Archive for the ‘Online Marketing’ Category

6 Questions to Ask When Running an Online Contest

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Attention Business Owners, let 2012 be the year that you take your social media engagement tactics to the next level. After months and months of trying to build your community, it’s time that you start doing more to engage that community. What might surprise you is that by shifting your focus from solely trying to grow your online community to trying to engage the members you already do have, your community will begin to grow organically. This happens only if your current community gets actively engaged in your social media efforts, so much so that their online network can’t help but be intrigued by all of the activity going on. A percentage of those folks will click over to see what all of the commotion is about. If the commotion is of interest to them, they will become new members of your online community.

Sold?

Good. So where do you start?

There are many tactics to use for engaging your online community. One that has been working for a few Catalyst clients is running online contests. Running online contests is a great way to get your online community active, involved in your brand, sharing information with you and other community members, learning more about your product or service, and spreading that information to their friends. Running an online contest for your small business could be a great way to drive engagement from your online community. With that said, there is a lot to think about if you want to launch a successful online contest. Before you do anything, be sure to ask yourself these 6 questions:

What Are My Goals for this Online Contest?

help online contestIf you’re a long-time reader of our blog then you know we always recommend beginning new marketing programs by setting goals. What are your hoping to achieve by running an online contest for your small business? Some different goals might be:

  • Increase activity from my online community – More participation in responding to content that I promote online.
  • Feedback on products, services, business environment, etc.
  • Increased sales

Set 2-3 goals for your online contest and then go about figuring out how you can achieve them.

Which Online Tools Will I Use to Run My Online Contest?

There are 3 main “customer-facing” components of executing an online contest:

  1. Contest Explanation – You need to explain the contest to your online community. How will you go about doing so?
  2. Contest Promotion – All good online contests feature a specific set of promotional efforts. Yes, you want your online community to share contest information with their friends, but how will you share it will your online community? What will you do to get contest information in front of prospective online community members?
  3. Contest Fulfillment – Determining how winners will be selected and notified is a big piece of the contest puzzle. Also, how will you fulfill prizes to contest winners? You must think through this piece before starting your online contest.

Blogs and YouTube are great tools for explaining your online contest, providing details about what to do, how to win, what the prize is etc. Facebook is a great tool to run the contest through (all of the main contest activity can run on your Facebook page). Twitter is a great tool for sharing contest information with prospective contest participants who are not currently participating.

What Response Do I Want from My Audience?

This is the section where you tie in the goals you set above. Do you want more activity out of your online community? What shape will that activity take? For example, does “more activity” mean more comments on Facebook? More ReTweets on Twitter? More feedback left from customers? Figuring what you want your online community to do in order for you to consider the contest a success, and in order for them to have a chance at winning a prize, will go a long way towards ensuring you achieve your goals.

How Will I Achieve the Desired Response From My Audience?

Now that we know what we want our online community to do during the online contest, now you must decide how you will go about eliciting that response? Will you play some sort of game? Will you have them watch videos or read articles and then provide feedback? Will you ask them to share the contest with friends? What incentive will you offer them in order to ensure they do what you ask? These are all questions that you need to answer before moving forward with your online contest or else you get into it and find out you have no call-to-action, thus contests participants won’t know what you want them to do.

How Will I Keep My Audience Engaged Throughout the Contest?

Say you’re running a monthly contest, or better yet, a quarterly contest? How the heck do you plan on keeping the first contest participant engaged throughout the duration of the contest? You don’t want early participants to trail off and lose interest. This means you must come up with a way to keep their level of interest. Here are some ways to do that:

  • Give out prizes throughout the contest, not just at the end
  • Profile some early participants and turn them into contest advocates throughout the campaign
  • Switch up the activities throughout the contest and make eligible for the grand prize only people who participate throughout

You have to give people a reason to stay involved.

What Methods Will I Use to Pick and Notify Winners of the Contest?

This is one of the most critical questions to answer if you want to achieve your contest goals. This is also the step most overlook. They just figure, “ehh, I’ll figure that out at the end”. Not good. You must at least have a plan for how you will pick winners, as you need to explain that in the contest overview. This way participants understand the rules. As for notifying the winners and fulfilling their prize, these two pieces should also be thought through. Now, at the end of the contest you might have to tweak your plan based on things that happen throughout the contest, but it’s better than coming up with something on the fly.

Someone who wins a prize in an online contest is more likely to become an advocate of the company from which the prize was won. It’s important that you understand this and be sure to take advantage of it after the contest. Interview your winner(s). Feature them in some way on your social media. Put them in front of your other customers to show them that if they get engaged with your brand, they too can be winners. All of this isn’t possible if you mess up winner notification and fulfillment during your contest.

