Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Finding Sourcing Content for Your Small Business

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

The backbone of an effective social media campaign is content marketing. Content Marketing is simply using content to educate your target audience about your products, services, industry, events, etc. as a way to spark conversations and build relationships. To elaborate, the content you create or promote should be viewed as relevant and of value to your audience, not just the classic “save 30% on your next purchase” advertisement.  Online content used to engage a customer and provoke conversation can be in the form of video, audio, written, imagery, etc.

All small businesses today can, and should, take advantage of content marketing.  Below are just a few reasons why your business should be utilizing content marketing.  These statistics, sourced from an Arik Hanson, give a glimpse at how fast the online audience is growing.

  • More than 250 million people use Facebook Connect every month. (Facebook)
  • Between April 2010 and January 2011, Twitter has gained 40 million users and a 62 percent increase in mobile use of the platform
  • The average American Internet user watches 30 minutes of video online per day [40 percent increase over 2009]
  • Social networking site usage grew 88 percent among Internet users aged 55-64 between April 2009 and May 2010

With stats like those above, most of you have probably decided that content marketing can do wonders for your small business.  But where do you get ideas for this content?  There are two main approaches for delivering content to your audience. As discussed in previous Catalyst articles “Content Marketing featuring Lil Wayne” and “Small Business Uses paper.li For Content Marketing”, the first method is for you to create online content for your small business.

Content Marketing for Small Business

The second method is finding great content from other respected individuals/businesses in your industry and sharing their content with your audience.  By doing this you’re accomplishing two things.  First, you’re building a relationship with the source whom you pulled the content from, as sharing their content should be seen as a valuable gesture by you (small business owner), thus they are likely to reach out to you to say ‘thank you’ and the relationship-building process starts. Secondly, you’re getting relevant (to your products/services/industry and to your target audience’s interests) and valuable content in front of your target audience. You can then use that content to engage your audience in discussions.  The benefit over time is that you can use other people’s content to build relationships with your customers & prospects, which should in turn generate new & continued sales for your small business.

Finding sources of content relevant to your audience can be both challenging and time consuming.  Fortunately, there are new tools being developed daily to assist you with this.  From Tweet filtering/aggregating programs, such as Mass Relevance’s TweetRiver, to blog search engines, finding good information on almost any topic is becoming easier.  A great, easy-to-use website we came across which can be used to find recent articles on any subject is Topix.com.  This site allows the user to search online news and blogs for any topic they choose.  The user is given the options to enter keywords and source details (blog vs. news article, specific website domains, etc.).  Another valuable feature is that one can restrict the search to a specific geographic location.  This is especially useful if you are looking for relative content specific to your town or city.  After the search criteria are defined, a list of all matching blogs/articles is listed in chronological order.

Employing an effective content marketing campaign for your business will engage your current and potential customers like never before.  However, how efficiently your content is obtained plays a big part in your business’s overall social media costs.  By using the tools and methods described in this article, your content marketing time and capital commitments can be greatly reduced, resulting in higher profit margins. How efficient and effective is your content marketing campaign?

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Posted in Small Business | 2 Comments »

WTF! Social Media Marketing Isn’t Working for My Small Business

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

Are you not seeing any results from your Social Media Marketing efforts? If that’s the case then something is wrong and we need to dissect your Social Media Marketing Plan in order to find out what. What’s that? You don’t have a Social Media Marketing Plan? Hmm… That’s definitely part of the problem, but there may be other contributing factors.

Within the online communities that we frequent here at Catalyst, we often hear stories from small business owners who are not seeing a return-on-social-media. After a little investigation, the problems that these organizations face usually result from similar missteps. In this article we will review a few critical mistakes that many small business owners make when getting started with Social Media Marketing. If you feel like you’re not getting the most out of your Social Media efforts be sure to read this article carefully to determine if you have fallen into any of these traps. If you have, don’t be ashamed or give up on Social Media. Social Media Marketing can be an extremely powerful marketing strategy for your small business. The following mistakes can be overcome and you’ll be happy that you spent the time to understand what you’re doing wrong and what you can do to fix it.

No Social Media Marketing Plan

Social Media Not WorkingIn anything that you do, planning is a critical first step. You wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, right? You wouldn’t travel across the country without a map and a planned route (well, hopefully you wouldn’t), right? You wouldn’t purchase a print ad in a local magazine without first having a plan for what the creative will look like, what the message will be, etc., right? Then there is no reason why you should jump into Social Media Marketing without first developing a Social Media Marketing Plan.

