Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

The YMCA is Using Social Media to Build Online Communities

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

For decades the YMCA has been at the forefront of communities across the country. Over time they have built strong member communities within each of the geographic regions in which they are located. Local members join the Y because the Y has a lot to offer in the areas of Youth Development, Healthy Living, and Social Responsibility. Once members join, they quickly realize that not only do they benefit from all of the great programs, but that they are now part of a member community. Members interact with one another, as well as, with the Y Staff. Everyone feels at home at their local YMCA and that’s why members usually renew year after year.

The Y has done a tremendous job in creating that sense of community within their members. Now, with the rise of online communities and social networking, YMCAs across the country are beginning to build an online community; an online community that’s just as valuable as the member community they’ve been able to build over the years. In this blog post we are going to walk through the steps that the Y is taking to build & grow their online community. A local YMCA is actually a Catalyst client, so we are going to use them as an example of how YMCAs across the country are using online tools to build & grow an online community.

Discovery & Planning

YMCA Facebook TwitterThe first thing that the Y did to start the process of building an online community was a little research on their target audience and the online tools that those folks were spending their time on. The Y wanted to connect with both Y members & non-members from the local community. It was concluded that their target audience was spending most of their time on Facebook, Twitter, & Foursquare. Those are the primary online tools that the Y is now using to communicate with their target audience.

The next step was to create a Strategic Online Marketing Plan to serve as a guide to what the Y wanted to accomplish and how they would go about doing so. When you create a Marketing Plan it should layout your goals, strategies, and tactics. Each tactic should include performance measures. The Y was sure to set performance measures for each tactic so that on a quarterly basis reports can be analyzed and compared to the performance measures. This allows the Y to know how each tactic is performing based on their goals. Once the Online Marketing Plan is finalized it’s time to start building your “Social Media Foundation”.

Build the Foundation

Before kitchen cabinets can be installed in your new house a foundation must be poured, framing must take place, etc. The same principles hold true when building out your social media profiles for the first time. The Y began creating online content through their new blog. The blog articles are a big part of the value that the Y is creating online. The articles help inform both members and non-members what’s going on at the Y. Simultaneously the Y began creating their Facebook Page, developing their Twitter Account, claiming their foursquare venue, and building their custom Ning. These Social Media tools act as channels for spreading the blog articles to the growing Y community online, as well as, vehicles that allow the Y to interact in real-time online with their community.

Before jumping in feet first with these online tools, the Y took time to determine what tools made sense for their business, created a plan for using those tools, set performance measures against their online activities, and then put time into building out their profile & creating content for each online tool. The Y did not simply start tweeting from the day they decided to start building an online community – this would have been the wrong approach; an approach that too many business owners take.

Refine your Plan based on Data & Analysis

A big part of using online tools to build & grow an online community, with the ultimate goal of turning online connections into customers (or in this case YMCA members), is analyzing data & refining your plan based on the results. Each quarter the Y goes through all of the online reports that they’ve collected, mainly through tools like foursquare Stats, Google Analytics, Facebook Stats, etc. The Y analyzes the data based on the performance measures that they previously setup in their Online Marketing Plan.

Social Media ROITactics that are outperforming expectations are ratcheted up & the Y determines how to take them to the next level. For tactics that are under performing the Y either figures out how to improve on the tactic & then re-evaluates the following quarter, OR scraps the tactic if it’s been under performing for too long. By taking time to review data & analyze how tactics are performing on a quarterly basis the Y is able to continually hone their online marketing efforts. As a direct result of this process the community usually gets a boost as well, as the Y is always improving on the value that they deliver based on this quarterly analysis.

Develop Creative Online Marketing Tactics

Over time the Y is able to move further and further into more creative tactics. In the beginning stages of building an online community a lot of work has to be put into planning & building the foundation. After the Y was able to get their online community off the ground, they were then able to start really taking advantage of the online tools by developing creative marketing tactics that get their community members engaged & offer them valuable information & prizes.

Recently the Y ran a Facebook Trivia Contest. Each day a new Y trivia question was posted on Facebook. Multiple answer choices were provided. The community members who answered the question correctly would be entered into a drawing for free Y swag. All participants over the month long competition were entered into a final drawing with the grand prize winner receiving a free 3 month membership to the Y, as well as, a free one-day pass to participate in ANY Aquatics program. The Y is also considering running ReTweet Contests on Twitter, and even a few foursquare promotions in the near future.