Run an Online Contest for Your Small Business

So, again I ask, will you let 2012 be the year that you take your social media engagement tactics to the next level? Set up an online contest for your small business. If you follow the steps above you should set yourself up to have success. Be sure to stop by to our blog and let us know how it goes!

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4 Types of Online Content to Use for Marketing Your Business

Monday, November 7th, 2011

Content Marketing can be extremely beneficial for your business. Content Marketing is the process of creating online content as a way to educate your customers and prospects, increase your website traffic, and engage your online community. With that said, when most business owners think “online content” they only think about blog articles and e-mail newsletters. Blog marketing and e-mail marketing are two very effective marketing tactics, but they are only 1 of 4 different types of online content.

Written (typed) Online Content

Content Marketing ideasThe most popular type of online content, which we alluded to above, is written online content. Some examples of written content are blog articles, e-mail newsletters, white papers, and social media updates. The biggest advantage to creating written content is SEO. By creating blog articles you can insert keywords that are relevant to your business. Those articles then become indexed on search engines like Google and Bing. When your target audience is using those keywords to search for information your site will pop up. Here at Catalyst we highly recommend that all small businesses use blogging and other written online content to promote your business.

Video-based Online Content

Video content is another widely used tactic under a Content Marketing strategy. With sites like YouTube and technologies like iPad making it easier (and cheaper) than ever before to produce online videos for your business, small business owners can now compete with the big guys in terms of creating video-based content for your business. Small businesses should can use video marketing to create commercials for your small business, create instructional videos for products and services, produce animated videos with xtranormal.com, etc.

Audio-based Online Content

A third type of online content is audio-based content. Many business owners don’t think about audio-based content when they are creating their online marketing plan. Audio-based online content can come together as:

  • Podcasts
  • Webinars
  • Music or company jingles
  • Online presentations (think PowerPoint with audio)
  • Host a BlogTalkRadio.com Show

Audio-based content is usually a little easier to produce than online video, but still packs a large punch when it comes to achieving your online marketing goals.

Image-based Online Content

Online content that almost every business owner uses, but not usually as part of a defined marketing tactic, is image-based online content. Images are a great way to give customers and prospects a glimpse inside your business. Small Business owners should use imagery on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. to tell a story about their products, services, industry, or even customers.

People love looking at pictures and business owners should capitalize on that by using imagery to share information with their online community. Simply keep a camera out at your business and instruct your employees to take pictures whenever they see a good opportunity. Be sure if you’re taking pictures of customers that you get their permission to use them.

Content Marketing for Your Small Business

As 2012 approaches many of you will begin to craft a new marketing plan for your business. Be sure to include marketing tactics that leverage ALL FOUR types of online content, as each offers distinct benefits to your small business.

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LinkedIn Introduces Status Updates for Company Pages

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Small business owners can now use their LinkedIn Company Page to engage your audience with ‘Status Updates’. Back when LinkedIn released the Company Pages feature we talked about the potential for including a ‘Status Update’ feature in the future. Before the ‘Status Update’ feature was released, LinkedIn Company Pages didn’t really offer a ton of value. Now, through ‘Status Updates’ companies can:

  • Post updates directly from your company overview page.
  • Share company announcements, product releases, promotions, and other news.
  • Engage directly with your followers and possibly their entire network.
  • Optimize the conversation by seeing which updates are most engaging.

Now businesses can use LinkedIn Company Pages just like they do Twitter and Facebook. Anytime you create new online content (ie. blog articles, YouTube videos, etc.) you can now go out to your LinkedIn Company Page and post a status update to help drive traffic to your online content. If you haven’t yet setup a Company Page on LinkedIn, be sure to do so as soon as you have some time. LinkedIn is one of the most underutilized tools by business owners, but those who do use it properly have a TON of success with it.

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Generating Local Search Traffic for Your Small Business

Friday, July 1st, 2011

Do you run your business through a retail location? If you have a brick-and-mortar storefront then it’s probably safe to assume that you’re looking to target local consumers. The number 1 goal for any business with a retail location should be to build awareness within their local community. It doesn’t matter if your business is located in a big city or the smallest of small towns your local community is going to provide you with your primary customers. Many businesses use things like signs in front of their store, local newspaper ads, and even radio ads to help generate awareness within their local community. What some businesses don’t realize is that they can take those local marketing efforts online by optimizing their website and social media sites to generate local search traffic.

Local Search MarketingOne of our clients is a local YMCA. They ONLY target the local community for YMCA membership. When they first brought us in to help them with social media marketing all that they had was a website. We helped them setup a local marketing strategy whereby everything they do online is optimized to attract local web traffic. For a business like the YMCA who provides a local service, it doesn’t make sense to market to people living in another state OR even another county. This means they have to be highly targeted in their approach, something that is very achievable when you have the right strategy in place. Below are 4 ways to generate local search traffic. Each of these local marketing tactics was implemented at the YMCA. 90% of their traffic is from local residents!