A proper Social Media Marketing Plan lays out your Goals, Strategic Imperatives, and Marketing Tactics. The Marketing Tactics should alight to your Strategic Imperatives and your Strategic Imperatives should be designed to achieve your Goals. All of your Social Media Marketing efforts should be carefully planned. You want to know where your target audience is spending their time online so that you can choose the proper online tools to use. You want to develop your content marketing strategy. You also want to consider how you will promote your content to your audience. The planning process will allow you to think through all of this and the result should be a Social Media Marketing Plan that will provide you with the best opportunity to succeed in your Social Media Marketing efforts.

How Do You Determine ROI for Social Media Marketing?

As part of your Social Media Marketing Plan, did you setup performance measures for each of your Social Media Marketing Tactics? Part of planning is setting clear objectives so that you’re able to measure success 3 months, 6 months, 12 months down the road. Without setting proper performance measures you’re unable to determine your return-on-investment for Social Media Marketing.

If one of your goals is to increase your mobile presence and your strategy is to utilize geo-location tools to drive mobile use then a possible marketing tactic might be to use foursquare to create a foursquare mayor special for your small business. With this being your plan, a reasonable performance measure might be:

  • Drive 10 sales using the foursquare Mayor special discount within the first 3 months after the tactic launches

By setting up a performance measure prior to launching your Social Media Marketing tactic you’re now able to check your sales data 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months from launch to see how you’re tracking against your performance measure. At set times throughout the year (quarterly is usually recommended), you should come back to your Social Media Marketing Plan and see how you’re tracking against the performance measures that you setup. Based on your data, you may want to alter your performance measures moving forward (ie. if you’ve exceeded your yearly goals in 6 months, then ramp up your goals for the next six months).

If you have questions about how to properly setup performance measures for your Social Media Marketing tactics, please feel free to contact us.

The Number of Followers You Have Doesn’t Matter

Many small business owners are receiving the wrong advice when it comes to marketing automation tools and the importance of how many followers you have on Twitter and/or Facebook –> This Quantity over Quality approach is DEAD WRONG. In order to be successful with Social Media Marketing there are few shortcuts, and the quality of your relationships matter much more than the quantity (in most cases).

At first it seems to make sense that the more followers you have the better, but what does it matter if you have 100,000 followers if none of those followers are engaged in what you’re doing online? What if you have 0 comments on your Facebook wall or 0 retweets on Twitter? I guess those 100,000 followers don’t mean much then, right?

So there you go, if you’ve been using tools that automatically post Twitter tweets to Facebook or create content by collecting articles around the web and posting them to your blog then you’re not doing your small business any good. What you should be doing is taking time to create quality content for your blog… original content. You should be interacting with your followers. Getting to know them and their interests. This way you can have relevant discussions with them and create valuable and relevant content for them. By taking the QUALITY over quantity approach you’ll notice a HUGE difference in the success you have with Social Media Marketing.

Where’s the Engagement?

We briefly touched on engagement above, but it’s so critical that we need to dig deeper. Even if you have a Social Media Marketing Plan and you’re creating relevant content on your blog or YouTube channel, if you’re not engaging your audience around that content, then you’re not seeing the full positive effects of Social Media Marketing. Have you ever been to a Facebook page where all that’s posted are blog articles or links to a website? There’s no discussion going on, no comments or Likes, no contests or questions being asked… Those pages are almost worse than having no Social Media presence at all. For you to be successful with Social Media you must engage your audience in conversations.

Using your Facebook status to ask questions or having a ReTweet contest are great ways to drive engagement for your small business on Social Media. Simply thanking people who ReTweet your articles or leave comments on your blog is a great way to start building a relationship with a prospect. In order to keep your online community engaged, you first must be engaged in your Social Media efforts. That’s why many marketing automation tools don’t work. They allow you to be lazy with Social Media. You have to be active and you have to engage your audience. If you take the time to build real relationships with your online community you’ll see much better results from your Social Media Marketing efforts.

WTF! Social Media Marketing Isn’t Working for My Small Business

If you’ve been questioning the return-on-social-media lately hopefully this post was helpful. The majority of the time, the issues that small business owners have with Social Media Marketing can be summed up within the four categories above. If you’re doing everything that you’re supposed to be doing, but still aren’t having success, please feel free to reach out to us and we’ll provide you with our thoughts on how you can get more results from your Social Media Marketing.

