Spring Showers Bring Big Sales!!

Excerpted from Entrepreneur.com (Word on the Street - Kim T. Gordon).

Each spring, fair weather brings a new crop of outdoor events to compete for your company's marketing dollars. Community fairs, street festivals, parades, outdoor concerts, races and other sporting events all present enticing opportunities for sponsorships that can shine a spotlight on your business--if you know how to avoid getting lost in the crowd. Follow these four rules for choosing the most productive sponsorships.

Reach your target audience in sufficient numbers
Your first step in evaluating a potential sponsorship is to look at the projected attendees. Go beyond the attendance numbers and request a demographic breakdown, even if it's only an informal one. If just a small percentage of attendees fit the profile of your customers, you may be wasting your marketing dollars.

For example, a high-end interior design firm that had newly relocated to the trendy, upscale retail area of Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, took a small booth in the annual holiday street festival that drew thousands of visitors to the area. But because the vast majority of festival goers were not qualified prospects (highly affluent homeowners), the design firm not only wasted staff time and marketing materials, but also damaged its fledgling efforts at positioning by appearing to target a mass audience.

Choose events that match your marketing goals
That interior design firm would have gotten better results by sponsoring an event such as a professional tennis tournament. The event's high-end image and affluent attendees would have matched the company's goal of positioning itself as a top choice for prospects with $100,000-plus design budgets.

Suppose you owned a children's clothing store. An outdoor carnival would be an excellent sponsorship opportunity because you could engage parents and kids in child-friendly activities--from face painting to games--that would advance your goal of building goodwill, positive word-of-mouth and name recognition for your store.

Select events that generate maximum visibility
Don't get lost in the crowd. Rather than spreading your budget thin by taking minor sponsorships in half a dozen outdoor events, maximize your impact with just one or two events in which your company can play prominent roles.

As a major event sponsor, for example, you might be allowed to hang a large banner at the entrance to the event or speak at the podium. You might also have your company promoted in the event program, get your logo on the event website and have your information included in press releases.

Look for events with media potential
One of the most significant benefits of event sponsorship is positive press coverage. Mount your own campaign to reach the press before, during and after the event. Start by creating a press list and extending invitations to print and broadcast media. You can create articles for placement in local print media and schedule pre-event interviews. And negotiate with the event organizers to be included in their promotional releases.

During events such as festivals and races, have local TV crews and newspaper photographers turn out to shoot coverage. Also, take your own fun photos and distribute them to local newspapers with a short press release or article. That will spread your story even further, ensuring maximum return on your marketing dollars.

Contact marketing expert Kim T. Gordon, author of Maximum Marketing, Minimum Dollars: The Top 50 Ways to Grow Your Small Business, at smallbusinessnow.com. Her new e-book, Big Marketing Ideas for Small Budgets, is available exclusively from Entrepreneur at smallbizbooks.com.

Inexpensive Ways to Market Your Business

A couple of days ago, I realized that I hadn't blogged on the Kreative Mix blog for several weeks. While I had a lot of information to post regarding small-biz resources, I had to finish integrating my Boutique website so I really couldn't make the time. Now that the Boutique and the Boutique Blog have been up and running for the last two weeks, I'm back!!!! If you haven't visited the blog yet, please click here to check out the Boutique Mix Blog!!!

Here's a great article by Sherri Lononon on blogging to promote your business.

Blogging to promote your home business is a great way to boost interest in products or services. It is also a solid website promotion technique that, when used correctly, can generate more traffic for your home business website and improve your site’s search rankings. Getting started, however, is often the biggest stumbling block many home-based business owners face

While it might sound like a daunting task, the simple reality is that blogging is one of the most cost-effective and even enjoyable marketing tools home-based business owners have at their disposal. Most who are not yet familiar with blogging don’t realize how easy and cost-effective it is.

Getting started involves nothing more than following a simple step-by-step process.

Decide how you want to host your blog
Decide which blogging platform you want to use
Register with the blogging service
Set up your blog layout
Start posting your content

Hosting Your Blog
The best place to start is deciding whether your home business blog should have its own URL or web address or if one provided by a service at no charge will do. For example, an owner who wants to start blogging for home business can choose to purchase their own website domain name and have a blog assigned to it or they can have their blog hosted by one of several blog providers for free on the provider’s own servers. If you already have a website, you just need to consider if you want the blog to become an integral part of your website or if it will exist on its own, hosted by the blogging service provider. If you don’t have a home business website or a domain name, your blog can actually serve as a free online presence for your home business.

A free address hosted by a blogging service provider might read something like this: www.myblogname.blogcompany.com.

Either method will serve the purpose of getting your message out and can increase traffic to your website, but for search engine optimization reasons, it’s generally recommended that your blog be hosted on your website, if you have one. The reason for that is that any incoming links to your blog or to any of its individual posts will link to your website’s domain instead of the blog provider’s domain and incoming links are important for “organic” or natural search engine rankings. Additionally, some see a branding benefit to having their blog hosted on their domain with an address like blog.mybusinessname.com or www.mybusinessname.com/blog. Either way, if you have a website you want to link to your blog and link your blog to your site.

Selecting a Hosting Platform
Once the decision on where your blog will be hosted is made, the next step is to actually get a blog. There are a number of really good services out there that make blogging for home business a snap to set up. Two of the most popular choices include Google's own Blogger and WordPress. Both offer free blog hosting on their domain as well as a number of templates you can use to quickly set up your blog. If you want to host the blog on your site, these platforms offer wizards that help you do that.