Optimize Your Website to Generate Local Traffic

The first and most important step in generating more local search traffic for your small business is to optimize your website with local keywords. Do you have one of those fancy all Flash websites? Not good for local search… Do you have a website that’s full of images and has minimal content? Not good for local search either… In order for your small business website to start moving up the search ranks for local keywords is to USE THOSE LOCAL KEYWORDS IN THE CONTENT OF YOUR WEBSITE.

If your business is located in San Diego and you sell womens shoes (yes, I was just watching an episode of ‘Married with Children’) then include the words “San Diego” in the content of your website. Instead of saying, “We have some of the best new styles in women’s shoes around”, say, “Our shoe store has some of the best new styles of women’s shoes in San Diego”. Just by adding the keywords “shoe store” and “womens shoes in San Diego” you will absolutely increase your web traffic because keywords like “women’s shoes in San Diego” are probably high searched terms when it comes to women who are looking for shoe stores in the San Diego area. Adding local keywords to your website content will definitely help you generate local search traffic for your small business.

Include Local Keywords in Your Blog Articles

Have you setup a blog for your small business yet? If so, bravo to you! Blogging is a great way to generate more traffic for your website. By adding local keywords to your blog article content you can then generate more local search traffic for your small business. Just like adding local keywords to your website content, whenever you are writing a new blog article and it makes sense to insert your location, do it. If you serve multiple towns and boroughs don’t be afraid to insert each of them in certain places throughout one article or many. Be sure not to go overboard and only insert local keywords if it’s relevant. Once you get the hang of adding local keywords it becomes a natural part of your writing process.

Each time you publish a new article to your blog you are adding new local search terms. Search engines pick up on that and start ranking your site higher and higher for those local search terms, which means you’re going to generate much more local search traffic for your small business.

Use Local Hashtags in Your Tweets

We actually just wrote an article about this local marketing tactic the other day. Using local hashtags in your tweets is a great way to generate more local traffic to your website and blog. By adding local hashtags like #Philadelphia #Missouri you can get your tweets in front of people who are following those hashtags on Twitter. Most likely if someone is following a local hashtag he/she lives or visits that local area. If that’s the case then you have just effectively gotten your content in front of your target audience by adding a local hashtag to your tweets. If your tweet contains a link to your website or blog then a certain percentage of those people who see your tweet are going to click through to read your content.

Another great way to localize your social media is to add local keywords to your social media profiles.

Setup Profiles on Local Search Tools

Is your business on Google Places? Do you use foursquare, Yelp, or Facebook Places? If so, then you’re on the right track when it comes to using local search tools and location marketing tools to generate more local traffic for your small business. Google Places is one of the best local search tools out there for small businesses. It’s free, you can customize a profile for your business, you can create a Google Places Coupon, and you are leveraging the top search engine on the planet.

Have you seen the business listings that come up next to the Google Map when you perform a search on Google? Those are Google Places listings. They come up when someone uses local search terms in their Google search. If your business has a Google Place page and it’s optimized for the local area, then your business will come up in that list (ahead of all other results!!).

First, you must claim your Google Places page. Then you can customize your Google Places profile. Be sure to include information about your products and services, links to your website, blog, and social media, and don’t forget to include local keywords within the content of your Google Places profile. By adding local keywords and filling out the local information within Google Places your small business will start to come up in the local search results on Google. Google Places and other local search tools are great ways to generate more local search traffic for your small business.

Hopefully these four local marketing ideas will help you generate more local search traffic for your small business. In order to keep track of how effective you’re in generating local search traffic you can use Google Analytics for reporting.

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SCVNGR Takes Group Buying to the Next Level, Literally, with LevelUp

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

With the “daily deals” craze in full effect, small businesses from all over the globe are rushing to cash-in on this innovative discount platform made popular by Groupon. If you are reading this, you probably know the gist. Consumers are offered products or services at a deeply discounted price (usually 50% or more) through a website. Typically, each deal will only be available for a day or two, and a deal isn’t active until a predetermined number of consumers purchase the discounted deal. This concept has come to be known as “group buying”. If the promotion is successful, the business that had a deal featured, will gain brand awareness, as well as, see a temporary increase in sales volume as a result of the deals sold through the website service. In return, the website service (ex. Groupon) receives a percentage of revenue for deals sold.

Small Business Group BuyingSeems like a great idea, right? Everybody wins. Consumers get to know new businesses & save money on purchases. Small businesses generate new customers. The group buying service provider receives a fee for connecting consumers to businesses. Win-Win-Win. Many companies are beginning to realize the potential of Group Buying services and are building their own Groupon-clone websites.