Oh, and if you’re looking to find out what ‘WTF’ means then go ahead and Google “wtf wikipedia”…

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Posted in Small Business | 10 Comments »

Interruption Marketing by Kanye West

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

In what will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the poorest judgment calls by a celebrity, Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s 2009 VMA Awards acceptance speech gives business owners a perfect look into why Interruption Marketing doesn’t work. Interruption Marketing is a marketing strategy used mostly by businesses when selling products or services to consumers. Interruption Marketing tactics take on many forms, such as the post cards (or business reply cards in Marketing Jargon) that fall out of the magazine that you’re reading, the TV advertisements that you’re forced to watch, or even the pushy salesperson that tries to stop you in the middle of the mall. These are all perfect examples of Interruption Marketing. Kanye West took this marketing strategy to a whole new level when he interrupted Taylor Swift to promote Beyonce’s video. Many people say that you can learn by following good examples from others, but also from staying away from things that you saw cause others harm. Well, this Kanye West Taylor Swift situation presents the latter learning opportunity for business owners.

So here’s what happened… Taylor Swift was awarded her very first ever VMA Award during the 2009 MTV VMA Awards Ceremony. As she was giving her acceptance speech Kanye West came up from behind her, took the microphone, and began to humiliate her in front of everyone in the audience and on national TV. He interrupted her speech to promote his own agenda. Kanye felt that Beyonce should have won the award and he wanted to promote Beyonce and her video. Kanye didn’t take out an Ad in Rolling Stone the week after the VMAs. Kanye didn’t use the situation to create new content by recording a song expressing his views. Instead Kanye West followed an Interruption Marketing Strategy. Unfortunately for him, as with many of the businesses who also use this strategy, he fell flat on his face. If you haven’t seen the actual footage, check out the video below.

It almost makes you cringe when you watch it… You feel so bad for Taylor Swift, but also so bad for Kanye West as you know in your gut what the backlash caused by his Interruption Marketing tactic will be.

Top 3 Reasons Why Interruption Marketing Doesn’t Work

  1. IT INTERRUPTS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE FROM WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!

  2. Interruption Marketing leaves a bad taste in the mouths of your target audience

  3. Interruption Marketing can generate NEGATIVE publicity for your business

Kanye West Interruption MarketingInterruption Marketing first and foremost interrupts EVERYONE (your target audience and those innocent bystanders who are forced to watch, read, or listen to your message) from what they are doing. The act of interrupting people causes those folks to resent the parties behind the ad (that’s you), especially over time. Not only that, but sometimes when the interruption is so bad, like when Mr. West interrupted Taylor Swift to promote his views on why Beyonce should have won the award, it can lead to a massive negative PR assault on your business. Some say that all publicity is good publicity, but we tend not to agree with that marketing philosophy around here. It’s not easy giving up on a strategy after using it for so long, but small business owners who want to be successful in the future must abandon this dying marketing strategy before it’s too late.

There was a time when Interruption Marketing actually worked. It was a time of mass production and mass consumption. The economy has changed, consumers have changed, technology has advanced… It’s time that businesses move on from Interruption Marketing to Permission Marketing.

Seth Godin on Permission Marketing

Seth Godin, the man we call the leading Marketing thinker of our time, has this to say about his new Marketing Strategy (which really isn’t very new anymore), which is based around receiving permission from your target audience to communicate with them, instead of simply interrupting them with your message:

“Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.

It recognizes the new power of the best consumers to ignore marketing. It realizes that treating people with respect is the best way to earn their attention.”

Seth published the book, Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers, back in 1999. The book instantly became the new keystone to winning marketing strategies. At this point, the paradigm has almost completely shifted away from Interruption Marketing Strategies to solely Permission Marketing Strategies, but you still get the occasional Kanye West. There are still businesses out there who simply don’t seek permission to speak with their target audience. This is a very short-sighted way to run your business. Interruption Marketing sacrifices long-term profits from turning strangers into friends and friends in to customers for short term perceived gains.

Interruption Marketing is Dying

Interruption Marketing Strategies are dying. The companies who use Interruption Marketing Strategies to sell their products and services are dying along with them. This country can only move forward as quickly as small businesses will take us there. Don’t shoot yourselves in the foot by taking bad marketing advice and implementing Interruption Marketing Strategies for your small business. The next time you’re thinking of running that print ad, or recording that radio spot, remember Interruption Marketing by Kanye West.

