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Small Business Marketing: Are You Fishing In The Right Pond?

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Small Business Marketing: Are You Fishing In The Right Pond? – PRWeb

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Print Small Business Marketing: Are You Fishing In The Right Pond?

Fishing in the right Small Business Marketing Pond

Tips On Targeting The Right Audience

The waters of the Internet can be difficult to navigate if you don’t know where your prospects are congregating. The Internet is full of ponds that cater to specific audiences and oftentimes require unique fishing techniques.


Small business marketers today just have to know which pond to fish – and use the bait that will yield the biggest catch.


While it may be tempting to throw out a big net and hope to drag in your preferred catch, the savviest marketers know that focusing on the correct social channels, connecting to the right audience and leveraging tools such as press release services means they are more likely to attract their ideal prospects through a targeted approach.


So, once you’ve decided to include press releases in your marketing mix, check these three tips to create tastier bait for those prospects hanging out in preferred ponds:


1. Do use anecdotes to flavor your bait. Since the days when people traded stories for food around the fire, humans have been drawn to good storytelling. Tap into this inherent trait by adding anecdotal evidence into your content.

Provide specific customer examplesGive real problem/solution scenariosTie your products into examples of how your industry is making buyers’ lives better

Use anecdotes to communicate otherwise bland statistics and facts. When you connect with memorable stories, audiences are more likely to remember your details, too.


2. Don’t assume everyone knows your angler language. Stray away from overusing jargon. Just because prospects may be somewhat familiar with your industry, doesn’t mean they know all the technical terms that make up your corporate vocabulary.


If you want to use your specific “industry speak” provide audiences with definitions and links to words they may not be familiar with.


Be careful to avoid jargon when describing your products. Your descriptions should be palatable for shoppers just beginning their search as well as those who’ve bought from you in the past.


3. Do set your hook with the right content bait. If you are fishing for cutthroat trout in Yellowstone, you’ve got to use spinner lures that sparkle and attract, rather than leaded fake worms that sink into the bottom of the pond.


The same holds true with your content. The better you understand who makes up your target market, the more effectively you’ll offer content that attracts them to your brand.


You may be sending news releases throughout the digital marketplace to general outlets but have you considered niche websites that appeal to your prospects more specifically?


When you do find those audiences, be sure your message matches their needs, i.e., don’t create content about mountain bikes for a niche site that caters strictly to long distance cyclists.


Ultimately, while the size of the pond may matter in how much bait you use, it won’t do you any good to waste your efforts fishing in the wrong pond.


Do your research beforehand and use press release services to create and distribute targeted content – you’ll reap the reward of a wicker creel basket full of fresh prospects.


Have you found new ways to bait your hook or find the perfect pond? Share with us your best fishing hole secrets!


 



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Small Business Marketing: 3 Tips to Get Started

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So you’ve decided to open a small business or start marketing the one you already have. Congratulations!


Whether you are just forming your ideas or expanding existing promotional efforts to include online channels, you’re about to navigate a journey that has the potential of taking your business to the next level – fast.


Although the techniques and tools for today’s PR and marketing may seem daunting, don’t be intimidated.


1. Create a Roadmap. Before you start almost any project, the preparation you do beforehand will be key to future success. Imagine hopping in the car for a cross-country trip without a GPS or map to guide you to your goal destination.


PR and marketing are the same. When putting together a plan, ask yourself these questions:

How much time am I willing to commit?
A PR and marketing effort can be as big or small as you decide. However, in an Internet landscape where content is king – you likely need to carve out time to create content, and connections online.

2. Go forth, measure and refine. Now that you have a plan, it’s time to take action.


One of the more important elements of any plan is ensuring to coordinate efforts so that you stay on message and can get more bang for your buck.


In addition, it is marketing and PR best practices to test a tactic at least 3 times before determining its effectiveness. Imagine if TV networks only ran one ad for a new sitcom premiering. The likelihood that the audience saw and remembered the concept, premier day/time and what they liked about it is miniscule.


So, marketers combat this issue with frequency.


Make sure your brand is visible in as many places as your target audience is looking including:

Signage outside your building (if you are a brick and mortar)

Before, during and after you launch your marketing plan, measurement is key. In order to define success, you will need to know where you started – i.e. your benchmarks.