With individual entrepreneurs to big-name companies such as AOL and The New York Times developing services almost identical to Groupon, the marketplace is quickly flooding. Enter LevelUp, a web-based Group Buying service created by Seth Priebatsch CEO of SCVNGR. LevelUp is similar in concept to the Groupon model, but provides services above and beyond, which may prove to be more valuable to small businesses who run promotions through LevelUp.

LevelUp is looking to fulfill a need that was born from the current Group Buying model that Groupon has been so successful using. Groupon is setup as a one and done system. It helps drive a new wave of customers into a small business, but doesn’t help retain them. This is where LevelUp excels. LevelUp users are able to purchase a deeply discounted deal online from XYZ Business similar to the Groupon process. However, after purchasing the first deal from this small business, buyers unlock the ability to purchase the Level 2 deal offered by XYZ Business. Purchase Level 2, and Level 3 is unlocked. As a consumer progresses through the levels, the deals improve. This process gives the small business the ability to make three separate sales, as well as, to engage this new customer 3 times in order to help convert him/her into a repeat customer.

LevelUp Vs. Groupon – LevelUp advantages over the traditional group buying model

Game-Like Buying Process: The concept of unlocking a new level for a customer with each purchase they make creates an exciting, engaging experience. The challenge motivates a customer to visit a business numerous times which helps turn prospects into customers, and customers into repeat customers. Groupon shoppers have been called “one and done” customers, a stigma LevelUp is trying to avoid.

LevelUp Group BuyingMultiple Incentives: With LevelUp, consumers can receive a deep discount not once, but up to three times from a single business.

Creative Discount “Packages”: Groupon has comic descriptions written for each deal. LevelUp puts their creative effort into designing numerous levels of discounts which work together to entice a consumer to come back. For example, a recent group of discounts featured by LevelUp for a high-end Philadelphia restaurant were themed after romantic relationships. The Level 1 deal was named “First Date” and offered $50 worth of entrees for $25. Level 2 was called “Double Date” and awarded the purchaser $80 worth of entrees for $40. If one made it to Level 3, called “Meet the Parents”, they could buy $120 worth of entrees for $60.

Increased Accessibility for Consumers: LevelUp deals run for seven day periods, as opposed to the shorter buying windows offered by Groupon. This allows more time for consumers to come across each deal, potentially increasing the number of sales.

Zero Percent Revenue-Sharing Requirement For Businesses On Level 1 Sales: As opposed to Groupon’s 50% cut of revenues collected from each sale, LevelUp allows businesses to collect 100% of Level 1 deal sale proceeds. It is not until Level 2 and 3 deals are sold that LevelUp begins taking a cut, which is 25% at both Level 2 and 3. Simply put, unless repeat sales are made, LevelUp gets nothing.

As with any web service of this nature, the initial challenge for LevelUp is in building a substantial following of consumers who would ultimately buy the promoted deals. Currently, their site is testing the waters by offering deals only in Boston and Philadelphia. We feel if LevelUp can clear this hurdle, they will become a viable player in the competitive daily deal market. Given the success small business owners have had using Groupon, LevelUp is definitely worth keeping an eye on. If your small business is able to afford selling deeply discounted products or services as well as handle increased volume, LevelUp may prove to be a great way of gaining new, repeat customers. Small Business get started on LevelUp.

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How to Create an Online Daily Newspaper for Your Small Business

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

Last week we wrote an article explaining the benefits of using paper.li for small business. What we did not cover was how to create a paper.li newspaper. This article is going to walk you through how you to go about creating an online daily newspaper for your small business. It’s actually a very intuitive process that shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to complete. The tough part isn’t creating the paper.li newspaper, it’s being consistent in your promotion of your online daily newspaper. With that said, we can’t put the cart before the horse, so let’s walk through how to setup your paper.li newspaper.

Create a paper.li Newspaper – The Basics

Paper.li allows you to sign-in with your Facebook OR Twitter account. Once signed in you can create up to 10 unique online newspapers for free. The first difficult decision comes in deciding what to make your paper.li newspaper about. Hopefully you took time to create a plan for this Marketing Tactic, in which case you already know what you want your newspaper to be about. If not, a quick tip for creating a paper.li newspaper is to set it up around a content topic that’s relevant to your business; a topic that will pull in numerous quality articles & videos which your customers and prospects will find valuable.

Once you’ve signed-in and determined what topic your newspaper will revolve around you can click the ‘create a newspaper’ link in the top right corner of paper.li. You will then be presented with 5 options for creating your paper.li online daily newspaper.

