small business marketing Tag

27 Mar

Posted at 17:27h in Public Relations by

By Kate Connors, Senior Account Manager & Social Media Strategist at Media & Communications Strategies

Although I was born in the 80's I consider myself to be a full-blown 90's child. The TV show Wishbone™ was where I first developed a love of history. If someone uses the word “bop,” my mind immediately goes to my first Bop It™ game and I want to yell back “Twist it – Pull it – Flick it!” When parents complain about their kids having too many stuffed animals, I cringe and think about the multiple boxes of Beanie Babies™ living in my attic that I continue to hope will be worth something one day.  But the 90’s weren’t just about all the must-have tows and wonderful TV shows. They were also a time when future PR professionals like me had the opportunity to learn a thing or two about bringing clients success. Here are a few  PR tips we learned from 90's culture and icons.

  1.  Giving a Face to Your Brand is Crucial . We fell in love with the Olsen twins on Full House, but in reality that was only the beginning of their success. They truly owned their brand and developed movies and products that fit their target audience. In today’s world, where most interactions take place online and not in-person, personalizing and humanizing your brand is crucial to success.

24 Oct

Posted at 08:48h in Integrated Marketing, Small Business by
Andy Boyd is works in the credit card industry. But you can still trust him.  Do you own a small business? If so, there is a good chance you are facing an uphill battle when it comes to your marketing campaign. But as we all know, getting your message in front of the right people is essential to your long term success. The way that you do this depends on many factors including your industry, knowledge, and overall goals. Why not take marketing cues from companies that are currently running successful campaigns? For example, credit card companies are well known for marketing their products with a high level of success. By taking the principles of what they are doing and combining with your current strategy, you can formulate a plan that will yield the results you have been searching for. Here are three ways that credit card companies market themselves. As a small business, you can learn from these strategies.

12 Jul

Posted at 06:24h in Small Business by
By Beth Graddon-Hodgson Although the Google Panda update has been responsible for the decline in ranking success for many sites – in some cases,  for justified reasons – it has helped reinforce a number of important concepts that apply to blogging. What Google has been so kind to reinforce is  a number of concepts that we’ve discussed before on this blog. But considering there’s now more demand to put the related strategies for use, it is worth revisiting. Whether you’re just starting a blog or already have one setup, there are some things you should implement now.  Panda reminds us of the power of these simple strategies:

14 Jun

Posted at 12:27h in Uncategorized by
Last week we took a look at some of the pros and cons of the Google Panda changes. This week, let’s consider some of the things that you’ve got to do differently on your blog to help your website thrive under the new regime:

13 Jun

Posted at 05:59h in Small Business by
In April I wrote about guest posting as a way to improve your online reputation and I think we all know why it's great for your traffic numbers.  (If you're not sure, here's a great post from sideincomeblogging.com that explains it in detail.) You may not be sure HOW or WHERE to guest post. And you may also be banging your head against the wall at yet another social media task that has no immediate ROI.  Just trust me, guest posting is an important part of your online marketing tasks. And it doesn't have to be a time drain. Here are some easy ways to find good blogs to write for, and tips on writing them:

07 Jun

Posted at 07:00h in Uncategorized by
by Beth Graddon-Hodgson [caption id="attachment_3217" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Most people could refrain from a cute panda picture when writing about this topic. I could not. B. "][/caption] The changes implemented earlier this year by Google Panda have caused widespread panic online with many businesses seeing a drop in their rankings.  Now that the dust has settled,  over the next couple of weeks we are going to be exploring some of the things that you can do to make your blog content a bit more in line with the new guidelines that Google has set out. But first, to give you a better understanding of what these changes mean, let’s look at the pros and cons as they pertain to your blog content:

12 May

Posted at 09:27h in Integrated Marketing, Small Business by
As many businesses grow, the hassle of managing employees grows along with it. Two of the hardest groups to manage for me were outbound sales and customer service.  In the technology industry in the 1990's (which is where my management career started and ended) had few processes developed for inbound and outbound calls. In a small business, your "super admins" end up dealing with most of these things and often get burned out. Many, many call centers existing in the United States that are affordable, well-managed and easy to integrate into your business. It's not all the stereotypical Indian or Malaysian call center that we've all come to dread. If you're overwhelmed because you've got more business than you can handle, you might want to consider outsourcing call centers as an option. But just what do they do?