Canadian Small Business Women

Connection, Synergy, Community

5 tips for getting more from your summer marketing

It’s almost here! Summer. It can be frustrating for small business owners as it often comes with a slow down in sales as people just start taking it easy.

While there are no magic solutions, there are things you can do to overcome the summer business slump. Here are 5 tips for getting more from your summer marketing strategy.

#1: Work with what you’ve got

If you had a summer marketing strategy last year, figure out what worked and what didn’t. As yourself questions like:

  • How engaged were your customers with your social media campaigns?
  • Did you have good follow through and brand recall after events and sponsorship opportunities?
  • What was general customer sentiment?

Make sure you’re building metrics into your strategies so you can track your successes. You can recycle strategies and tactics that worked well but find a creative way to keep it fresh for the upcoming summer. And you can avoid the things that just didn’t work.

#2: Try something new

If you didn’t have a summer marketing strategy last year, or perhaps it just didn’t work well overall, or maybe you are just adventurous, you might just want to try something new this year. Summer is a great time to step out of your comfort zone but remember that anything you choose to do should fit with what your audience would want. There is no reason to try something new unless you think it will bring positive results.

#3: Connect with the community

There is so much community activity in the summer you should really focus on building experiences rather than sales tactics. Whether you look at sponsorship opportunities for sports teams or community events, or even creating your own event, find ways to connect on a more personal level to build solid relationships that will continue throughout the rest of the year.

The idea is that you need to focus on brand recall through positive interactions rather than a hard sales technique. Just have fun with your marketing. Your target audience will respond will to it.

#4: Focus “snackable” content

People generally have less time to consume content in the summer, so you have to really grab their attention with quick and easy to digest content. A great way to do that is to focus more on visual content for your digital channels. Think snackable content with lots of images or even video or audio.

You can easily do this by doing things like:

  • Posting more images on social media with shorter captions, or even memes with no captions;
  • Doing vlogs (video blogs) instead of written blogs;
  • Do How To blogs that take you through step by step with images and less words;
  • Start a podcast; or
  • Create downloadable content so it can be consumed offline (at the cottage!).

#5: Pick a theme for your summer strategy

Get your audience invested in your summer marketing strategy by picking a theme that they can follow. If you pick a theme and tell a story around it using tactics that build on each other throughout the summer, you can create forward momentum even at a time of year that is normally slow.

Summer doesn’t have to be a tough time for your business, you just have to be proactive in creating a summer strategy that makes sense.

 

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

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Check out our Brand and Business Strategy Package to set you up for business success!

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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5 Tips: Attract Customers

How do you attract customers to your booth?

So you’ve set up your booth and are eagerly waiting people to visit.  Now what?
How do you encourage more visitors to stop at your booth? Over the past several years I have participated in nearly 70 craft shows and am the Show Director for the Made by Hand Shows.  I though this would be a great opportunity to share 5 quick tips on getting people to stop at your booth:
1: Smile/Friendliness :
Something so little as a SMILE can go a long way.  Be sure you are always look happy to be at the show.  Unhappy exhibitors will likely turn away potential customers.  Be energetic and outgoing enough to start a conversation.
2. Stand Up (don’t sit behind the table):
Customers are attracted booths where exhibitors who are standing and engaging people.  Better yet, get out from behind the table and stand in front of your booth.  Sometimes holding a product and asking people as they pass have you heard of “your product” is a great conversation starter).
3. Offer Something (freebies are great):
There is no doubt that customers love to get free stuff.  Offer customers a free sample or a free promotional piece (ie. pens, magnets) with your company information.  At past shows, we made little goodie bags with a business card, promo flyer and a promotional item (candy, sample, magnet or pen).
4. Hands-on or Demos: 
Customers love to touch, feel or taste.  Offer customers a demo, taster or a hands on opportunity.  At a show an exhibitor offered customers to make their own string bookmark with a few loose beads.  This was a great way to draw customers, and while they are there that’s your opportunity to engage the customers with your products.
5.  Entertainment Us:
If your booth looks fun, it attracts people.  Have you ever noticed that people are attracted to crowded booths.  Entertain visitors with a fun game or balloon pop (for a discount or free gift).  Customers are always attracted to booths where they get to participate.  Sometimes winning a ‘coupon, discount or that free gift with purchase’ educes that impulse buy.

