Small Business Web Design, Local Internet Marketing, Local SEO, Online Video, Training | LOCAL Na8ion West Palm Beach, FL

Your marketing work isn't getting done, neither is mine, we need anoter plan.

The Problem

Small business owners usually agree that marketing is the toughest and most critical part of their business. After all, the number one reason businesses fail is lack of sales. Even as a seasoned marketer with over twenty years of marketing  and online experience I have to say that this small business owner agrees.

Early in my career I called on thousands of small business owners as a Yellow Pages advertising rep. Today I work with the same kinds of small and medium sized businesses on web design and internet marketing but the major challenges remain. Here’s what I used to hear in 1988 and what I still hear today when I talk with business owners.

• Advertising cost too much
• Advertising doesn’t work
• Marketing is a mysterious, confounding practice with little real feedback
• I don’t have time for this
• I want to work on my business, not marketing and advertising

As a small business owner myself I have to say that today I feel your pain. While I’ve been busy raising my two youngest kids and building my practice LOCAL Na8ion, I’ve had a hell of a time taking my own advice. While I appreciate the irony in this I don’t like that I’m not walking-the-talk. I’ve been like the landscapers who I used to call on who had a dirt front lawn – always too busy making their customer’s gardens lush and paying the bills to work on their own.

The Solution

So let’s talk about solutions. Here they are (and yes, I’m taking my own advice):

• Use tools & technology that save time and reduce complexity
• Build your marketing tasks into your daily routine
• ‘Microsize’ your marketing workflow until it actually gets done and then slowly raise the bar
• Leverage, leverage, leverage – anyone, anything, anytime. Remember to say thanks
• Find any way to take action today
• The more you do it – the easier it gets

I’m going to talk more about two items on my list: Microsize your marketing workflow until it actually gets done and The more you do it – the easier it gets. If I bit off any more this post won’t get written and I won’t move forward.

Microsize your marketing workflow until it actually gets done

Here’s the first clue if you’ve made your task small enough (microsize) to get the job done. Did you produce something that you can call DONE? Can you check off the task? Until you actually produce a result or a task you can check off you’re biting off more than you can chew. Break the task down into chunks, making it smaller so you can complete it.

I encourage you to make it small in a silly way – get really micro and creative! This kind of technique is about overcoming the mental hurdle in non-starters. Once you get something done, you feel accomplishment, you build mental kudos and success and with enough repetition – momentum! As you move forward keep doing the small stuff – it all adds up. Be wary of piling on. Recognize now that you will do this. Rather than letting that pattern seep back in to your practice go after it the very next day with a smaller task – microsize.

The more you do it – the easier it gets

I was trying to record a video blog post yesterday and it’s been ages since I’ve done one. It was rough, felt useless and originally felt like a waste of time. But here’s the thing – it wasn’t. I got some practice and that’s important because I’m way out of practice. The last video lesson or vlog post I put up was September 24th! Right now I’m slow, inefficient and rough around the edges. How’s that going to improve? Practice.

It’s no different than getting my two youngest kids to practice their violin. If they don’t practice for a few days, the next time they do it’s hell on them. So it might take me three more tries to get that vlog post done but the practice will make it sharper and easier to do the next time.

I know what you’re thinking. If I had microsized my work I wouldn’t have felt like I failed. You’re right. I DID fail in my original task which was to shoot, edit and post a new vlog post. That would have been OK if I was in a flow state, but I was far from it. What I needed to put on my task list yesterday was to practice a vlog post. That would have changed everything.

So, today I did something that is easier for me. I wrote a blog post. And this task is almost checked off. Which is good because in looking at my task list I see I’ve got three client projects to juggle, five loads of laundry to fold, a shopping trip, kids to take to violin, school, feed and look after and much much more. And if that goes well I might (just might) practice vlogging a bit more later tonight. If I do, that’s great but if it doesn’t happen I’ll have already produced a result.

Are there any practices that you use to get the job done? If so, please share them.

One of the most overlooked marketing opportunities for small business owner are press releases.

Press releases can generate  free buzz about your small business, products or services and create sales leads. Further, press releases have a positive impact on your local search engine optimization efforts. When a website news organization or blogger links to your website it indicates to Google, Yahoo! and other search engines that your site has some useful or relevant content. Press releases are a great way to make this happen.  This is especially true if you use keywords that accurately describe your business such as Miami Florist and then write an interesting release.

One thing you need to know is where to send your press release once it’s written. All your local newspapers (don’t miss the small ones) are a great first start. But don’t stop there.

Below are some good FREE websites that will broadcast your press release at no charge. If a reporter or blogger notices your story on these sites and finds it relevant you could be on your way to free buzz and backlinks to your website.

