Marketing & Advertising

More and more people are going online instead of using the Yellow Pages. So are the Yellow Pages dead?

Here’s a good, unbiased, post on the current state of the Yellow Pages and Online Advertising.

Link to Greg Sterling’s post.

Is your phone number the primary way customers contact you?

If so - don’t hide it on your website! Put it in the top, right corner of EVERY page.

Don’t make your visitors search for your phone number…make it easy for them to call you.

Quick Books does a great job of this. Their number is in the top, right corner and they invite people to call.

This is a simple tip to increase the leads you are generating from your website.

A lot of small business owners…

Try to be all things to all people.

Small Business Owner: Why not find a niche market?

It makes great sense - especially from a marketing standpoint. It is far easier to market a product or service to a niche group of 500 than a broad group of 100,000.

Here is one good example of a guy targeting a niche. He doesn’t sell marketing services to every small business. His specialty is Marketing Services for CPA’s.  If you are a CPA interested in marketing, he’s your guy.

There are niches in every industry - go find one! Small businesses can attack these niches much effectively than the giant companies out there…

Find a niche and profit.

To all of the small business owners reading this post - I have a question for you…

Have you been approached by your Print Yellow Pages rep about Local Online Advertising?

Local Online Advertising is a fuzzy marketplace and continues to get more convoluted and confusing by the day…there are a lot of choices and a huge gap between good and bad options. Your Yellow Pages rep has one option for you…it probably isn’t your best option.

Local Online Advertising can be a very profitable place to spend your marketing/advertising dollars. But you need to spend them wisely.

Your Print Yellow Pages rep is eager to sell you an online advertising contract to go along with your heavy print contract.

I’m eager to make sure you don’t waste your money.

Call or e-mail and let me explain your options for Local Online Advertising. We know what works.

A business brain I learn a lot from is John Jantsch who runs Duct Tape Marketing.  Quick side note - it’s important to learn from experts in your field. Read their books, blogs, articles…if you are fortunate - talk with them. Don’t sit back and be content with what you know…learn more.

Anyway - back to this blog post, John Jantsch wrote a blog post titled “Question Everything.”  Here’s an excerpt:

Here’s my best advice for making sure that your marketing materials hit the logical and emotional mark. Every time a prospect or client asks a question, write it down. Collect these questions on an ongoing basis, make every sales person note the questions they receive. In a very short period of time you will see patterns develop. If you are getting some of the same questions over and over again you can bet that your marketing materials need to address the answer to those questions.

The questions our prospects ask are often clues to what matters to them. So, forget about the new shiny features of your gizmo and address what’s really on their mind. Do it now, because some of your prospects won’t think to actually ask, they’ll just move on.

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on your website is a no brainer. Website visitors can cruise from your website to three competitors sites in a matter of a few clicks. Make sure your website is answering their questions and helping them move towards the action of calling you, filling out a form, or buying from you. A quality FAQ page that answers their questions helps them feel more comfortable working with you.

A great avenue for advertising your local small business is local cable television.

For small business owners the downside of regular network television is that you pay for your ad to be shown to your entire region (let’s say a 100-150 mile radius) versus the area from which you draw the majority of your customers (let’s say a 10-20 mile radius.)  The same is true for most radio stations…pay to be heard by a large radius, when you really only want to talk to a small, local radius of customers.

The beauty of local cable advertising is that you can hit that small radius of customers. You can narrow your ad down to specific cities and advertise to your exact target market. It’s more cost effective and, more than likely, a better return on investment (ROI.)

With that said, if you are considering local cable advertising, you need to visit SpotRunner.com.

Their impressive online system lets you place your advertising and also pick out a professionally crafted ad.  Their “ad library has thousands of ads specifically created for hundreds of business categories”

It’s a very slick system and a great way for you, in a very timely manner, to set-up a local cable television campaign.

If nothing else, visit to their ad library and view some of the ads within your business category…it’s sure to give you some solid ideas.

E-mail marketing is a very cost effective way to promote your business. Whether it is highlighting a new service you offer, reminding subscribers about existing services, or promoting an upcoming event - delivering a timely newsletter into the inbox’s of your customers and prospects is cost effective and just flat out smart marketing.

Your existing customer base is most likely the bread and butter of your business. Marketing to these folks is the best way you are going to grow your business.

When was the last time you designed, printed, addressed and sent out a postcard, letter or newsletter to your customer base? If you have in the last six months - way to go!

If your answer to that question is “I don’t remember the last time…” or “well over a year ago” - my question to you is…WHY?

To get to my point quicker I’ll assume that your answer to WHY is - “because it’s a lot of work to design, create, print, address, and mail out a letter. I just don’t have the time.”

If that’s you - then seriously consider setting up an e-mail marketing program.

More than ever before you need to reach out and contact your existing customers multiple times a year. E-mail marketing provides a quick and affordable way to do just that.

Learn more here.

Here is a link to an article that I recently read on entrepreneur.com. “10 Unusual Ways to Advertise: Create an ad that’ll stick with your customers long after they see it.”

While some of the ideas are a little off the wall, there were a few parts of the article that I thought deserved mention.

First a quote that I thought spoke the truth:

The famous ad man Morris Hite, who was known for his good-ol’-boy approach to advertising, said it best when he quipped, “There is no such thing as national advertising. All advertising is local and personal. It’s one man or woman reading one newspaper in the kitchen or watching TV in the den.”

One of the “10 Unusual Ways to Advertise” that I don’t think is all that unusual:

Virtual showroom. Build a website to serve as a virtual showroom. It’s one of the best advertisements there is. Use it when people call to ask details about your company, your products or your services. “Are you sitting in front of a computer? Good.” Most people will be, or can easily walk across the room to one. “Now go to Blahblah.com. Yeah, that’s me, there on the right. Now click the button that says ‘Equipment.’ See that second photo?…” Think of this website as a place where you sit down to talk with interested prospects. Make sure the virtual showroom is equipped with all the same tools and props as your physical showroom. You’ll be shocked what it does for the conversion rate of inquiries.

That last line is big: “You’ll be shocked what it does for the conversion rate of inquiries.” Walking potential customers through your website makes the experience more interactive, it differentiates your company from your competitors, and it helps them feel comfortable doing business with you. They see your previous work and hear your voice in their ear telling them how great your products/services are and why they should pick YOU.

If you are one of the many business owners who apologize for their website because it is old, out-dated, and unprofessional, you need to get in contact with Hunt Hosting (Your Marketing Guy’s sister company.)

Your website should be the foundation of all of your marketing and a place you proudly point customers to each and every day.