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Posted in Small Business | 2 Comments »

Round Up: Past Posts Providing Creative Social Media Marketing Ideas

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010

Are you looking for creative Social Media Marketing ideas to help drive sales for your small business? We have written extensively on the topic of small business and Online Marketing. We understand that small business owners are pressed for time and can’t make it to our blog on a daily basis. We also have new small business owners each day coming to our blog for the first time. We wanted to come up with a way to get our best articles in front of all of you in one convenient format.

This post will hopefully be the first of many ‘Round Up’ articles whereby we take some of our best articles within a given topic (today’s topic is Creative Social Media Marketing ideas) and link them from one article. This way you can skim through these Round Up posts to find the articles of interest to you, click the links, and read about a creative Social Media Marketing idea. We hope you find the information valuable as we think that by implementing just one of the many ideas below will help you reach more customers & prospects, build relationships with those folks, and ultimately drive sales from them.

Social Media Marketing Agency Catalyst Marketers

Christmas Promotion with Foursquare for Small Business: Holidays are a great reason to run creative marketing promotions at your small business. When new customers & prospects come into your store, instruct them to check-in on foursquare and let them know that by doing so enters them into your foursquare Christmas promotion. Each night you will select one winner from the day’s check-ins. The person will be notified to come in and pick out a gift from under your Christmas tree (thus driving them BACK into your store).

Does Your Restaurant Run a Local Chef Sweepstakes?: Are you looking for ways to get more people into your restaurant (especially on those slow days/nights), build buzz for your brand, create local community advocates for the quality of your service, and come up with new menu items that your customers love? Gather a group of local residents (who enjoy cooking) in your area to come into your restaurant one night a month (make it the least active night of the week), each bringing their best-cooked dish to share with everyone. The most well-liked dish will win a prize… but that’s not all, click the link above to see just how this idea can GENERATE EXTRA REVENUE FOR YOUR RESTAURANT!

Retail Clothing Boutiques Host Their Own Local Fashion Shows by Using Online Social Tools: Do you own or operate a small retail clothing business? If so, do you find it difficult to compete with some of the larger retail chains out there? Do you ever find yourself watching those celebrity-filled fashion shows on TV saying, “our clothes are so much nicer than that”. If that’s the case, then perhaps you should consider hosting your own local fashion show for your retail clothing boutique.

Run a Twitter ReTweet Contest to Drive New Twitter Followers: Running a ReTweet Contest for your small business can be a great way to promote your content, drive action from current followers, and accumulate new Twitter followers.

Run a Yelp Campaign to Promote Your Small Business: Yelp is a great online tool that all businesses should be taking advantage of. You can use Yelp as a way to generate positive customer feedback about your business. Then, when other potential customers are searching for products and services within your industry on Yelp, you have a better chance of driving those customers to your store or website. Yelp amplifies the power of word-of-mouth marketing.

Create a Social Media Card: It’s a good idea to always be looking for new, and creative, ways to drive traffic to Social Media. The concept for the Connect with Us Card is simple. It’s like a business card for the organization’s online presence. Add all of your Social Media links & icons to the card. Then pass it out to everyone you meet who may be part of your target audience.

What’s your favorite Social Media Marketing idea from the list above? Why? Leave your feedback below. We appreciate it!

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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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Posted in Online Marketing, Small Business | 2 Comments »

Small Businesses Run Over Their Competitors Like Chris Johnson

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

With 23 players selected ahead of him in the 2008 NFL Draft, including a number of running backs, Chris Johnson came into his rookie season with the Tennessee Titans with a big chip on his seemingly small shoulders. Over the next two years Johnson has proven that those shoulders are much broader than 23 other NFL franchises realized on Draft Day back in 2008.

Entering the 2010 NFL season Chris Johnson is coming off of a record breaking season in 2009. Chris Johnson broke Marshall Faulk’s record of total yards from scrimmage (both running & receiving) with 2,509 total yards. Johnson also joined 5 other running backs in the NFL history books as 1 of 6 players to rush over 2,000 yards. Looked at as undersized running back who probably wouldn’t be anything more than a specialty player in the NFL because of his size, Chris Johnson is showing everyone just how broad his shoulders are, as he intends to carry the Tennessee Titans to a Super Bowl Championship in 2010.

Small Businesses Learn From Chris JohnsonWatching Chris Johnson run and understanding his story it’s easy to see a number of parallels to successful small businesses. In this post we are going to highlight three aspects of Chris Johnson’s game that makes him so successful. We are then going to show you how Chris Johnson’s traits are mirrored in successful small businesses. There are many small businesses out there who are already the Chris Johnson of their local communities. For those of you who want to take your small business to Chris Johnson status you should find this post both refreshing and informative.

