Mouth Advertising in those days had only two possible endings. One, a positive referral was made that resulted in more customers and more sales. Secondly, a negative referral was made and that resulted in less customers and less sales.

Obviously, knowing the importance of their only advertising medium, good vendors looked after their customers especially well and were rewarded in return. As in today's modern business, those that didn't look after their customers suffered the penalty that followed.

Clever vendors then moved on to Poster advertising. Posters were placed strategically around the areas promoting their products and services. Now they had two modes of advertising. Those that didn't look after their customers so well, were now able to exploit the Poster advertising strategy. The better the Poster, the better the results of bringing in customers and making more sales.

And so the world of advertising and marketing began. Now since those days we have had a host of other marketing and advertising strategies come and go. Some lasted longer than others, while some were so brief they blew out with the next gust of wind.

I won't go in to all the mediums that we have seen over the many years. The important thing to note is this, THERE WERE CHANGES. Those that moved with the changes were able to stay ahead of their competitors, those that didn't took so long to pick up the change that they lost fortunes in their business or lost their businesses completely.

Today's world still has a great deal of off line marketing and advertising. Television, radio, newspapers and magazines would have to be the main form of media used. And in the main, successful for those businesses who have the thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to pour in to their advertising.

Large multinational corporations have had offline marketing campaigns that ran in to the millions of dollars and obviously their return on investment had to remain high for such colmitments to continue.

What about the small and medium enterprises? What do they pay in advertising and marketing? What is their return on investment? Well let me tell you, they are the business models that are struggling and close to collapse.

Why? Because they are continually paying for advertising and marketing campaigns that are useless.

Here's an example:

If you are a small or medium business, ring your local newspaper and ask to place an ad in the Classifieds Section. What will you get? You will get a consultant on the other end of the phone who will ask what Category you wished to be placed in, how many lines or lines and columns you wish to include.

You will be asked to read your ad content and they will check the spelling, and how you want it to look. You agree and that's it. Do you get to look and preview your ad? You can look and make one minor change, that's it. You then pay for what you get.

There is no consultation about your marketing strategy, your target market, your product or anything that will help give you an edge over your competitor. The consultants are not marketing specialists, they are telephone specialists who fill in a form.

Your ad comes out in the newspaper and you don't like it. Bad Luck, that's what you get.

Cross that over to "The Yellow Pages" advertisements. Depending on the size of the ad, which also means the amount of money you are going to spend with them, dictates the amount of help you receive. Now understand this, the average consultant in "The Yellow Pages" is not a marketing specialist. They specialize in "selling advertising space".

So the question that begs to be asked is," Why would you go to someone who is not a specialist marketing agent to do your marketing?" That's like asking a dental receptionist to do your filling or an extraction. It doesn't work.

Small and Medium enterprises generally have no idea what they are doing in relation to marketing their business, product and service. They have no idea of how to structure a successful marketing campaign to bring their business more customers. Business owners need to go to a specialist who is an expert in that field, someone who knows what they are doing. Someone who is going to build a marketing strategy that is successful in achieving the objectives set by the business owner.

Traditional advertising through "The Yellow Pages", Newspapers and other print media will soon be of little value. The distribution is localised and viewing is random. Any return on investment is based on luck rather than a measured strategic marketing campaign.

People are sick and tired of advertisements being pushed in front of their faces. It is said that an average of 2000 advertisements are placed in front of us every single day. Ask yourself how many you can remember from yesterday through newspapers, magazines, billboards, t.v, radio etc. The answer, probably half a dozen, maybe if you're good.

So, what is happening to your business ad? Nothing.

Online Business Marketing:

Why? One word, internet. The internet has now changed the world of advertising and marketing forever. The trend towards the internet is moving faster than any other medium in history. The younger age groups, Generation X and Generation Y are using the internet multiple times daily. It is now their chosen form of networking and communicating. We now have phones that communicate on the internet.

Guess what? Now the Baby boomers are getting in on the act as well. Just have a look at Social Networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The older generations are now using the internet to communicate with their families around the world. Add Skype and other similar programs that allow F*R*E*E phone and video calls around the world. Any business that is not on the internet now, and not on the internet in the next year or so is seriously in big trouble.

What do you think the modern generation do when they are looking for a product or service? They don't run for the Yellow Pages that's for sure. They run to their computer or laptop and do a Google Search, that's what they do.

What doe this mean for your business? You need to be marketing your business, products and services on the internet.

How do you do this? You need a Website. The Website is your online virtual shop, office or whatever your business front is. It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. It is open for business while you are sleeping, on holiday, in your shop or where ever you wish to be. It never closes unless you or your landlord close it down. (Yes, even on the internet we have landlords that you have to pay rent to on a monthly basis)

Your business is open for customers to browse, leave their details for followup, or purchase a product or service. And they do all this without you having to be there, how fantastic is that? That is the power of the internet.

How do people find you? Imagine a highway, any highway. Imagine your Website is a store front on that highway. Now imagine we incorporate strategies that were once the powerhouse strategies of offline marketing. Imagine the Word of Mouth which in internet terms is Social Networking, Poster Marketing which we call Article Marketing, Television Advertising we call Video Marketing, Radio Advertising we call Podcasting.

Just as in your offline marketing, we use all these strategies to drive targeted traffic to your Website. Traffic are potential clients. The difference to offline marketing is that online, only people that are looking for you will find you. That means they WANT what you have. They will get to choose between you and your competitors who they find online. When they choose you, they have already got their credit cards out and sitting in front of them. That prospect is now a customer.

You now have the opportunity to get directly in front of thousands if not tens of thousands of potential customers. To win their business you will first need to be online, and second have a marketing campaign that is successful enough to get you in front of them.

Whether you are a local or international organization, small or medium enterprise or multinational, your marketing campaign will have to incorporate your target market. Your campaign will have to target your distribution and servicing area, so if you only do local stuff that is cool, if you distribute and service internationally then that is cool as well. The internet allows you to advertise globally and locally.

Costs:

How do the costs compare? In our experience an internet campaign could set you back a few thousand dollars to set it up at the start. Most good providers will have a payment plan to suit most people. There are on-going monthly fees anywhere from about $10.00US depending on the sort of campaign package you need.

So let's say it costs you $5000.00US to set up your Website and implement a marketing strategy. Add an average of around just say $100 a month. The monthly fee is equivalent to paying rent for your building and costs associated to that.

Compare those costs to an average Full Page ad in a certain directory which could set you back tens of thousands of dollars per year, add in your newspapers ads which you place weekly, as well as any other limited advertisements. The cost to you is enormous in comparison to an online Website presence.

I hope that you have been able to see the benefits and the obvious need to have an online business presence.

I hope this article has been of value to you. I look forward to being with you on the next article where we will share Marketing Strategies that could save your business literally thousands of dollars. You don't want to miss that.

Here's a tip for you, it doesn't matter what industry you are in, what product or service you provide. Your business is about marketing. If you fail to market your business properly, your business will fail.