Taking your business marketing to the next level

When marketing your business, it is important to use persistance, patience and personal contact. I cannot emphasize the personal part enough. You can use every new marketing tool – wrap yourself in electronics, sending signals at every moment – and you will not generate the activity that you would by talking with people every week. These can be cold calls, or calls to former clients to just check in. You can join a local business group, a neighborhood association or a charity. Show up. Meet people. Pass out business cards. Offer advice.

In between those personal points of contact, there are some great ways to keep reaching out to larger groups. Below are some cheap or free ways to do so. This is meant to be “part two” to an earlier post containing a small business marketing basics checklist.

Small business marketing basics checklist

I can’t tell you how many times I try to find a small business online and Google returns no results. This is not Google’s fault; it is not even the business owner’s fault; it is just how the system works — someone has to enter the data. However, knowing how the system works, it falls on the business owner to do at least a few simple things to be found and grow. Some basic, inexpensive methods with nurture a business into the future.

Below is a checklist to help you get things started on the right foot…

7 Tips to get the best of your email marketing (or to start doing it)

Whether you are a real estate agent, a restauranteur or an interior decorator, your “sphere of influence” (friends, family, past clients, colleagues) is your best source of new business. In fact, many of my clients can trace 60-80% of their business back to their “sphere”. Your “sphere” may require your services/products or they may recommend your services/products to their friends. Email marketing allows you to reach out to these people regularly and at a low cost or at no cost — my favorite prices. I am also fond of the fact that email marketing has “legs” — it keeps going after you have sent it out because your recipients can easily forward it. That second or third tier of recipients are presumably even better leads, as the initial recipient believes it to be relevant to them.

Here are some tips for marketing via email: