Legacy Marketing Services

In yesterday’s post, we talked about being competitive with a small business in a challenging business environment. Today we are going to look at 10 ways to make the most of your money in your marketing plan when your budget is limited.

1. Know what works. Have a method of tracking where existing customers are coming from.
2. Repeat your success. Keep in contact with current customers and notify them of specials and new products. An e-newsletter is a cost effective way to keep your name in front of your customers.
3. Look at where your business is currently coming from and identify ways to expand that base. Are there additional services you can provide?
4. Are you spending all of your money in low trust, low return venues? Evaluate your current marketing and promotions in relation to the marketing trust pyramid.
5. Network. Most people think about business to business when they think of networking, and that is a very valuable avenue. However if you are a small business owner, every person you come in contact with should know what you do and the product or service you provide. You shouldn’t be obnoxious about it, but you should be close to it.
6. Do joint marketing with complimentary businesses. A friend of mine does an amazing job of this with her children’s resale shop. She is constantly coming up with mini events to pull people in and coordinates with neighboring businesses. What was once a dying retail center is now the place to be if you have a business related to children.
7. Create new customers with seminars or informational events. Do people have a hard time understanding what it is that you do? (I get this all the time.) Put on a seminar or give a talk in front of your target audience and identify the need that your products or services fill.
8. Invest in your customers. Now this is what I call FUN marketing. Throw a client appreciation party or customer-only event. If you have a retail store, invite them to an invitation only preview. This again can be a joint effort with complimentary businesses.
9. Invest in your community. It truly makes a difference when people know that you’re giving back and not just there for the dollars. One of the best examples of this I know is Rick Alspaugh who owns Ace Hardware here in Kingwood. He sponsors local teams, donates to organizations, gives presentations, spearheads the local clean-up efforts . . . seriously, if you’ve lived here for any amount of time, you know who he is.He does all that, but his big thing is an annual street dance around the 4th of July. He pulls out his BBQ’s, has a band come to play, and the town comes out and parties in the store parking lot. Yes, people definitely know who he is and his business.
10. And if you want to combine all of the above . . . here’s my favorite . . . start a community event. Pick a charity, decide on an event format, and go out and get support from other area businesses.Yes, it is a lot of work; however, there is an intangible benefit participating in those types of events that you could never get from just placing an ad somewhere. If you are one of the originators of the event, you establish yourself as a leader in whatever field you are in and you go beyond being one among many participants in the promotional vehicles of others to the creator of your own promotional opportunity.Picnic on the Park started with a phone call from my Realtor saying, “I want to do an egg hunt for the community.” (Here’s a recap from that first year.) We started with a 30 day time line, a handful of volunteers, 1,200 attendees and barely pushing 20 booths to an event five years later with over 80 vendor booths and activities, 100 volunteers, and 6,000 attendees at the festival with another 250 at the kick-off Ladies Luncheon (a second event that we added.)

    Still not quite sure you want to plan your own? Find a local event that you can be excited about and get on board.

    Attend the event to see if it is a good fit for your business. Research the charity that it benefits. Then look at the ways that your business can participate.

    If you do business in the Houston area, call me and I’ll set you up.

Those are my 10 marketing tips. What are your top tips?

Every where you turn, people are talking about the state of the economy: rising gas prices, higher food costs, and a struggling housing market.

As a business owner, this can be paralyzing when the only thing that is being discussed is lack. However, here is the bright side of a slower economy, it can be motivation to create a better service, offer a more competitive product, make your business processes more efficient, and be more creative with your marketing.

Historically, small business has been the fuel that has propelled the U.S. out of recessions.

Why is that? You would think that larger corporations with vast resources would be more insulated against downturns.

The best small businesses thrive in a poor economy out of necessity and they are flexible enough to react to changing times.

When sales start dropping and customers aren’t coming in the door, they can change offerings, go out and solicit business, brainstorm ideas and implement them to get things moving.

Small businesses don’t have the time and can’t afford to waste money on strategies that don’t work. They don’t spend countless man hours on committees deciding on the best course of action.

They get out and do.

Small Businesses Keep Trucking

You would think with all of the dire predictions out there that people would just sit, hold tight, and not make any big changes. That may be true in some areas; however, it is not true of small business start-ups.

I researched recent DBA filings for Harris County this week and did you know that there is an average of almost 800 new filings a day? Granted we are in one of the largest cities in the nation; however, Harris is only one of the counties in the Houston metro area.

That seems like an extraordinary number of start-ups, but I decided to do a little research over previous years to see how the current numbers compare. If you look at a large enough selection of data, you can see a pattern.

Below is a graph of the filings for the month of June for the past 10 years. The number listed is the average number of filings per day.

With an average of 752 new DBA filings for June 2008, it is down from the high in 2003 of 956 filings. However, it is pretty much at the same level as 1999 to 2001.

Using the filings as an indicator of business confidence it may not be the economic climate that new businesses dream of, but it is not the end of the world as we know it as some talking heads make it sound. It may not be the greatest, but it’s nothing we haven’t been through before.

Everything goes in a cycle. We are just in part of the cycle now that makes us appreciate the good times even more.