How to create a paper.li newspaper

Create an Online Daily Newspaper with your Twitter account

The first option is to create a very generic online daily newspaper by sifting through your tweets AND all of the tweets from EVERYONE you’re following within the past 24 hours to come up with “newspaper stories” for your next edition. We do not recommend this option for small business owners as you are unable to truly create a topic-specific newspaper since many people tweet about different topics. With that said, if you go with this option, it is easy to setup. If you logged-in to paper.li with your Twitter account then you need only click “Create” under the ‘…of your Twitter account’ heading and you’re all set. If you want to create the online newspaper using another Twitter account then you can simply input the Twitter handle and click ‘Create’.

Create an Online Daily Newspaper with a Twitter #Hashtag

The “…of a Twitter #tag” option is recommended for small business owners. A paper.li daily newspaper created from a Twitter #Hashtag can be topic-specific. As mentioned above, you already created a plan for using paper.li, which means you have a topic in mind. If your paper.li newspaper topic revolves around “sustainable products” then your hashtag might be #sustainable or #sustainability. If you’re an organic bakery then you may want to create an online daily newspaper with a Twitter hashtag of #Organic #Baking. Although the algorithms used by paper.li are not 100% known, the system has a process for selecting tweets containing your specific hashtag. A newspaper is created based on the stories collected within the past 24 hours. It’s brilliant, isn’t it?

Create an Online Daily Newspaper with a Twitter List

Creating an online daily newspaper with a Twitter List is another great option for small business owners. The “…of a Twitter @list” option allows small business owners to create an online daily newspaper from any of the links shared in the past 24 hours from ANYONE on the Twitter List that you input into the paper.li system. You simply enter the @username/list-name and click ‘Create’. If you don’t already have a Twitter List setup, then set one up specifically for your online daily newspaper. In fact, that is recommended. This option is one of the best for small businesses. Find all of the great people on Twitter who are tweeting about your topic, put them on your paper.li Twitter List (you can even make it private if you’d like), and create your online daily newspaper. That’s it. It’s really that easy.

Create a Custom Online Daily Newspaper

The number 1 best paper.li option for small business is to create a CUSTOM online daily newspaper. By taking a few extra minutes to use the “Custom paper” option, small business owners can create a hyper-relevant online daily newspaper. Being that you only have to set it up once, it’s well worth the extra 2 minutes it’s going to take to create a custom paper.li newspaper.

Within the custom paper.li option you can create a title for your newspaper, set the focus through integrated search functions, setup a Twitter list, and even customize the language that the paper.li is displayed in. The custom option basically combines some of the options above, and then adds even more custom features. Setting up a title and selecting a language are pretty self explanatory. Be sure to select a title that will capture your audience’s attention. We have already discussed how to integrate a Twitter List into your paper.li newspaper, so lets focus on the search customization feature.

Here’s how paper.li describes it, “You can query Twitter with a more complex search term than just a #tag (e.g. find all the tweets that talk about climate AND carbon but NOT solar = climate carbon -solar).” Take a second and re-read that… It took a minute to grasp how it’s handled, but eventually it made sense.

Create a custom paper.li newspaper

Small business owners can create a hyper-relevant online daily newspaper through the paper.li “Paper Focus” feature. If you’re an auto repair shop then your “Paper Focus” search query might be “#car repair”, which would pull in articles tweeted in the past 24 hours from anyone on your Twitter list who used the hashtag #car and word “repair” in a tweet. If you’re a local retail clothing store who’s topic is organic clothing then your search query might be, “organic clothing -Etsy”, which wold pull in tweets from anyone on your Twitter List who used the words “organic” and “clothing” in their tweet. If the word “Etsy” appears in their tweet then it will not make it into your publication. You may have numerous reasons why you don’t want to include links containing specific words. The point is that you come up with an unique search query for your paper.li newspaper.

These are just examples, but hopefully you can see how taking the time to create your custom online daily newspaper makes sense for your small business.

Create an Online Daily Newspaper with Facebook

The final paper.li option is to create an online daily newspaper with Facebook. At this point, the “Facebook paper” option is not highly recommended for small business owners. Although it allows you to customize the title and language of your online daily newspaper, as well as, provides you with the ability to control the “Paper Focus” through a Facebook search query, it searches ALL FACEBOOK POSTS every 24 hours to find your “newspaper stories”. You cannot customize WHO to pull links from, like you can with the Twitter Lists and Custom options. Facebook has it’s advantages, but for small business owners we prefer the hyper-relevant custom newspaper to a “Facebook paper”.

What paper.li Option Will You Use?

Hopefully this article has helped you learn how to create an online daily newspaper using paper.li. With that said, there are a number of options for you to choose from when it comes to how you’re going to setup your online newspaper. From the list above, what do you think makes the most sense for your small business?