Remember the more visitors to your booth, the more potential customers and sales you could have.  We hope these tips help increase traffic at your booth.

Jacqueline Hunter is the Director at Craftadian. In addition to hosting annual Craftadian Handmade Markets, Jacqueline is a resource for Handmade Business owners by offering online courses, work shops and support. She showcases, supports and promotes Canadian artists, artisans and designers.

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How To Succeed At Internet Marketing

Kerry George (1)

Internet marketing is no longer brand new. Many companies are having success with internet marketing. Some are using Google Ad Words, others are advertising on Facebook, many are creating YouTube videos. Each of these strategies can help, but here are five other simple techniques that you may not have thought of.

1. Use all of the free stuff.

You can have a Facebook business page, a Twitter page, a Google+ profile and a LinkedIn profile for free. YouTube, blogs, and Hootsuite are also free. When people look up your company they will usually look you up next. Give them something to see under your name by filling out your complete profile. When we look up your name the first page on Google should have a lot of current information that is all about you.

2. Use your photos.

Brand your face to your company and to your product by using your photo. Use your picture on your social media platforms. Use it at the end of your blogs with a bio and with contact information. In your computer store your photos with your name in the name of the photo. When you use your picture online add your name into the alt tag on the photo and also use a #yourname as a keyword when posting an article. When we look you up online we should find current and professional photos of you that dominate your name search. A few short months of dedicated photo posting can change your online persona.

3. Put your phone number on everything.

The purpose of using internet marketing is to get more clients and to write more business. The bottom line is the bottom line. In order to converts hits to a website into paying customers the website needs your phone number to be prevalent. However, there is a lot more that can be done with a phone number. Be sure that your phone number is on your LinkedIn profile right in the summary, not just in the contact information. Not everyone can see your contact info. If they have no LinkedIn profile themselves but instead found you on the first page of Google while searching your name, they can’t see your contact info. They can see your profile info. Also put your phone number right into your automated postings on Twitter and LinkedIn at least a quarter of the time. Phone numbers now show up on smart phones as something that can be immediately dialed. Why make anyone hunt for it?

4. Blog, blog, blog…

There are so many reasons to blog. Articles establish you as an industry leader. Google loves fresh content and ranks your website higher by your consistent blogging. Blogs can be posted on LinkedIn and Twitter and other social media channels drawing your following from those places to your website blog. You can have an engaged audience that regularly follows you and even establish raving fans that give you credibility and they repost your material spreading your marketing for you. Blogging should be posted at least once a week to build a loyal following, however it can be written once a month and programmed to post each week.

5. Post consistently.

You have them following you like the Pied Piper. Now give them something to follow. Twitter and LinkedIn should have postings every day of at least 4 times. Facebook needs different postings with pictures, positive statements and visual stimulus a few times a week minimum. If you have no time, use Hootsuite or another aggregator. Write your posts in one afternoon and program them all at once during the month. Then you can be living your busy life going from meeting to meeting and still be posting on an ongoing basis.

Hope these 5 tips help you to become more successful at your internet marketing!

Kerry George is the owner of the Canadian Imperial Business Network which is currently the largest business network in Alberta and rapidly expanding across the country. She is a serial entrepreneur/author and speaker with a zest for life and a passion to help others succeed in increasing their potential and their bottom line. Kerry has several publications and blogs that you can follow and welcomes most interaction online.

Twitter

@createloyalty2U

@CIBNtweets

@yycbiznetwork

Blogs

http://loyal2u.blogspot.ca/

http://calgarybiz.net/blog-3/

http://kidsincowtown.wordpress.com/

http://loyal2u.ca/category/social-media-2/linkedin/

5 Steps to A Successful Blog in 2014

5STSB

Happy New Year! It’s 2014 and I’m sure you have already set your business objectives for the year. Have you set your blog objectives?