Here’s the list of  websites where you can submit your press release free of charge.

• Business Portal 24 http://www.businessportal24.com
• I-Newswire          http://www.i-newswire.com/
• Click Press         http://clickpress.com
• 1888 Press Release http://www.1888pressrelease.com
• 24-7 Press Release http://www.24-7pressrelease.com
• Exact Release     http://exactrelease.com
• PR-USA         http://pr-usa.net
• Newswire Today     http://www.newswiretoday.com/index.php

Although not in the free category, PR Web can be well worth the investment. I’ve used PR Web with my clients. PR Web’s prices range from $80 to $360 depending on where you want your press release to be found. They also have nice free guides on the exact format your press release needs to be written in.

Stay tuned, I’ll post a follow up here on LOCALNa8ion that will provide additional background on how to structure your press release for maximum search engine optimization goodness.

Get your small business marketing into game shape

The economy is forcing many of us in small business to re-focus our efforts in marketing. Having returned perhaps for the first time in years after successfully growing our business by word-of-mouth and the occasional advertisement here and there, we find the landscape vastly changed. We’re not in the shape we once were.

I’d like to suggest that getting your marketing into ‘game shape’ for your small business is all about renewing your information, focus, and action.

Please permit me to use a parallel example for just a moment.

Whether you Golf or not you know who Tiger Woods is. He recently returned to Golf from a much ballyhooed eight month layoff due to a knee injury. He opted to return in a match play event, a format of golf that he’s particularly celebrated in. Tiger was ousted by a much weaker player in the second round of the event despite the fact that he’s won many events after injuries and long layoffs. I was interested to learn about Tiger’s mental state before the match from Wall Street Journal reporter John Paul Newport.

“One can only speculate, of course, but I’m drawn to a comment he made on his Web site the week before the Accenture. He said he was “full-bore” with his practice sessions and faced no restrictions, but didn’t yet have his “golf stamina” back” – John Paul Newport of Wall Street Journal ‘Tiger’s Search for Golf Stamina‘

As small business owners we have much we can take away from this parallel to apply to our own marketing efforts. If we’ve been out of the game we need to study, practice, and most importantly do. For Tiger, that’s a Golf tournament. For small business owners like us it means we need to get marketing.

We can start but cutting out old ineffective advertising, re-evaluate our current marketing message for efficacy, and find the best crop of current tools and methods to reach our customers.

The final stage of doing is typically the most difficult for all of us. It’s when we must face our fear of the unknown and fear of failure. In the past, marketing and advertising has done much to validate this fear because of the high cost of experimenting with different advertising methods. Ads cost a lot of money. Figuring out which ads work and which ones don’t isn’t exactly an easy thing to do when cash and credit is as tight as it is right now.

Today we have many reasons for hope.

No More Gatekeepers

The Internet has removed the gatekeepers to your customers. The gatekeepers of old included media like Newspapers, Yellow Pages, Direct Mail, Radio, TV and others that you had to pay ridiculous amounts of money to in order to reach (or communicate) with your customer. All without any guaranty of performance.

Contrast that with today when you can employ a free online self-publishing tool like WordPress for your small business website, optimize it for local searches (local search engine optimization), and install free services from Google like their analytics package to monitor your visitor’s behavior. These tools are accessible to any small business with a little study and practice.

Even if you pay an expert like us to re-design your website and optimize it for Local SEO that’s only a one-time investment. Even compared to one month’s worth of traditional advertising like Yellow Pages it’s a bargain.

Using free Google tools like Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer you can even mimic a large ad agency and do sophisticated a/b testing on offers to see which offer performs better. Three years ago A/B testing could have cost you five to ten thousand dollars.

Other ways to directly connect with your customer for free

Today, individuals, businesses of all sizes, and even stars like Lance Armstrong and Britney Spears are using social media like Twitter to directly connect with friends, audiences and yes, even buyers. Consumers have realized through blogs that we are no longer reliant on mainstream media for our information or our business. Businesses have cottoned on to blog marketing for its positive impact on both search engine optimization and branding.  Once you have a direct connection with your customer you can build a real relationship in any manner of ways.

If you spend time studying, practicing and doing Internet marketing you’ll soon realize new customers can be found on a shoestring budget. You’ll have to roll up your sleeves if you want to tap into the biggest savings, but that’s better than the past when you had no choice at all.

Once you’ve dialed in your best marketing message you’ll continue to find new efficiencies, insights, and nuances not apparent to you before. The field will open up. You’ll be in game shape. And you won’t be dropping two grand every time you sneeze while you’re trying to figure it out.

Welcome back, it’s good to have you back in the game.