Results

The results so far from all of the effort detailed above has been the successful creation of a new online community for the local Y. The community continues to grow and become more and more engaged in the online activities of the Y. The Y is benefiting tremendously from the increased awareness of their services, through feedback that they are receiving from their online community, and from an increase in memberships & program participation. It’s still very early on in the online community building process for the Y that we work with, but the initial results are very telling. YMCAs across the country are beginning to get on board with building their own online community. For anyone working in the Marketing Department at a YMCA who wants to start building their Online Community, feel free to contact Catalyst to get any questions answered or setup time to talk about your needs.

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Hiring an Online Marketing Agency Instead of Internal Marketing Employees

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Have you considered hiring an online marketing agency to help you construct the appropriate marketing strategy, and to help you execute on that strategy? More and more business owners are considering outsourcing their marketing activities to Online Marketing Agencies like Catalyst Marketers. As long as you choose a great agency to work with, the benefits of hiring an outside agency to handle your online marketing efforts far outweigh hiring a team of marketing employees.

Whether you’re a medium to large-sized business, or you’re a small business, outsourcing your online marketing activities can help reduce expenses, and increase your revenue. As we dive into the benefits to outsourcing your online marketing activities, we are following the assumption that you have already decided to use online marketing as a way of reaching more people, building relationships, and driving sales.

Outsource Online MarketingA big key to all of this is finding the right Online Marketing Agency. Many traditional agencies out there now include social media marketing or blogging in their portfolio of services. Not only that, but it seems like 35% of the unemployed are now Internet Marketing Consultants –> Buyer Beware. I’m not saying folks shouldn’t try to start their own businesses if they’ve been laid off, what I am saying is that you need to meet with a number of agencies & professionals before making any decisions. Many of these folks don’t know how to truly use online tools to help grow relationships and drive sales. Others know how to do it, but they are stuck in the old world rules of having a brick-and-mortar agency with numerous employees. This means their costs are going to be astronomically higher than an agency like ours, which is a virtual marketing agency. Hiring an Online Marketing Agency is a process, one that nobody should take lightly. Do your homework and then go with your gut. If you make a mistake, then simply move on & try again. The benefits to finding and hiring the right Online Marketing Agency far outweigh any perceived risks in doing so.

Here are a few of the benefits that we believe make outsourcing your Online Marketing activities the better option when comparing it to hiring a team a internal Marketing employees:

  • COSTS: Costs are the biggest advantage to outsourcing your Online Marketing activities. The cost of a salary PLUS benefits to bring a knowledgeable, and experienced person on full-time are in the $100k range. With that, you’ll probably need at least another individual, probably at the Marketing Coordinator level to assist the department head. For less than $35,000/year you can outsource all of your online marketing needs to an agency.
  • DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE: Even when you bring on a talented individual to head up your Marketing department, the likelihood that she will have the skills to plan & execute on ALL of your tactics herself is very slim. In most cases, you’ll end up outsourcing a lot of work regardless…which leads us to our next point…
  • ONE VENDOR: By outsourcing your Online Marketing needs, you can minimize paperwork and everything else that comes with contracting with multiple vendors + multiple employees. By selecting an Online Marketing Agency that can deliver on all of your web-based or mobile-based marketing needs, you are creating one point of contact. Pick the right agency, and then run everything through them.

The list of benefits to hiring an Online Marketing Agency instead of internal marketing employees does continue, but I think the 3 above are most critical. Some folks will tell you that you cannot find an agency that can understand your business as well as an employee would. We definitely disagree on that response. Again, it’s all about finding the right partner. Here at Catalyst, the very first thing we do when we partner with a new client is dive into all relevant aspects of their business. We also continue to learn every day that we work with our clients. Ultimately, we are able to integrate so heavily that many non-marketing employees know us by our first names. There are some agencies out there who are unable to integrate as well with their clients, but if you understand the importance of that ability, then you’ll be sure to select the right online marketing agency for your business.