As marketing plan components deploy, watch for spikes in traffic on the site from referring sources such as search engines, press release distribution services, ads etc.


After a frequency is established, you can compare tactics and messages to see which is working the best and which need to be refined or removed from the plan.


3. Don’t forget about local. Whether your location is critical to your business or not, making connections locally is still an important part in growing your business.


For example, when you become familiar with the news sources in your area, you can create relationships that make you the go-to-person for insight on your given area of expertise.


For a locally-driven business such as a restaurant, pet store etc., local is going to be a critical part of success as you need people within physical proximity to you to help the business grow.


However, companies that operate out of a city but serve national customers can also benefit from local connections. Don’t discount the affect you can have on referrals and even signing up local clients by attending networking events, sponsoring local charities, etc.


To let people nearby know you are there, try the following:


There is no limit to what you can accomplish with a well thought out and executed PR and marketing plan. Remember to be consistent in all your efforts. Maintain the same language, message and keywords in all tactics regardless of the channel. In no time you will be measuring noticeable returns on your small business marketing efforts.


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PRWeb 5 Star Award: Books for Small Business

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Small Business Marketing Books


When it comes to winning the PRWeb 5 Star Award, the person, product or technology receiving our recommendation has to be extraordinary in some way. These books all excel in multiple ways, offering information, intrigue, presentation, innovation and creativity. We recommend the following 5 books for the shelves of any small business owner looking to make changes for the better in all facets of their business and marketing plans.


1.We Are All Weird by Seth Godin


This book appeals to the people portion of successful business and marketing. According to Godin, weird means that you’ve made a choice and stood up for what you believe in and done what you want, not what the marketer wants. This sentiment is echoed in the beginning and throughout this s book. This book highlights what it is to think outside the box with your marketing, business and life plans. That’s something that can help anyone who realizes life is too short to just go with the flow.


2. Engage, Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web by Brian Solis


Brian Solis is the namesake of a very popular business and marketing blog, and his personal expertise is echoed in this book. An excerpt from a later chapter gives a good synopsis of this book’s goals:


“Perhaps the biggest mistakes committed by businesses, personalities, and brands in social media occur when people jump into social networks blindly without establishing guidelines, a plan of action, a sense of what people are seeking and how and why they communicated, an understanding of where people are congregating, a definition of what they represent and how they will personify the brand online, and the goals, objectives, and metrics associated with participation.”


What is great about this book is that it addresses all of those mistakes and how to avoid them in a readable and shareable way, which is a huge benefit for any small business owner.


3. How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit: Your Guide to Writing and Publishing Books, E-Books, Articles, Special Reports, Audio Programs, DVDs, and Other How-To Content by Robert W. Bly


This book is a straight-forward approach to creating and publishing content. It focuses on all facets of the information trade. This includes reputation management, proper research and citation techniques and guidelines. Due to the wide variety of writing platforms it includes in its rundown on how-to writing, this book is a great asset for any small business owner looking to produce their own expert content. Becoming a paragon in one’s field, someone that others go to for advice and help on best practices, is a great goal for any businessperson to strive for.


4. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by Adam L. Penenberg


In the midst of interest in meme marketing, understanding what viral marketing means and how it works. Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, praised Viral Loop.


“If you want to understand all things viral, this is the place to start. Penenberg’s reporting gives us a ringside seat for some of the biggest viral success stories in history, from Tupperware to Ning,” said Heath.


Viral marketing is an important thing for people interested in small business marketing because it is one way to reach a wide and national customer base without directly referencing them. Learning how other companies have grown is an excellent way to understand what practices can benefit your own company.


5. Twitter Power 2.0: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm


Efficiently utilizing social media is the key to any successful social marketing plan. Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites combating for the top spot with competitors like Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. This book is a great introduction on how to use Twitter as a positive asset for promoting you and your brand. It includes a lot of specific, easy to leverage examples, tips and case studies on how to not only use Twitter, but also to make it your own.


Wealth and personal finance expert Christorpher Howard commends this book’s ability to inspire action:
“I’m amazed how many people are not yet using Twitter to connect with customers and associates. Once again, Joel Comm leads the way into the future by showing people how they can have increased success by taking some very simple actions. This book has inspired me to take my social media presence to the next level!


Do you have personal experience with any of these books? Are there others you believe should be added to the list? Share your insight with us in a comment.



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