Tips for Galvanizing Your Business

If you are a small business owner and are feeling stress, here is something to keep in mind. The same money that was out there last year is still out there today, the flow may just be going in a different direction.

Rather than thinking about “lack,” put your focus on tapping into that redirected flow.

Capitalize on the Small Business Advantage

The biggest advantage a small business has over a large corporation is the fact that it is a small business. As a small business owner, you have the ability to connect on a personal level with your customers . . . so take advantage of that!

When you assess your marketing campaign for 2009, put those dollars in vehicles that will give you as many personal contacts with as many customers as possible.

In an interview for The U.S. News and World Report, “Preparing Your Small Business for a Recession,” Jim Blasingame advises to focus on relationships with your customers.

Spend more time talking to your customers and less time listening to the talking heads on television. Don’t be afraid of the future—take charge of it by asking your customers what’s going on. This economy is not going to shut down. If we’re in a recession, it doesn’t matter. People are still going to buy stuff. It’s our job to give our customers the maximum opportunities to pay from us. That might mean we’ve got to work a little bit harder. We’ve got to manage our businesses a little more efficiently.

Synergize With Other Small Businesses

Still not ready to go out and stoke the fires of your business?  Network with other small businesses that subscribe to the same business philosophy that you do for encouragement.  Get together once every week or two to bounce each other and share strategies.

The important thing is to set your goals, devise a plan, set the strategies and develop a support system.  In the next post we will cover 10 Ways to Make the Most of Your Marketing Dollar, but in the meantime, here are some other articles with tips for developing a business strategy.

• First Steps to Developing a Marketing Plan
• Marketing to a Critical Mass
• Automate Your Marketing:  Create a Corporate Marketing Kit
• Focus on Your Business

I was looking at a site the other day that is under development and I was just puzzled at the layout.

Articles and graphics in the center column were bleeding over into side columns. At first I thought it was just a Firefox thing, because a lot of hobbyists just go with Internet Explorer . . . but no, it looked the same way in IE7.

But then I thought, “Well, they’re still working on it.” A month later it still looks the same.

At this point, it’s bugging me so I looked at the style sheet. They’re using a variable width layout and a percentage of the browser window.

Now if you are just having text in all of your columns, variable width is fine. The problem with the site is that the center column has wide images that break the layout in lower screen resolutions.

Balancing Beauty and Usability

It used to be that you weren’t a web designer if you didn’t know how to create a flexible width layout. In the advent of CSS, there has been much angst over creating flexible three column layouts. So much so that the successful implementation has been labeled the “Holy Grail.”

Here’s my issue with flexible width layouts today, you’re designing to the web browser rather than designing to the web reader.

It was one thing when the most commonly used resolutions were 640×480 and 800×600. If you had a two column layout that stretched between the two resolutions, either one is going to be readable.

A two column layout stretched at even 1024×768 is not very readable for the visitor, and once you get higher than that . . . forget it.

It really doesn’t matter the size or resolution of browser someone is using, once the content area gets wider than a certain point it’s uncomfortable to read.

Think about a newspaper. Stories don’t go across the full width of the page, they are broken into columns to make it easier to read. The same thing with books. How wide is the average book page? Not very.

So What is the Answer?

The is a personal (or business by business) judgement call based on what type of content is going to on the site and how it is going to be used.

If I am creating an informational site for a business, I usually go with a two column, fixed at 765px to 785px. That is not designing so much for 800 x 600 as it is setting a width where neither column will be too wide for readability.

If it is a blog or a site that will have advertising, video or other types of media in the side bar, I give on fitting it to a 800 x 600 resolution and design it for 1024×768.

When you are trying to incorporate 728×90 and 300 x 250 banner ads and 330 wide videos in a side bar, 800 x 600 just isn’t going to work.

According to Wikipedia, only 8% of internet browsers still use an 800 x 600 resolution and only 1% percent lower that that.

Everyone has an email addict for a friend. You know . . . the ones that send dire warnings that would take two minutes to debunk on Snopes (Dawn, I love you, but you are way too trusting of emails), or threaten,

“You will have seven years of bad luck if you don’t forward this email to ten friends in the next five minutes.”

Whenever I get those, I always think, “Gee . . . thanks for thinking of me.”

However, yesterday my friend, Angela, sent me a forward that truly made a positive difference in my day. It was a list titled “45 Life Lessons and 5 to Grow On” by Regina Brett of The Plain Dealer.

The list starts off with this:

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 in August, so here goes:

Then follows 50 lines of absolute gems of wisdom, one of which is enough to ponder for a day.

As I read through the tips, there were several that hold true for businesses as well.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

While you need to have a plan for your business, it is important to remember that the plan is for the long-term. It doesn’t have to be done all at once. Many times when I talk to a business owner about their marketing, they are overwhelmed with all of the avenues available.

You don’t have to do it all and not all at once. Prioritize and then take the next step.

13. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

So, so, SO true, for life as well as your business. In a past article, I talked about the pitfalls of making business decisions based on what others were doing.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

Even a great idea coupled with an awesome plan will experience obstacles. If you believe in what you are doing, you not only have to go after it, but continue to plug on even when you feel like it is not going your way.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

You can’t control everything and life will just happen. Plan as well as you can and then have the flexibility to adjust the plan when the unexpected happens.

48. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Be specific about what you need and what you are asking for. Suzie Cheel with the Abundance Highway is currently in the middle of achieving a goal she has set for herself. She clearly delineated what she wanted to happen, why it was important, and how others could help her achieve it.

If you’ve been following her blog, you know that the results weren’t immediate. She set her plan and started the actions, but it took a little while for the results to start manifesting. There were times of discouragement, but she kept following the plan and then her results started to snowball.

If you’d like to read the rest of the tips, visit Regina Brett’s column.

This is part three of our Web Site Basics for Business Owners series.

In the last article in the series, “Web Site Basics for Business Owners,” we talked about how the different components of a web site work together. This week we are going to go into domain names in more depth.

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is how people find your web site on the internet. The domain name system (DNS) is managed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Among other responsibilities, ICANN determines which extensions will be available for registration (.com, .net, .org, etc.) and accredits private companies known as registrars to manage the actual domain registrations.

How to Get a Domain Name

There are thousands of sites out there that offer domain registrations. I use www.GoDaddy.com. They have great prices, awesome customer service (you can actually get someone on the phone without getting lost in a phone system purgatory), and have great tools in their account management.

I don’t use any of their other services; however, all of my domains get registered through them. If you need to find a domain, they are having a sale through June 12th on .com domains. (Save 30% on domains: Go Daddy $6.95 .com Sale!)

One thing to remember is that you are paying to register to use the domain name and the registration has to be kept current.

Choosing Your Domain

Now there is an art to finding a good domain name, and I’ll cover several techniques in a later post in this series. For right now, here are a few basics to remember.

• Shorter is better.
• The .com extension is preferable.
• Avoid hyphens in the domain when possible.

There is an entire industry devoted to buying and selling domain names, yes people actually make a living from it. The Art of Money blog has four in-depth articles on choosing domain names. If you are just picking out your first domain name for your business, just follow those three tips above and you’ll be okay.

The Domain I Want is Registered

Finding a good domain name can be a challenge. Not only are there millions of businesses operating on the web, but there are domain speculators, or “domainers” that register domains to hold. If you search for a domain name and it shows that it is registered, you can take it a couple of steps further if you really want that domain.

First go to the domain to see if there is a site already active on the domain. If there is and it looks like it is an ongoing concern, you’ll probably have to move to your second choice of domain.

If it looks like a hobby site that hasn’t been updated in a few years, proceed to step two. If it is a site that only has advertising on it, it is likely that it is being held by a domain investor.

Next, check the WHOIS registry to see who has the domain. If you go through Godaddy, there is a “click here for info” link that will show you who owns it.

After finding the owner information, if you are still interested in the domain name you can send them an email to ask if they would be interested in selling.

Private Registrations: Many times people will pay for a private registration for their domain because they don’t want their contact information to be public. In that case, you have to send an email to the proxy email listed, which will then be forwarded to the owner.

Expired Registrations: Every once in awhile you will come across a registry that is in a redemption, or “pending deletion” period. Once a domain expires, there is a certain period of time in which the previous registrant can renew and redeem the domain. Basically, the domain is in limbo until it is out of the redemption stage.

What to Do Next

Once you have secured your domain, the next step is to point it somewhere by setting the nameservers. The DNS, or domain nameservers, tell the internet which server to route your visitors to when they access your domain name.

When you get web hosting for your site, your hosting company will give you a set of nameservers, which will look like ns1.myhostingservice.com and ns2.myhostingservice.com. You just go back to the domain management area of your registrar and enter the nameservers for the domain. It will take anywhere from a few hours to two days for the domain to point to the site on your new hosting.

If you aren’t ready to point the domain to your actual site, the registrar will normally have a “parked” page display when the domain name is accessed. Often registrars will offer a one page site included with the registration.

If this is an option, be sure to customize the page with your company information until you can get your actual site up. Include your company name, contact information, and a short description of the services that you offer.

In a recent post on Turning Dreams into a Reality, I mentioned a local business, Podlinez.com, that was nominated for a Webby Award.  Below is a note from Michael Sharp, CEO of Podlinez.

Hi everyone, Michael Sharp here with Podlinez.com. I just wanted to stop by to say “Many Thanks” to all our friends in Houston, Humble, Porter, New Caney and especially the awesome Kingwood community for the tremendous support you gave and helping us to win the “2008 Peoples Voice Award”.

Podlinez won the peoples voice for the Mobile Market Place and Services category because you guys worked your hearts out to get out the vote against some very powerful competition including Chase Bank, North West Airlines, Monster.com and M Shopper. We are thrilled to have won and are very excited about going to New York for the gala and making our 5 word speech.

We are very proud to be part of the Kingwood community and know we would not have won without your fantastic support. You folks are the greatest ever!

Michael Sharp
CEO – Podlinez Makes Every Phone A Podcast Player
http://podlinez.com