What are your thoughts on outsourcing your marketing activities? Are you currently doing it? If so, how’s it working? Have you outsourced your online marketing in the past? How did it work out? We hope you’ll share your stories with our readers via the comments section below OR on our Facebook page – a place for small business owners to connect, share information & ideas, and learn about Online Marketing.

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Passion & Creativity Go a Long Way for Small Business Owners

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Do you wake up in the middle of the night, scrambling to find your iPhone, in order to get that great idea for your business out of your head? For many small business owners, running their business is a 24/7 affair, and when you do have time to sleep, many times you’re still thinking about your business. In the example above, there are two catalysts at work, they are Passion & Creativity. We often write about Creativity here on this Online Marketing blog, but we’ve never gone too in depth on the subject. For this article, we are going to discuss how both Passion & Creativity go a long way towards driving growth for your small business.

Passion Drives Small Business Success

When reading books on entrepreneurship, it’s almost a lock that you’re going to be told to find something that your passionate about, and then figure out how to create a business out of it. It’s almost like the Golden Rule of Entrepreneurship. The reason why so many authors and entrepreneurs talk about finding a passion first is due to just how strenuous it is to go into business for yourself. These folks understand that there are going to be “dips”, as the leading Marketing thinker of our day, Seth Godin would call them, along your journey to running a successful business. Without passion, it’s extremely easy to let dips in the road turn into the end of the road for your business. Those small business owners who love what they do, who get up early in the morning to get a fresh start on their day, and who never stop thinking about their business, because they love it, are the ones who succeed.

Founder of the Marriott CorporationI recently caught a special on TV about J. Willard Marriott, founder of the Marriott Corporation. This man embodied the term passion. It’s no wonder that he was able to take a small root beer stand and turn it into an international brand for luxury travel. Mr. Marriott thought about every aspect of his businesses, and although he had a lot of help, he never removed himself completely from the day-to-day operations of his businesses. He would frequently visit each of his root beer stands on a daily basis, inspecting every nook & cranny. The man loved what he did for a living. Except for his family, and some even debate that, there was nothing that J. Willard Marriott was more passionate about than his business.

Passion allowed J. Willard Marriott to power through the tough times, like say the Great Depression, and emerge stronger than when it began. Passion provided him with his direction for the business. He knew exactly where he wanted to go. Passion drove him on day after day. Passion acted as a road map for his business, and creativity fueled his growth.

Creativity Fuels Small Business Success

Daniel Pink A Whole New MindHere at Catalyst Marketers, we like to refer to Creativity as the new currency for business owners. When planning to start a business, or when deciding on a big change to an existing business, some folks begin with the question, “how are we going to pay for it?”. Other folks, perhaps those right-brainers as Dan Pink might refer to them as, start in an entirely different direction. Instead of asking how they were going to pay for what they wanted to achieve, these other entrepreneurs began by brainstorming fun & creative ways to help them achieve their goals. So in a sense, some right-brainer entrepreneurs are substituting currency for creativity, when making decisions about their small business.

If you work with us, then you know our motto: Creativity + The Right online tools & strategy = successful online marketing for your business. Today, more than any other time in history, small business owners have the ability to compete on a global level. All it takes is the right approach, plus a little creativity, and your small business could go viral in a matter of hours. If you’re always pushing the envelope, always creating, then at some point you’re going to realize success.

If passion was arguably Marriott’s biggest key to success in the early 20th century, creativity came in a close second. J. Willard Marriott opened his first nine-stool root beer stand in May of 1927. With business booming in the summer months, Marriott quickly realized that demand for root beer was going “dry up” come winter. To some, this dip would be insurmountable. Not to Marriott, as we discussed his passion led him, and he knew exactly where he wanted to take his business. It was in this dip that Marriott decided that he was going to add hot food to his small root beer stand and rebrand it The Hot Shoppe, now a family restaurant. Marriott didn’t stop there, just one year later he spotted a coming trend, the drive-in. His creativity allowed him to understand how he could capitalize on this trend for his business. He quickly evolved his business to incorporate drive-in service, and business shot through the roof.

J. Willard Marriott is a prime example of a business owner who combined passion and drive to create a successful business. Even in our current economy, the tools are out there, all it takes is a little passion, combined with some creativity, and you too can grow a successful business.