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Small Business Uses paper.li For Content Marketing

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

Are you looking to implement Content Marketing strategies for your small business, but just can’t find the time to blog more than a few times each month? If you’re looking for innovative ways to compile & share relevant content with customers and prospects, you should consider creating an online Daily Newspaper for your small business. Paper.li is a new online tool that allows anyone to create their very own online daily newspaper about any topic. Small business owners can leverage paper.li to create an online daily newspaper about a topic relevant to your business. You can then distribute it to your customers and prospects via Twitter and Facebook.

How Does paper.li Work?

According to their website, “Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter and Facebook into an easy to read newspaper-style format.” Paper.li allows users to create their own newspaper through tweets or Facebook links. You can choose from a number of content collection options within the paper.li system. Depending which option you choose, paper.li looks for tweets/Facebook posts with links attached, and then organizes the content into a newspaper format automatically. The tweet content is used as the title of each “newspaper article” and the link is attached to the title to allow readers to easily link out to the story. Another great touch is that any images used within the article that’s being linked to will be used next to the “newspaper story”. Using paper.li provides small business with a tool to spread relevant content from others to your customers and prospects in a way that’s very elegant and consistent.

Paper.li Promotions

On a daily basis a new paper.li newspaper is created around your topic. You can set the system to tweet your online daily newspaper out automatically AND/OR you can log-in to paper.li, grab your newspaper URL, and promote it on all of your social networks. You can also embed your online daily newspaper into your blog or website.

Benefits to Creating an Online Daily Newspaper for Small Business

Paper.li is an innovative new online tool. Paper.li provides numerous benefits to small business owners who are looking to use Content Marketing to promote your small business. A few of the many benefits of creating an online daily newspaper for your small business are as follows:

  • Set your online daily newspaper up once and it updates automatically every 24 hours – You need only promote it daily (and that can even be done for you on Twitter)

  • Builds relationships with the people who you pull content from for your online daily newspaper – They appreciate you getting their content in front of your customers & prospects

  • Provides consistent and valuable information about a topic relevant to your small business to your customers and prospects

  • Paper.li is FREE (for up to 10 newspapers – most small businesses won’t need anywhere near that many online daily newspapers)

  • Takes advantage of all the benefits of using a Content Marketing Strategy without spending the time to produce your own online content

Create an Online Daily Newspaper for Your Small Business

As you can see from the information above, the benefits to using paper.li to promote your small business are many. Hopefully the ideas for an online daily newspaper for your small business are already racing through your mind. It’s definitely a great new online tool that all small business owners can easily take advantage of. The best part, it’s free to use (for your first 10 newspapers that is). In a future article we will cover how you can create a paper.li online daily newspaper for your small business. For now, let us know what you think about this new Content Marketing tactic for small business by leaving a comment below.

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Engage Customers through Social Media While In-Store

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

As Location Marketing gains steam through tools like Foursquare, SCVNGR, and Facebook Places small business owners would be wise to begin developing marketing tactics designed to engage customers while in-store. When customers are in your store you have them at Peak Attention in terms of their interest in your business. With most customers being able to access the internet from anywhere with their mobile smart phones, small business owners can engage customers through Social Media while they are at Peak Attention in-store. Now, this doesn’t mean your sales associates should ignore customers while in-store, it simply means a combined approach is now possible at a time when customers are most likely to make a purchase… By engaging customers through Social Media while they are in your store you have the ability to make a big-time impact on their purchase decision.

In-Store Social Media Promotion Ideas

In-Store Peak Customer AttentionWhen it comes to developing ideas for creative social media marketing promotions many small business owners struggle. The biggest things to keep in mind when trying to come up with creative ideas for in-store social media promotions are to keep the tactics relevant to your audience, be creative, and offer something of value in exchange for a desired action from you customers. By keeping these three things in mind, it will be much easier to come up with creative in-store social media promotions for your small business.

Here are a few in-store social media promotion ideas to get you started (these are generic ideas, which should be tailored to your small business and can even be “kicked up a notch” if you so desire):

  • Twitter Picture Contest: With mobile applications like TweetDeck, combined with mobile smart phones, customers now have the ability to instantly snap pictures with their phone & tweet them to their followers. Small businesses should leverage tools like mobile smart phones, Twitter, & TweetDeck to create a Twitter Picture Contest where customers can snap a picture of their favorite product in-store, tweet it, and receive a discount on their purchase.

  • Leave a foursquare Tip: We have written about the power of foursquare Tips for small business owners on the Catalyst blog in the past. Foursquare is a great tool for capturing customers attention while in-store. You can run a contest where every customer who checks-in at your venue on foursquare and leaves a tip will be entered into a weekly or monthly drawing for a gift certificate or another great prize. Although this promotion isn’t directly geared towards influencing a sale, it will engage customers and help you build brand loyalty. If the winner receives a $25 gift certificate, it’s likely that he or she will spend more than that the next time they come in, so it actually may indirectly impact sales.

