small business promotion Tag

20 Jan

Posted at 19:30h in Uncategorized by
By Beth Graddon-Hodgson [caption id="attachment_2645" align="alignright" width="240" caption="not Beth's husband"]salesman[/caption] Most businesses use blogging as a marketing tool, and that’s the way it should be; but people are uncertain exactly what that means. Do you use traditional rules of marketing when you’re writing your blog posts? Write for a target audience? Try to sell a product? Include a call to action?  Well, those are more questions than I can answer here, and I’ve answered many of them before. But to summarize, yes to be an effective marketing tool you do have to think as you would when writing marketing copy (identify your target audience, make statements that are appealing and capture interest,  and she some light on your business). But the similarities end there.

03 Jan

Posted at 13:03h in Integrated Marketing, Small Business by
the Wax BlogI realized after 8 years in business I've seen some trends in how entrepreneurs kick off a new year. One thing I know I need to work on is calibrating the right sense of urgency in terms of all my goals and plans for 2011.  This seems to be an issue for many small business owners as well.  It's not easy to keep everything in balance this time of year - not burning out too fast OR taking too long to plan. See if you can identify any of your own traits in these characterizations:

11 May

Posted at 04:39h in Uncategorized by
By Beth Graddon- Hodgson You might think that it’s only your actual blog content that is going to get people to stop by and read, but images play a big role, too. They can help make your blog posts appear more professional and attractive, but that’s really only a small portion of their benefits.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
For one thing, the images can drive traffic to your blog. People search for usable photos just about as often as they search for information online. When you post a photo and use your blogging tool to upload it with a title, relevant keywords and a caption, you’re creating another way for people to find you on search engines. This can encourage them to either read your blog content while they’re already found themselves on your site, or give you a link back if they decide to use your image on their own blog or site. (Quick note - I thought this was a great time to try out the Wordpress free photo plugin from Crestock. Works GREAT just search "free photo" in your directory or download it here.  Of course, photo usage needs to be done carefully, or you might find yourself at the losing end of a lawsuit. Not all of the pictures you upload on your blog need to be yours, but these are the guidelines to follow before you put a picture on your post:

06 May

Posted at 07:31h in How to Pitch, Public Relations, Small Business by
I've been chewed out one too many times by a fierce, brilliant magazine editor, and yet a great feature in a national print monthly is still a plum placement. I asked an old editor of mine (in my brief freelance writing career) to spill the beans on what these folks REALLY want. And how to avoid totally pissing them off. Sheri Wallace is the former  Editor-in-Chief of ePregnancy magazine and Associate Publisher of REAL Magazine, with respective bi-monthly national newsstand circulations of 400,000 and 250,000. She doesn't mince words so read on...

22 Apr

Posted at 09:13h in How to Pitch, Public Relations by
[caption id="attachment_1284" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="(MICHAEL ROZMAN/WARNER BROS.) "][/caption] After the success of my last blog post on pitching freelance writers I decided to start a weekly feature called "How to Pitch". I'd like to encourage readers to comment with their own tips and ideas. Also, please let me know if there is a specific show you'd like to pitch. I'll try to interview one of the producers to get the inside scoop! ( If you're curious about being a good TV guest, here's a post on that I did a while ago.) First let's start with basic stuff. Although social media is the craze (and it's cheap) it's still building fans one to one. Although TV numbers continue to decline the medium provides  a huge opportunity to deliver your message one to many.  But for most people regular press releases and pitches probably won't get you in the door unless there is a show already planned -  that your message or back story fits perfectly. That can happen, but then you're depending on luck. It's better to create your own pitch, which means thinking like a producer and coming up with a compelling segment all your own. (At the end of this post I've included an actual pitch that got my client on Montel, just to show you a successful sample.)  Here are the steps for creating your own pitch - whether it's local or national, this is really how it works on most talk shows. Authors, it works the same for you. Unless you're already well-known, you need to come up with a unique idea to help sell your book.

06 Apr

Posted at 10:40h in Small Business, Social Media by
By Beth Graddon-Hodgson Once you’ve chosen a focal point for your blog – your vague subject area on what you’ll focus upon, the next step is to start making more specific decisions about the writing style. When writing each blog post you can make them personal or topical – or any combination of the two. In order to get a feel for what might work best for your blog, I’m going to provide you with some basic guidelines about what each of those categories mean. With this post, the focus will be upon personal business blogs. A second related article next week will discuss topical blog posts.

30 Mar

Posted at 15:56h in Small Business by
by Beth Graddon-Hodgson For some businesses, choosing a topic isn’t quite as easy. It’s always important to write with your target demographic in mind, but with a business that caters to a broad range of people like a catch-all online retail website; who are they and what do they care about? There are a number of questions that you can ask yourself when establishing a blog for your business. They are the ones that I go through to hone in on a specific topic area for a client who can go in any direction with their blog.