If you’d like to capitalize on OUR passion & creativity, we’d love to have you as a client. Contact us about any of your online marketing needs.

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Hotels Rent Conference Rooms to Entrepreneurs for Extra Revenue

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Are you responsible, in one form or another, for driving sales for a small hotel or hotel chain? If so, these past few months have probably been a little tough for your business. Business travelers aren’t traveling as much. Many folks are leveraging online tools like Google Docs and Skype to get business done while in different geographic locations. Summer is usually a big travel season here in the U.S., and I’m thinking even that’s going to be down this year, as more and more families are staying local during their family vacation. So, with this being the situation, it’s up to us to get creative and find new ways to generate revenue for hotels.

Hotel MarketingEvery time I travel, and stay in a hotel, one of the most underused areas of the hotels that I stay in are the conference rooms. Most hotels have at least one to two conference rooms, and most of the time, they are not being used. So, if I’m working at a hotel, especially if I’m a decision-maker, I’m trying to find creative ways to use the conference rooms. One use of the conference rooms is to rent them out to local entrepreneurs and small business owners. There are quite a few small businesses, as well as startups, who need workspace. Workspace with internet and cable connections. Workspace that’s affordable, comfortable, and can accommodate at least 5 – 7 people. Hotel conference rooms can fill this need in the marketplace. It just takes some planning, a little creativity, and the use of the right online tools to market the new service.

When it comes to renting out your hotel conference rooms, you want to make sure you do not upset any hotel guests that need to use the space. Figure out a way to ensure that you do not schedule the conference room at times when hotel guests need to use it. One way to do this is to ask each guest when the book their room (which is usually at some point prior to their stay) if they plan to use the conference room. If they do, find out the date/time that they’ll need it and add that to a calendar that keeps track of the conference room schedule. Once you have a plan in place for scheduling the conference rooms, you can come up with your fee schedule. This could be hourly, it could be by the day or half day, it’s really about what you think the market will pay. Perhaps you can do a little research to see what other “similar” spaces charge. Find a price, start marketing it, and the market will tell you if it’s too high, too low, or just right.

Once you have your plan in place, now you can start marketing your new service both through materials inside the hotel, and through your online social tools, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, your Blog, and foursquare. Your target should be entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses without a physical location. Create content about the need for physical workspace that’s affordable for entrepreneurs. Get testimonials from past customers. Shoot a video showing the space and explaining what’s offered (ie. high speed internet, cable, phone, etc). Create a foursquare special geared towards saving money on a conference room rental. There are countless creative ways that you can promote your message to your target audience through online tools.

Give your plan some time to get up and running. Check-in on a quarterly basis to see how you’re tracking against your performance measures. If you aren’t seeing many rentals, then tweak some things. If people are starting to rent the conference rooms, find out how they found out about your service, ask them what they thought about the service after they use it, etc. Constantly learn about what’s working and what’s not. Don’t be afraid to try new things. With ideas like this, there are hardly any real costs needed to try to rent out your hotel conference rooms. What’s there to lose? If it doesn’t work, then come up with a new creative way to leverage the conference rooms, or other underused areas of your hotel. In times like these, the businesses who get creative, and leverage the proper tools, will be the ones who thrive.

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3 Reasons for Creating a Strategic Marketing Plan

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Whenever we meet with a prospective client, one of the first things we explain is our belief in the importance of having a solid Strategic Marketing Plan. For all business owners, large or small, writing a yearly Marketing Plan that identifies what you’re hoping to accomplish, and how you will go about doing so, is the foundation for all that you do that year. With the Internet, it’s easier than ever to reach your customers & prospects, connect with them, build relationships, and drive sales, that many business owners jump right in without first creating a Strategic Marketing Plan. This post will provide you with the top 3 reasons why it’s imperative that you create a Strategic Marketing Plan for your small business.

Before we get into why it’s important to have a Marketing Plan for your business, let’s first define what we think a solid Strategic Marketing Plan looks like. Let’s start at the top…When we create a Strategic Marketing Plan for a customer, we start out by learning their business. We then go through exercises aimed at finding out what our customer’s organizational goals are, and who their target audience is. Once we have a strong understanding of our customers’ business, their goals, and their audience, we start building out the Strategic Marketing Plan.