  • Video Record Your Shopping Experience: Just like most of us have the ability to take pictures with our mobile smart phones, many have the ability to record video as well. Small business owners should leverage this by developing an in-store video marketing promotion. Small Business owners can ask customers to record their entire shopping experience and publish the video to their small business Facebook page. Each customer who participates will receive a coupon towards their purchase.

Benefits to Running In-Store Social Media Promotions

By taking advantage of one of the in-store social media promotion ideas above, or by coming up with your own in-store social media promotion, your small business will benefit a few ways:

  • In-store social media promotions can positively influence purchase decisions, which can lead to increased sales.

  • In-store social media promotions engage customers while they are at Peak Attention, which should increase the number of customers who participate. This activity is great for your social media presence and may entice more prospects to connect with you when they see how many others are actively engaged.

  • In-store social media promotions can build brand loyalty if customers see that you’re trying to provide them with value in a way that’s convenient for them.

2011 Social Media Trend: More In-Store Social Media Promotions

Being that it’s the new year, everyone is seemingly weighing in with their predictions for the upcoming year. Since a wealth of information on social media predictions for 2011 already exists, we’ll keep ours to just this one. Here at Catalyst we are currently working with small business clients on their in-store social media promotions, and we think you’re going to start to see a lot more of it as 2011 presses on. If you’re a small business owner, definitely take some time to consider developing an in-store social media promotion for your small business. We think it will help you drive sales in what looks to be another tough year for the economy.

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Social Media Elixir: 2 Parts Social, 1 Part Media

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

I don’t know if it was the need for a cocktail or if it was just a random creative thought, but in thinking about Social Media Marketing, and more specifically the term Social Media, the idea of the perfect Social Media Elixir came to mind. The first part of the term Social Media is “Social”, which means a consistent presence online mixed with continual content production and engagement of your audience. The second part of the term Social Media is “Media”. Media is used to describe all of the online tools available. Once you understand how the two words fit together you begin to understand Social Media Marketing. Social Media Marketing is nothing more than a combination of the right online tools and a social approach to using those tools to connect & build relationships with your target audience. Now, where it gets tricky is determining what the right combination of “Social” and “Media” is for your small business –> ie. the perfect Social Media Elixir! ;)

Social Media Marketing Agency PhiladelphiaEvery business should have a unique Social Media Elixir, almost like all people have unique fingerprints. There is a special Social Media sauce out there just for your business and it’s up to you to capture it… Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t have some help. Let’s continue to breakdown the two words that make up the term Social Media to help give you a better understanding of how to come up with the right Social Media Elixir for your business.

Put the “Social” in “Social Media”

As we indicated earlier, “Media” are the tools or vehicles that businesses use to promote their products & services. “Social” is how you use the tools. All businesses use online tools a little differently, but two underlining constants with all successful Social Media Marketing campaigns are consistent activity and creative engagement. You must be active on your “Media” in order to build trust over time with your audience. In order to entice new prospects to follow you and to keep current customers and prospects coming back, you must find creative ways to engage your audience. Now there are a lot of other things that go into building successful Social Media Marketing campaigns, but you can’t be successful at some of those other things if you aren’t successful in these first two parts.

To put all of the jargon and theory from the above paragraph into more practical terms, in order to be successful in the “Social” part of “Social Media” you should have a plan to check each of your online tools each day or every other day. By being active on your “Media” you are able to quickly respond to your customers and prospects if they reach out to you or comment on something. Hopefully you can post new content to your “Media” sites every time you visit them. This helps let your connections know that they can rely on you.

The next most important part of being “Social” is to develop creative promotions designed to get your connections actively involved in what you’re doing online. You can run a foursquare Mayor contest, host an online fashion show, or implement a Twitter ReTweet promotion. Whatever you do be sure that it makes sense for your business, make sure you offer something of value to your online community for participating, and don’t forget your call-to-action –> this is the engagement piece. Get your community to do something in order to be eligible to receive your offer.

When you’re coming up with the perfect Social Media Elixir for your small business be sure to include at least these two “Social” activities when managing your online “Media”.

“M” is for “Online Social Tools”

“Media” in “Social Media” means online social tools. “Media” is used to refer to all of the tools available to us online, tools which we can use for promoting our businesses. If you’re an active reader of this blog then you have probably heard us talk about “selecting the right online tools for your business”. Just because the entire world is on Facebook doesn’t mean you HAVE to be. Now, for most business owners Facebook probably makes sense, but what if you’re a B2B company selling raw materials to manufacturers? There’s a high probability that your customers and prospects are not spending much time on Facebook. It may be that having a blog and being on LinkedIn are the best tools for a business like the one described above.

