McIntosh Marketing Blog

Small Biz marketing success is dependant upon being found and building trust.  And in today’s economic climate, building your brand must entail a strong internet presence. As you may have discovered, simply having a web site is not enough. Yet, 90% of the small businesses in existence that have a web site are not engaging in the most effective method to building more traffic to it: Blogging.

Your company blog is not only a free method in which to build original content to your web site, a must be done SEO strategy for online marketing success, but it really becomes a long-term strategy to reach out and develop many of the potential niche markets that exist within your business.

Additionally, there are some simple steps to expose your company blog to more and more customers, as well as increasing your blog’s value as a B2B website. Here are some helpful marketing tips to gain maximum SEO potential for your blog:

• On all company emails, include links to your company blog.
• Ensure that your blog is listed within the blog option on LinkedIn.
• Ensure that your blog is prominently featured on your company Facebook fan club.
• Distribute your blog postings to all the various social media outlets via Ping.fm.
• Get your blog listed in the dozens of blog directories, such as Technorati.
• In whatever you print and publish off-line, such as letterhead, business cards, etc. include your blog address.
• Blog at least twice a week. Get an SEO expert to help you find the key words and longtail words to get best results.
• Watch this video and learn even more!

If you operate a small biz, welcome to America’s club of almost 30 million strong.  You belong to an important component that not only drives our economy, but also develops the majority of our nation’s innovative ideas, according to SCORE’s Small Biz Stats & Trends web page.

For long-term survival, there are many components to success for any small business. But one that seems to still provides quite some overwhelm is judging how to enter the face-paced world of internet marketing and social media. While many small businesses know that building brand awareness is crucial, and that internet marketing tools and social media sites can provide a unique business opportunity, only a few daunting souls endeavor into it rapidly and successfully.

The question will eventually arise for each small biz owner: Should I outsource our marketing to a professional internet marketing agency, or should I learn this as best as I can, hoping that I make some headway?

These are important issues to resolve first, before decoding which path to take:

1. Who is the most important client that we want to reach and sell?

2. What are we willing to spend to gain that client, in relation to the postulated ROI on that relationship?

3. What are their buttons, their needs and desires and how does your product connect to that key button or need?

4. How would we best position our product or service as what resolves or satiate that need?

5. How do we best reach these people? This may have already been answered by your competitors.

6. Do I have the core knowledge and/or team members who do, to make progress with a comprehensive online marketing strategy?

You may already posses the skills and core SEO knowledge necessary to resolve those issues and to proceed forward without any assistance from an outside SEO agency. But when it comes to small business SEO, there are additional factors that have to be taken into consideration.

Finding a niche market is a highly touted strategy to build a core of dedicated fans, repeat business and excellent word of mouth. For example, there are many coffee houses that one can find one’s favorite brew. But I know one, The Lost Bean, that specializes in organically grown coffee. That’s all they serve and the place is packed with customers on a constant basis. One small difference in your small business brand can be a big difference in how your attract attention and build a dedicated base of loyal clients. In this example, those who support green living feel that their coffee habit is sustaining a better world.

I have provided a video by marketing guru, Seth Godin, to help illustrate the need to for effective online marketing for any small business.

Never a day goes by when I am asked by a business person if they should actually engage in social media or not.

Have you noticed that phone books are getting thinner and smaller? Well, it’s not because the business is not dying. It is migrating to a new media that is reaching hundreds of millions per day. That is social media.

This CNN article is a case in point: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/04/08/social.media.small.biz/?hpt=C2

We could argue for days about whether we should Facebook or Twitter? Should I blog or should write articles? Do I use have flash, or do video? These tools do not replace studying, understanding and having a strategy.

Recently I visited some up and coming entrepreneurs at a networking conference in Laguna Beach, CA. All were eager to attend and hear from the keynote speaker on Linkedin. After the talk, the questions fired like cannonade and one thing was clear: They were confused.

He didn’t clarify much, he simply stirred up the hornet’s nest.

And not about Linkedin, but about all aspects of social media. And you know what? The speaker wasn’t prepared. He was just as confused, really. He picked that one topic and studied it hoping to look like an expert on that one subject. He did not realize that when he opened up the platform, he would be inundated by a tsunami of questions and a torrent of confusion.

He got caught not knowing his basics of one of the most important changes in business today: social media.

But one thing is for sure: The confused questions all indicate that this is where small business is going. It’s not turning back. Say bye-bye to the yellow pages book, because it will one day be in the museum with the T-Rex and the Dodo.