Create an Online Marketing PlanIf you’re creating a plan yourself, be sure to list out your organizational goals for the current year, determine who your target audience is, and where those folks spend their time online. If your target audience uses foursquare, then you should have an online presence on foursquare. If your target audience doesn’t use Facebook, then don’t spend your time using Facebook as a marketing tool.

Creating your Strategic Imperatives is the next step in the process. Strategic Imperatives are simply how you will go about achieving your goals. A few examples might be, “Use online tools to reach more people, build relationships, and ultimately drive sales”, or “Create a blog to provide free articles about XYZ industry, my products, and our business philosophies”.

Once you know what your goals are, how you will achieve those goals, and who you’re looking to target, now it’s time to create your marketing tactics. Tactics are the actual campaigns that you will run to reach and engage your target audience. A few example tactics might be, “Create a YouTube Video Series to educate consumers on my services”, or “Use Twitter to promote my blog articles”. After the marketing tactics are created, your plan is complete.

Now that you know how to create a Strategic Marketing Plan, below are 3 reasons why it’s critical to your success. A Strategic Marketing Plan provides business owners with:

  1. A map for achieving yearly goals
  2. The ability to track success through individual tactic performance measures – Performance measures should be setup for every Marketing Tactic
  3. An understanding of the time, and budget, needed to execute on the Strategic Marketing Plan

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Have you taken the time to create a Strategic Marketing Plan for your business? Has it helped your business?

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How Are Those Newspaper Ads Working for Your Small Business?

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Are you still running ads in your local newspaper? Using the local newspaper to drive sales in 2010 is not a marketing tactic that Catalyst Marketers recommends for ANY business. Now, I know I’m going to hear a few comments on the benefits of using newspaper ads for businesses who serve the 70+ crowd. I’m not totally dismissing creative print advertising, but the traditional newspaper ad is just not cutting it these days. Even businesses who serve the older consumer shouldn’t be running newspaper ads, reason being, people age 70 and over have many helpers when it comes to making purchasing decisions (among a few other things that we will get into a little later in the post).

I mean seriously, if you’re having success running newspaper ads, please weigh in via the comments section below. It would be great to get another perspective from someone who’s having success with traditional newspaper ads. I’m thinking we aren’t going to hear from many business owners…we’ll see.

Print advertising is deadA few reasons why traditional newspaper ads just don’t make “CENTS” for small businesses:

Traditional newspaper ads, as a tool for driving sales at small businesses, just isn’t cutting it. Even if you are not ready to jump into the online marketing world, there are many other ways to spend your marketing dollars – by developing creative marketing tactics that will actually provide you a return-on-investment.

Get creative with your small business marketing. The tools are out there and the costs of marketing your small business have come down exponentially over the past few years. Quit spending your money on worthless newspaper ads — #ImJustSayin

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Retail Clothing Boutiques Host Their Own Local Fashion Shows: Post-Event Promotion

Monday, April 26th, 2010

During the last installment of the Hosting Your Own Local Fashion Show Blog Series, we discussed Fashion Show Event Hosting. One thing to keep in mind during the event, which also should be included in your Fashion Show Plan, is post-event marketing opportunities. As you may know from reading this blog, many events and/or promotions give business owners the ability to create marketing campaigns pre-event, during the live event, and post-event. Hosting a local fashion show at your retail clothing boutique definitely gives you the opportunity to market your business before, during, and after the event. In order to successfully promote the event after it’s already occurred, there are a few things that you have to do during the event to ensure you are creating that post-event content.

Some of the things that you can do during the event to ensure that you have great content to promote after the event is finished, are:

Video Record the Fashion Show

Small clothing retailer hosts a fashion showAs we discussed in the last post, you want to be sure to video record the fashion show. This is the ultimate content piece for post-event promotion. This truly let’s those who were unable to attend the live show, see what they missed. It’s the centerpiece of post-event content. This video will be the video that local media outlets use when they write stories on how great the Fashion Show was. Be sure to capture the event from multiple angles if you can. Run secondary cameras to capture B-Roll footage. This way when it comes time to put the final video together, there is plenty of core footage and even more filler footage for use in the video.

