Buzz Blog

Best Practices for Growing Your Startup

1/27/2020

Get a business line
There’s nothing worse when you call a business and a child picks up the phone and yells “mommy! I think it's for you!” If you don't have already have one, get a business line. You can find so many great inexpensive options for under 10$/month. You don’t need a new phone. It's usually just an app. When the call comes into your line you will see that it’s a business call and you can answer the phone accordingly. It’s a small expense that will give your small business a more professional feel. Check out this great article comparing all your options. https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/10/second-phone-number-apps.html
Make your ads specific
Many businesses will place ads that are general and don’t speak to a specific targeted audience. These ads usually drive very little traffic or receive next to no engagement. Although they may be okay for brand building and awareness they aren’t great for lead generation. If lead generation is what you are after, create ads that are targeted to a specific audience and have content that recognizes their pain points and shows that you provide the solution. Create an offer that will speak to them. This may mean that you need 5 or 6 different ads or even more if you have several services or products that target different types of customers. Once you create a more specific ad, then create a great landing page, see the next tip.
Create customized landing pages for your ads
When you place an ad whether in a newspaper, on youtube, social media, search engines or anywhere else, make sure you link the ad to a customized landing page. Most people make the mistake of making a great ad but leading it to the homepage of a website. Only to find out that, although people clicked, they had no idea what to do next. You want to control the behavior of your leads as much as possible and to do that you need to create a pathway for them that has a clear call to action at the end of it. Lead them to a simple landing page that reiterates your offer (see the last blog post that talks about offers here), gives a little more information and has a short form to fill out or phone number to call (CTA - call to action). You will convert many more impressions into form fills and calls this way. Try it!

Got Questions or suggestions? Let us know below!

3 Marketing Myths for Small Businesses

1/21/2020

Accepting credit card for payment is too expensive
When I started my business I often asked other business owners what the most challenging part of owning a business was. Hands down, most of them answered, “chasing clients/customers for payment”. This is why accepting credit card at your business is important. Anything you can do to make it super easy for your clients to pay you is what you need to focus on. The myth that it costs a lot of money is not true. For accepting credit cards online and providing a link on an email or button on your website for payment can be as little as $10/month and each transaction is usually less than 2.5%. (Try CardPointe to price it out). Transfer this fee onto the customer. Charge a 3-4% fee for all credit card transactions to make up for the small cost. This is very common throughout many industries. And most customers don’t even blink because they are just happy you accept easy payment options. Also… Did you know that from a consumer survey report 72% of consumers are more likely to make an online purchase if they see that credit cards or other convenient payments options are accepted? This is a big number! So start collecting more revenue and accept credit and debit cards.
*report by american express in 2018
It's okay if I don’t have an online presence. My customers aren’t online.
This is no longer true. Most people who say this are B2B clients who feel that social media or having a decent website is not so important. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Employees who work at B2B companies in procurement, HR, and many other departments do research on the companies with which they do business. The first place they look is online. First impressions are extremely important. A person will judge a website within 50 milliseconds. This is why you need a good one! They will also check your activity on social media. So make sure you have a presence. It all counts when they are comparing you to your competitors.
I’ll lose money if I give out a free offer
We all know that you need to spend money to make money. And sometimes that means giving away something for free. There are several ways that free offers can pull in more revenue: Sampling a product first before you buy is important to many consumers. Food, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, are some examples. (I have fallen victim to this several times myself ESPECIALLY AT COSTCO!) Gyms or Wellness centers can give a free session or class. This could bring in a customer with a high lifetime value. Have a raffle that offers something free if you collect information from a potential customer. Gift baskets, free service hours or free visits are all examples of how a free offer can generate revenue for you. Try it!

Got questions or suggestions? We would love to hear from you. Comment below!

Best Practices for Small Business Owners

1/13/2020

Share content
Find a partner or businesses that you gravitate towards and share their content on social media and your blog. Have a conversation with the owner of these businesses and make an agreement to link to each other's sites and share each other’s content on social platforms. Guest blog on each other’s sites. You could double, triple or quadruple the impressions of your organic posts. With little effort you will gain more followers, build your brand and get more traffic to your site. Win win!
Create a vision
Every company has a vision but did you write yours down? As a business you will evolve by the day but it's important to go back to your goals and make sure you are on the right track. It's easy to get distracted. By writing it down you will remind yourself where you are going and why. Gino Wickman wrote a great book called Traction on running a business efficiently and effectively. He has a chapter on the Vision Component that clearly lays out how you can construct a couple pages that answer the “what is your vision” questions. Try it! It provides clarity!
Have someone else do your taxes
Taxes for a business can get complicated and there are many creative ways for business owners to save! Don’t try to tackle it alone if you don’t have the experience. Get a professional to help. Also there are great platforms that can help with bookkeeping so that tax season can be stress free and seamless. A few options are Zoho Books, Quickbooks Online and Wave. Wave offers a free version for accounting invoicing and receipts but you have to pay for extra services. You can try it out on the free version and see what you think.

Got questions or suggestions for new content? We would love to hear from you. Let us know below!

Small Business Owners' Do's & Don'ts

1/6/2020

Celebrate small wins
Make sure to celebrate when good things happen. Praise your staff when performance is outstanding and share this with your team. Acknowledgment is powerful and praise is a productivity booster. Pat yourself on the back when you score a win. If you don’t, what are you doing this for? And that brings me to the next point….
Don’t dwell on the negatives
Running a business has its ups and downs. Don’t sulk on your losses. Get back on the horse and move forward. Everyone makes mistakes and not every sales pitch converts into a signed contract. Make sure you reflect on your failures and learn from them. One great thing about failures is that there is a lesson attached to each of them. Learn that lesson and don’t make the same mistake twice. As a great author, Richard Carlson, once said: DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF. AND ITS ALL SMALL STUFF!
Be kind
Kindness truly goes a long way. And karma's a bitch. Haha just kidding, well not really. When you are kind to people it resonates and is contagious. People pay it forward naturally and it can often make someone’s day. Being kind can even manipulate your hormones and your physiology is positively affected. Even Gary V is promoting kindness! There is no downside to being kind so try it today and be randomly kind to someone.

Questions or comments? Comment below. Let us know if you have any suggestions for topics.

Author

Desirae Haluk is passionate about marketing for startups and small businesses. For the last 15 years she has held marketing executive positions for organizations both large and small. She realizes that her true passion is helping establish, grow and evolve startups and small businesses to make them successful and help achieve their goals.

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Check out "5-Minute Marketing with Clairant" for more marketing tips.

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