Online Marketing | David Chan

Best Small Business Marketing Strategies for Today

Some of the best small business marketing strategies are those that have been utilized for years. They include the standard practices, such as: networking with business associates, joining your local Chamber of Commerce, guerrilla marketing, advertising and cold calling. Increasingly, though, small businesses are using new techniques and methodologies that leverage the Internet. Consider that there are over 34,000 searches per second on Google. Consumers search for everything including research information, how to source and buy products and much more. It’s been estimated that fully 20% of these searches are for a local type listing, e.g. finding a business in a local region, county, or city.

By utilizing widely available Internet tools and services small business owners can market to new and existing customers in ways not available in the past. Traditionally, products were marketed through newspaper ads and classifieds, yellow pages and even radio spot and TV commercials. Generally these marketing mediums are called “offline” marketing. Tracking offline marketing campaigns were difficult and often downright impossible. There was really no “direct” way of measuring success, except through surveys and inserting ad response codes. One of the problems is that people forget ad response codes and surveys do have a high percentage of related errors.

New Internet / online small business marketing strategies incorporate such concepts as social networks, online PR and the newly renamed Google Places. Let’s dissect these strategies to see how they fit within any small business’ overall marketing campaigns.

Google Places is essentially a local listing within your demographic area, whether it is a county, city or borough. With Google places, small businesses can list their company utilizing words that people type into Google search when looking for a service or product. For example, when someone searches for a “tailor” in Manhattan, New York, Google would serve up a list of tailors in that area. These listings appear even before the traditional top 10 organic listings that Google services us. It’s imperative to understand how to utilize Google Places in order to maximize your potential customers.

Online social networking complements offline networking with business associates. Think of online social networking as joining your local Chamber of Commerce or socializing at the office water cooler. Through online social networks, such as Facebook, Linkedin, and MySpace, small businesses can reach out to many more potential customers than they could ever have achieved through using offline networking avenues alone. Learning how to navigate these online social networks is critical to reaching new customers, as well as maintaining existing ones.

Small business marketing strategies should also include online PR. Small businesses are used to guerrilla type marketing. Think of online PR as another way of getting your message across to your market through free and cheap publicity. Generally there is a section in newspapers and magazines for announcements, such as a staff promotion, a new product, education and things like new partnerships. By issuing an online press release, you can reach thousands of viewers without alienating them through a “sales” pitch. Press releases are generally viewed positively and “trustworthy” by consumers.

Incorporating these new marketing strategies will help small business owners maintain their market position, as well as grab new markets. This is especially true during this period of transition as offline marketing reach through print, radio and TV declines and gives way to online marketing through the Internet and mobile devices.

Read more articles from David Chan

Extending Your Brand Online

President Barack Obama will go down in history as the pre-eminent Change Agent of the 21st Century. Time will tell whether it will be for his economic and political policies or his mastery of the largest democratic nation in the world, The Internet. Now every governor, “wannabe” senator, and soon-to-be politician is forging full throttle to “book their Faces”, “stake out their Space” and Tweet to their hearts’ content.

The sheer ferocity and speed by which Mr. Obama spread his presence online can only be attributed to one thing … a strategic team and a blogging army. Internet fame and fortune do not come from a single action, but from a series of well-targeted initiatives, supported by a laser-focused plan and executed in unison.

The reasons to extend your brand online, both on the Internet and on mobile devices are compelling … witness Mr. Obama’s wide campaign coverage. But, the Internet is also a double edged-sword. Today you might be a rock star, tomorrow yesterday’s old news.

The business of online marketing requires a solid understanding of the ebb and flow of the Internet and mobile users. The reasons are simple … velocity and boundless opportunities. Information moves so rapidly and the options available so vast that many users simply take results served up by search engines as gospel.

It’s no wonder that many stars, athletes and franchises carefully craft and extend their brands online. Who you are offline is one thing, but how you are portrayed and propagated online is another. In fact, one might argue that extending and protecting your brand online is as equally important as it is offline, if not more so. In our “always on” society, whether Twittering or texting, we’ve become accustomed to knowing the latest gossip about our favorite celebrity or up to the second sports scores.

If you’ve been considering extending your brand online, make sure you have a solid strategy and team in place and follow some simple rules:

1) Reinforce Your Message. You’d be surprised how many individuals, let alone global companies, who confuse the message with the product. It’s not about features and functions; it’s about the “what” and the “how” of the message you’re trying to convey.

2) Be Consistent. Once you start your campaign, sustain it. Many novice Internet marketers will create a website and forget about it. The biggest way to lose followers is to let your information get stale. Refresh yourself.

3) Be Bold … Broadcast. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. Find every web 2.0 property that is related to your topic and blog, bookmark and link. You’ve got something to say … say it!

4) Socialize It. Tell every friend, family and colleague about your online presence. Get them to be your biggest advocates. It’s truly through this network effect when it can become viral.

5) Protect It. Just like in the offline world, there will be times when adversity will rear its ugly head. It can come in the form of negative press or simply a damaging blog from a disgruntled fan. You need to have an arsenal at the ready to counteract these potentially tarnishing remarks.

Extending your brand online, whether it’s a product or service, a company, or you as an individual is a great way to develop a new following or maintain an existing one. Either way, make sure you create your online presence with a sustainable process.