Video Record the Pre- & Post-Fashion Show Sales Events

Remember your goal of selling $2,000 worth of clothes during the event? In the last post, we talked about having a Pre-Event Sale and Post-Event Sale on the day of the Fashion Show. These sales are only open to Fashion Show ticket holders, which keeps it intimate and special for attendees. Be sure that you have someone setup with a video camera to capture these Sales Events. The footage can be used as a stand-alone video to show the Pre & Post Event Sale, but footage can also be used as filler in between other videos that you produce from the Fashion Show. This footage will be used as video content that’s pushed out to your customers and followers Post-Fashion Show.

Video Record Interviews from Fashion Show Attendees

Candid footage of fashion show attendees makes for great content. It gives folks who were unable to attend the event a glimpse into what the event was all about. It also lets them hear from real people, many of whom they can relate with. While attendees are enjoying the event, preferably during the Pre-Event and Post-Event Sale, pull a few aside to capture some video. Ask them what they are hoping to see during the Fashion Show, what new styles they really like, how they liked the Fashion Show, what they think of the post-event sale, etc. All of this candid footage will provide you with a ton of excellent content to promote post-event.

Remember to let interviewees know how you plan on using the content – ensure they are OK with it. Even consider having them sign a waiver if you want to truly protect yourself. With that said, the more barriers you create, the less your chances are of getting everyone to participate. It’s really your call based on your comfort level. We usually go the route of, “it’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission”. Usually nobody complains about anything, but if something were to come up, worst case scenario is that you’re asked to take the video down.

Video Record Interviews from Contest Winners

Prospects love hearing from current customers when they are doing their consumer research. Knowing this, it would be great to grab some interviews from your contest winners and other folks who are loyal customers of your clothing store. As we discussed in the Fashion Show Event Hosting post, prior to the fashion show you can send new clothing to a few lucky local consumers, along with free tickets to attend the fashion show. For many, this would be a really cool thing to have happen to them. Be sure to capitalize on your generosity and creativity by getting as many of the winners on camera as possible, either before or after the event. Remember, these folks will be wearing the clothes they received from you, so that’s great advertising right there. Capturing a video of the winners, who are wearing clothes from you store, is great post-event promotion material. Each winner can talk about his or her experience during the evening, which will hopefully be full of positive reviews of your clothes and your business.

Content Distribution and Promotion

After you capture all of the footage during the event, edit it and make it ready to go live, it’s time to start publishing that video footage to your small business YouTube Channel and to your blog. You can then use the same online social tools that you’ve been using throughout this process, Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, LinkedIn, etc. to promote your new content. Use the content to drive folks to your website or online retail store. You can even get creative with the footage and create new promotions out of it.

Perhaps during one of the video interviews, you hand a customer a $100 gift certificate and instruct that person to hide it in one of the hundreds of pieces of clothing in your store. Then, during post-event promotion, you mention the promotion, show the video clip, and let viewers of the video know that next time they come into the store, they could find a $100 gift certificate in a random piece of clothing. This will certainly help drive traffic to your clothing store post-event – which is the goal! :)

The next installment of the Hosting Your Own Local Fashion Show Blog Series, which will also be the final installment, focuses on Fashion Show Return-On-Investment. Remember to check back to our blog every few days to get access to the new post once it’s up OR simply subscribe to Catalyst Marketers blog to receive email updates when new posts are published.

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Run a Foursquare Swarm Badge Promotion

Monday, April 19th, 2010

So by now, I’m hoping that most of you have heard about using Foursquare for business. We have discussed the potential of Foursquare here a few times in the past few months, and we are also getting ready to release a FREE Fousquare for Business eBook. If you’d like to find out more about the Foursquare for Business ebook, simply contact us for more information. For today’s post, we are going to discuss the highly coveted Foursquare Swarm badge, and how you can leverage this coveted badge to drive sales for your small business.

UPDATE: Download our new FREE eBook: How to Use Foursquare to Grow Your Business

Foursquare for businessThe Swarm Badge on Foursquare is unlocked when a Foursquare flash mob is created at any location. A Foursquare flash mob consists of at least 50 people being in the same place at the same time. Now, of course, you can influence this so that a Foursquare flash mob occurs at your small business, just like this restaurant owner did.