The three characteristics that define Chris Johnson’s success as a running back in the NFL are:

  • Fearlessness
  • Creativity
  • Constant Improvement

Fearless Businesses Thrive

Chris Johnson might just be the very best player in one of the toughest sports in the world. A trait that all successful NFL players must posses is fearlessness. In a game where 200 – 300 lbs players are running around at speeds that would make sprinters marvel, only the strong survive. The strong survive and the most fearless thrive. Chris Johnson takes on competitors two and three times his size and he’s not afraid to both get hit and deliver hits of his own. Chris Johnson doesn’t let one bad play or one big hit take him out of his game. He gets back up and goes at it even harder the next time. Playing without fear allows Johnson to try new things, take on bigger defenders, and get up after being knocked down. The same things can be said for successful small businesses.

Small businesses that thrive in today’s economic environment are fearless. There are a number of reasons why businesses might be fearful today; economic & political uncertainty, increased taxes, big drops in consumer spending, and the list goes on. The businesses that we see thriving today are the ones who don’t let those fears creep in. The know they offer great value in their products & services and they are constantly on the lookout for new ways to educate their customers & prospects. Successful small business owners aren’t afraid to fail, yet they are smart enough to ensure that any failures are small failures that can be learned from. Businesses of tomorrow will be the ones who exhibit no fear in moving through these rough times and continue to get up after being knocked down.

Creativity Drives Success

For those of you who have not heard of Chris Johnson until now and even for those who have, you have to check out the highlight video below. On a number of his plays you will see his creativity in how he moves down the field with the football. He makes a lot of people miss tackles against him. For those of you who don’t like hip-hop music, please turn the volume on the YouTube video player down.

As you can see from the video, Chris Johnson is pretty incredible to watch. He does things that not many other running backs can do or have even attempted. This creativity allows Johnson to excel as a running back in the NFL. He’s always looking for an angle; a way to beat his competition. Creativity is a KEY to Chris Johnson’s success, as it is a key to the success of small businesses.

Small businesses MUST be creative in the way they approach running their business, creating products & services, and especially their marketing. Being creative can help you stand out from your competitors. As you may know from reading some of our other blog articles we are big believers in creativity. We always say that a strong strategy, the right tools, and a little creativity breeds success. We think Chris Johnson would agree.

Get out there and host your own fashion show, run a foursquare Christmas promotion, or partner with local businesses to create value for local residents. Do something that will help you achieve your goals while engaging your customers & prospects. You must take advantage of the many online tools that are available for free and develop creative promotions to run through those tools. By being fearless and getting creative you can blow right past those bigger, and seemingly stronger, competitors!

Compete, Analyze, Improve, Repeat

Small Businesses Learn From Chris JohnsonAsk any successful NFL player and many will tell you that 80% of his success is due to how he prepares for games with only 20% coming from raw talent. Throughout the weeks and months (and even during the off season) NFL players like Chris Johnson are working to improve their game. They do this through technique training, strength & conditioning training, and especially film study. The process is usually prepare, compete, analyze, improve, and go after it again! Chris Johnson does this better than most. He uses the film room to see what he did well during games and what he can improve on. He also studies his competition to understand what their weaknesses are. He then goes out game after game trying to improve on his last performance by trying new things and exploiting his competition’s weak links. Successful small businesses do the EXACT SAME THING.

Successful small businesses are always looking for feedback, whether it’s positive or negative. Positive feedback reinforces the good things that they are doing and can be used to promote their offerings to new potential customers. Negative feedback allows them the opportunity to improve their offerings and turn a frustrated customer into an advocate.

When successful small businesses run creative marketing promotions they are always pushing the envelope and finding ways to capture feedback. Their film study comes in the form of customer feedback and they know there are ways to elicit that feedback from customers & their community. Each time they hear from a customer they analyze the feedback, make any necessary improvements, and then they go after it again! This process allows small businesses to thrive in today’s economic environment.

Closing Thoughts

If you didn’t know Chris Johnson before reading this post, hopefully you do now. You see number 28 for the Tennessee Titans is much more than a great NFL running back, he is a symbol for success in anything you do. Whether you own a small restaurant, walk dogs, run a local gym, or operate your own jewelery store you can learn how become a successful small business by watching Chris Johnson run.

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Posted in Online Marketing, Small Business | No Comments »

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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