In order to be successful in the “Media” component of “Social Media” you must know your business, know your audience, and know the tools available to you online. Once you understand these three things you will be in a better position to choose the “Media” that you want to use in your Social Media Marketing campaigns.

What makes up your Social Media Elixir?

It’s critical that you select the right tools or should I say “Media” for your Social Media Marketing campaigns. With that said, selecting the right online tools to use for your business is only one part of the equation. The other 2 parts come from the “Social” side of things and they are consistent activity and creative engagement. When you combine these 2 Parts “Social” with 1 Part “Media” you have a strong foundation for your perfect Social Media Elixir.

For Catalyst, we use our Blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Places, Squidoo, and a few other online tools to make up the “Media” component of our Social Media Elixir. As for the “Social” component we are active daily on our “Media” like Facebook and Twitter. We write new content here on the Catalyst blog at least twice a week. We engage the small business owners who follow us in discussions around marketing ideas for their business. We try to get you thinking about your business while also providing you with creative ideas for promoting your products and services. This combination of social activity and the right online tools has been very successful for us. With that said, we are always evolving how we do things, so our Social Media Elixir continues to be tweaked as we continue search for our perfect recipe.

What makes up your Social Media Elixir?

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Engage Your Online Community on the Weekend

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

Many consumers do a lot of their shopping on the weekend. During the week people are pulled in so many different directions that there simply isn’t enough time in the day to spend a lot of time on their social networks. The weekend provides a better opportunity for small businesses to get their message in front of their customers & prospects. The problem is that some business owners only create & promote content during the week. When consumers are online on the weekend there is no new content from your business that’s getting in front of them.

For those business owners who like to relax over the weekend there are things you can do to ensure your message is getting out over the weekend. There are automation tools that you can use, which will schedule your blog articles to go live or your tweets to be tweeted. We don’t love marketing automation tools, but when they are used properly, they can be effective. You can also outsource online marketing to an Online Marketing Agency like Catalyst Marketers. Perhaps you want to hire a few interns who can work weekends on your social tools. Whatever route you choose to go the point is that you have options for getting your message to consumers over the weekend.

Here are a few ideas on ways to engage your online community on the weekend:

Foursquare Special Nearby

More and more as I check-in to venues on foursquare I am being prompted with a pop-up explaining that there is another foursquare venue nearby that’s running a foursquare special. This message is getting in front of me while I’m in the geographic area of the business, most likely I’m in a money spending mindset since I’m out in town at another local venue, and it’s providing me with an incentive to stop by through whatever offer is being presented (ie. 15% off when you check-in at Yum Yum Donuts). If the offer is relevant to me then I might stop by, if not, then I’ll probably continue with my day. So yes, there will be more people who ignore your foursquare special pop-up than there will be those who take advantage of it. That said, there WILL be folks who do take advantage of it.

Google Places Coupon

Outsource Small Business MarketingGoogle is the go-to search engine and when people are looking for places to go and things to do, they go to Google.

When you have a Google Places Page setup for your small business you can utilize the Google Places Coupon feature to run a weekend special. When a consumer Googles a relevant search term your Google Places listing will show up in the search results (among a list of other competitors most of the time). If there are 4 listings that match the search results, but you’re the only one running a Coupon, then there’s a good chance that the consumer will take the time to look over your Google Places page. If your products or services match the consumers needs then he will likely print your coupon and come into your store. Now, if you weren’t running the Google Places Coupon, perhaps that consumer would have looked at your competitor’s listing, seen that her products meet his needs, and off he goes without ever giving you a shot. If the tools are out there, and they are free, then it makes sense for you to use them.

Host a Family Event at Your Small Business

Families are always looking for fun things to do on the weekend. Come up with a creative event that’s relevant to your small business and host it on a Saturday or Sunday. You can promote the event on all of your online tools leading up to the event, you can take pictures or shoot video during the event, and you can post those pictures, videos, and even any attendee testimonials after the event. One event provides you with three separate marketing opportunities. Hosting a family event also drives prospects to your store and that can lead to sales.

Tweet Your Weekend Specials

When used properly Twitter is an unbelievable online tool for small business owners. If you own a local diner that runs breakfast specials on the weekend, tweet it. If you’re hosting an event like the one mentioned above, tweet it. If you just had a customer ask a question that you get ALL the time, tweet it. Get your information in front of your Twitter followers over the weekend, as it may drive them into your store since they are free from the daily grind of their 9 to 5.

It’s imperative that as a small business owner you utilize the weekend for promoting your message to customers and prospects. The weekend provides consumers with some free time to get there shopping done. With the right message, the proper tools, and a little creativity, you can drive your weekend sales through the roof.

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