What’s great about a promotion like this is that you can use it to generate a TON of buzz before the promotion, during the promotion, and after the promotion. When you decide to run an event like this, it’s always recommended that you use the online social tools that you have a presence on, like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, your blog, etc. to promote the event. Before running a Foursquare Swarm Badge Promotion, be sure that you take time to understand if your customer-base has started using Foursquare yet. Be sure your business profile on Foursquare is correct, and then start promoting check-ins at your place of business. Keep an eye on your stats and once you determine that there are a decent number of your customers on Foursquare, then you know that it’s time to run Foursquare Swarm Badge Promotion.

Here are a few tips to help you get started:

  • Be sure your business is listed correctly on Foursquare – If not, tweak it or add it
  • Research your customer-base to ensure they are Foursquare users
  • Create a blog post or even better, a video explaining the promotion – Are you planning on having a special event to celebrate the Foursquare flash mob? If so, tell your customers what they can expect.
  • Use your social tools and in-store fliers to promote your event in order to build buzz
  • Be sure to video record the event so that you can use it in post-event promotions
  • Figure out a way to drive sales during the event
  • Live tweet the event or figure out a way to allow your customers (the flash mob) promote your event for you – they’ll be doing some of this when they Check-In at your location on Foursquare
  • Use the materials you created during the event (ie. your video) to promote the event after it’s passed

By finding creative ways to use the increasingly popular location-based social network, Foursquare, for your small business, you give yourself the ability to generate more sales than you would without leveraging Foursquare and other online social tools. You are also connecting with your community and weeding out your most loyal customers. Those folks who join in on your Foursquare Flash Mob to unlock the Swarm Badge are probably high-value customers, and this is your opportunity to let them know they are appreciated. You can use this Foursquare Swarm Badge Promotion as an opportunity to begin building a long-lasting relationship with those folks. The best part about the entire promotion, costs are close to zero. Since you’re not spending much on the execution of the promotion, let us know if you’d like any help in planning it. Either way, you should definitely consider running a Foursquare Swarm Badge Promotion for your small business.

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Businesses Are Going Hollywood

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Business is going Hollywood. We caught the first glimpse of this a few years back when Donald Trump created The Apprentice. At that time, TV was the big medium (and still is) for getting video-based content out into the world. Trump was a well-established business person, and somewhat of a celebrity already. He was looked at as unique for his ability to infiltrate Hollywood as nothing more than a businessman.

Now, as time has passed, ONLINE VIDEO is picking up more and more steam. It’s allowing once unknown business leaders to become celebrities. It’s getting to the point that business leaders are becoming as popular as movie stars (well perhaps not yet, but soon, very soon). Chris Brogan is a HUGE business celebrity. He has a big-time following of business professionals and business owners. Same with Mike Michalowitz – The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Then you have guys like David “Siteman” Garland who is an big-time up & comer with his own online video show. All three of these business leaders use online video to spread their ideas and educate their readers. Thankful fans hungrily chase the next bit of news from, or about, their favorite business leaders. As their popularity grows within their own niche, their reach expands, and eventually these successful business leaders will hit a tipping point in their celebrity and they will become as Hollywood as Matt Damon and Rachel McAdams. By recognizing this trend, as a small business owner, or heck, a 12 year old middle-schooler for that matter, you have the opportunity to grow your local brand into BIG-TIME, SUPERSTAR BRAND.

Video for my businessThe biggest key to the college student working on a side project, or business owner looking to grow her business, to becoming a star is their ability to use video to communicate their message, just as Hollywood stars use video to communicate their acting talent. Video, more than other content forms, captures personality and creates a deeper connection with the audience. Due to decreasing video production and distribution costs, everyone can become an online video celebrity. Do you have a crazy lead Chef at your restaurant that you’ve always said, this guy could have his own show? Well, give him his own show. Create a YouTube Channel and turn your lead Chef into the next Emeril Lagasse. Are you a quirky fashion designer with passionate ideas about the future of fashion in America? Create your own Future of Fashion Channel on YouTube and start blasting out videos about fashion. Do you walk dogs for a living? Start recording your “Doggy Adventures” and publish those videos to your YouTube Channel. Start educating dog owners about the benefits of exercise for dogs.