What do you plan to achieve with your blog this year? Many people forget that blogging is a marketing tool. As with any marketing tool you want to be able to see and measure results. You can do this by setting blog objectives.

Here are 5 tips to get you started.

 

1. How often do you want to blog?

If you have been blogging for a while now you have probably set a blogging schedule – daily (very ambitions), weekly, bi-weekly or monthly – or you blog whenever the mood strikes. A way to help with scheduling and planning blog post is to create an editorial calendar.  Your editorial calendar can be as basic or as complex as your business or personality. My editorial calendar is a spreadsheet that includes columns for topic, title, meta title, meta description, keywords, categories, call to action, and date posted.

Once you create your editorial calendar stick with it. It helps to keep you on track and makes you more aware that you have to set time aside on a regular basis to actually sit down and create a blog post. So your first objective is to create and stick to a blog schedule.

 

2.  Increase traffic

Search Engine Optimize each post to drive traffic. You can see from above that meta title, and description are a part of my blogging process and that is because I use my blog to increase traffic to my website. Every week I review analytics to monitor traffic, traffic source and keywords used. This helps me determine which blog posts are effective and helps me plan future posts. It also shows me keywords people use to find my site that I also use in planning. And finally it enables me to set targets based on similar posts.

Your second objective is to drive organic traffic using blog posts, which leads to the third objective driving social media traffic.

 

3. Increase Interaction

Social Media is a big part of marketing today and you want to use it to the fullest. After publishing a blog post the next step would be to post it on social media. Post to all social media accounts and use images to help it go viral. Not only do you want to increase traffic from social media you also want to increase interaction. To see a big jump on interaction you can add social media sharing buttons to your blog posts.

I use analytics with such tools as Hootsuite to see what blog posts are being shared, tweeted, commented on etc. I also look at which social media is driving the most traffic and interaction. These numbers help me to plan future blog posts as well tweaking my reposting to social media. I may repost a blog post with a different title, or image and measure the reaction.

Your third objective is to increase traffic and interaction through social media.

 

4. Drive Sales

Use your blog posts to increase sales. If you noticed above in my blog process I include a call to action because at the end of the day when blogging for your business you want to be able to increase business. Each blog post has an objective that I include in my call to action. The objective may be as simple to comment, share on social media, or a bit more specific such as download a free report or to buy something etc. Even if the call to action is as simple as to comment my ultimate goal is to gather leads and prospect to increase sales.

Not only should you use a call to action in your blog post, you should also be linking to your products and services when applicable.

Your fourth objective is to increase sales by having a blog post objective, a call to action and internal links to your products and services.

 

5. Measure Success

Based on the 4 main objectives above (feel free to add more to align with your business objectives), the next step is to measure success.

Take a look at last years numbers. What were your weekly, monthly, and quarterly organic traffic, what were the traffic sources, what was social media interaction and blog interaction like? For example one week of traffic I had 400 unique visits, 20% from Facebook, 20% from Twitter, 20% from other social media and the rest was organic. That week resulted in # of shares and retweets as well as # of comments on the social media and # of comments on the site. You also want to look at per post as well. So my best blog post had 400 unique visits, 20% from Facebook, etc and my worst blog post (in terms of numbers) had 100 unique visits, 0% from Facebook, etc.

Based on these numbers I will now set targets for 2014. I also look at my call to action, internal links and what sales I can attribute to each blog posts. I use tracking such as URL shortners in blog posts as well as just asking customers where did you hear about us? and why did you buy from us? to help attribute sales. I will also set leads, prospects and sales targets for my blog posts. I also try to figure what made my best post so successful and what I can do better based on my “worst” blog post.

Your fifth and final objective is to set goals and achieve them.

Start planning your 2014 blogging today and I hope you have a successful 2014.

 

Dwainia Grey is an online marketer at Awesome Biz Online. She creates
awesome websites and blogs for businesses as well as working with
companies to optimize their websites with Search Engine Optimization and
Social Media. She can be reached at Awesome Biz Online or by phone at 647-799-1090 x 104. You a can also follow her on Facebook to get the latest on online marketing.