What I’m hoping to get across here is that there’s an audience out there for everyone, no matter what business you’re in. Start positioning yourself as the next big thing in your market. Capture your local market first – go Hollywood in your community, and then begin branching out. One great way to help your small business go Hollywood is through the use of online video, which shares many benefits with TV, for a small fraction of the costs.

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Retail Clothing Boutiques Host Their Own Local Fashion Shows: Event Hosting

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

So, the big day is finally upon you. It’s time to actually pull off this fashion show that you’ve been planning for your small retail clothing store for months now. Remember, if you’ve spent ample time planning your fashion show and you’ve hired a great team to support you, then the event itself will be the easy part. Let’s review some of the things that you have done up to this point that will impact how your event will go.

In the Fashion Show Event Planning post, within this Blog Series, we set a goal of selling $2,000 worth of clothes during the fashion show. This means that during the Planning phase, you have put together a plan on how you’re going to sell the clothes that are being modeled during your show. There are several ways to sell clothes before and after the show:

  • You can have a private store opening for all Fashion Show ticket holders. You can serve hors d’oeuvres in your clothing store while ticket holders shop with other Fashion Show attendees.
  • After the show, you can sell limited items from the show to attendees. You can promote it as an exclusive purchase that other customers won’t be able to make for at least a month. You could even model certain items that aren’t even going to be for sale, a limited edition of sorts, and make them available only to Fashion Show Attendees. You could even give select clothing pieces away days or weeks later as part of a post-event promotion.

Have a Fashion Show at my clothing storeDuring your Pre-Event Promotion for you local Fashion Show, you were connecting on Twitter with Local Media, as well as, sending local residents free clothes and tickets to the event. Between your promotion and the tickets that you’ve given away to loyal customers, friends, family, and local residents, your Fashion Show should be heavily attended.

One thing you should do in the days leading up to the event is reach out to all of the ticket winners, whether it was local media through your Twitter contest OR local recipients who received your free clothes. Give media members the plan for the evening and ask what they are hoping to get out of the experience. Without asking, try to find out how they plan on covering the event. Hopefully you can get them to write some great reviews about the Fashion Show and your business.

When reaching out to local residents who received the new clothes that you sent out as part of your pre-event promotion, ask them to wear those clothes to the show. They would feel like insiders in a room full of insiders at the Fashion Show by wearing clothes that are actually debuting during the event. Others would see how normal folks look in the clothes and hopefully that leads to sales.

Setup Your Store for the Fashion Show

Have a Fashion Show at my clothing storeKnowing that you’re all setup to accomplish your goals of having a full crowd of loyal customers, local residents, and local media attend the Fashion Show, as well as, a plan in place for selling $2,000 worth of clothes to those folks during the Fashion Show, you can now move your efforts to setting up your store for the Fashion Show. A few things to consider when staging your clothing store for a Fashion Show:

  • You must allow room for Fashion Show attendees to browse your clothing selection during the Pre-Show Private Sale we discussed earlier
  • Put people in charge of shooting video of the show, as well as, taking digital pictures of the models, the clothes, and the attendees. These will be used in Post-Show Promotion on your blog and other social sites.
  • Be sure the food and drinks are good to go
  • Prepare someone to live Tweet the event on your Twitter account. This way your Twitter followers can feel like they are part of the Fashion Show
  • Run through the Auction of the new clothing line that will take place post-event, as part of your goal to sell $2,000 worth of clothes during the Fashion Show.
  • Rehearse the show a few times as if it were the live event. This will allow you to check out the best camera angles, position people where you want them to be during certain times of Fashion Show, and simply work out all of the bugs before going live

After everything has been setup at your clothing store, people have been invited, and rehearsals have taken place, you are ready to host your own local Fashion Show! Take a deep breath and go start greeting your guests.

The next installment of the Hosting Your Own Local Fashion Show blog series focuses on Fashion Show Post-Event Promotion. Remember to check back to our blog every few days to get access to the new post once it’s up OR simply subscribe to Catalyst Marketers blog to receive email updates when new posts are published.

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