Because both are popular blogging platforms, additional templates are available on the web and you can customize a template to match your home business branding by using logos and color schemes that tie into your Web site. This is a good thing to do for your business identity regardless of whether you host your blog on a free service or you host it on your own home business website. WordPress also offers inexpensive domain hosting through a number of service providers.

Registering with the Blogging Service
Most blogging services are fairly easy to sign up for and start using. Just complete an online form, verify your account and you’re ready to roll. You might consider registering for an acount with both WordPress and Blogger and see which platform you find more to your liking. If you’re planning to use a pre-built template, you might also want to base your decision on which provider offers the templates you like most that fit with your home business.

Don’t set up your permanent blog name while you’re testing. You can always handle that later and delete your test blog. Whether you host the blog on your Web site, with its own standalone domain, or on the blogging service’s platform, you’ll use the blogging service’s interface to create and manage your posts

Setting Up Your Blog’s Layout
Next you’ll want to create your page layout or design scheme. For beginners, selecting a “pre-cooked” template is the easiest way to go as you can always customize it later and then start writing. If you need a professional looking blog, you can also outsource the template setup and graphics to an independent graphic designer.

As mentioned earlier, Blogger allows you to drag and drop page elements in order to create and edit your page layout. Experiment to see what works best for you. With Blogger, you can even include ads within your blog – offering you the opportunity to make some money with your blog over the long haul.

Start Posting Your Content
After a blog is set up and ready to go, all that is really necessary to tap into the power of this tool is a willingness to sit down and write. Many who get into blogging for home business do their own writing. Some companies choose to hire professional copywriters to ensure their blogs are content rich and search engine optimized. The choice is really up to you. Both can work quite well as long as content is engaging, optimized and updated on a fairly regular basis. Since the goal of blog marketing is increased awareness and promotion of your home business, posted content should be of sufficient interest that it will attract incoming links, resulting in increased traffic and search ranking power for your blog and/or website.

Blog content can be identified and categorized through “tagging” or labeling your individual blog posts. Doing so can improve search ranking power for your posts and can also help your visitors find what they’re looking for when they visit your blog. Don’t overdo blog labels – use only those that really pertain to the post you just created.

Post often. After all, if someone happens upon your blog you don’t want them to find the latest post written 6 months ago. Exactly how often is a matter of widely differing opinion, but one to three times per week are good goals.

Ten Low-Cost Ways to Market Your Business

Joanna L. Krotz presents 10 low-cost ways to market your biz.

1. Take steps to make customers feel special. Customers respond to being recognized, especially in these rush-rush, get-the-lowest-price times. "Even with a Web-based business, good customer service is possible," says Denise McMillan, co-owner of Plush Creations (www.plushcreations.com), an online retailer of handcrafted travel bags. McMillan encloses a small, rose-scented sachet in every jewelry and lingerie bag she sells and also sends a handwritten thank-you note. "The sachet and note cost pennies but add something special to the purchase," she says.

2. Create business cards that prospects keep. Most business cards are tossed within hours of a meeting. Instead of having your card tossed, create one that recipients actually will use — say, a good-looking notepad with your contact info and tagline on every page. "The business card notepad is referred to almost daily, kept for 30 days or so and carries a high remembrance factor," says Elliott Black, a Northbrook, Ill., marketing consultant who specializes in small businesses.

3. Stop servicing break-even customers. If this idea makes you gasp, think harder. You're falling for the fallacy of increasing sales instead of boosting profits. If you stop marketing to unprofitable customers, you have more time and resources for customers who actually grow your business. "More than likely, 20% of your customer base is contributing 150% to 200% of total annualized profit (TAP); 70% is breaking even; and 10% is costing you 50% to 100% of TAP," says Atlanta marketing consultant Michael King. Take a detailed look at your customer profitability data and then direct premium services and marketing to customers who count. (Microsoft Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager can help you analyze customer histories.)

4. Develop an electronic mailing list and send old-fashioned letters. Most businesses have harnessed the power of e-newsletters — and you definitely should be sending out one, too. It's very cost-effective. (See Microsoft List Builder for more). But exactly because e-mail marketing is now nearly ubiquitous, you can quickly stand out by occasionally sending personal, surface mail letters to customers and prospects.Just make sure the letter delivers something customers want to read, whether an analysis of recent events in your field, premium offers or a sweetener personalized for the recipient (a discount on his next purchase of whatever he last purchased, for instance). "This mailing has to have value to those that read it, so it reflects the value of what you offer," says Leslie Ungar, an executive coach in Akron, Ohio. "Remember, the best way to sell is to tell."The process is simplified by creating a letter template and envelope or customer label mailing list in Microsoft Office Word, which you can print out. The mailing list is easily created in Excel and then imported into Word (learn more by reading this article).

5. Boost your profile at trade shows and conferences. You can quickly create signage, glossy postcards with your contact information, product news inserts or an event mini Web site — all with Microsoft Office Publisher. Check out its versatile features.

6. Combine business with pleasure — and charity. Spearhead an event, party or conference for a cause you care about. That puts you in the position of getting to know lots of people, and shows off your leadership skills. "I host an annual baseball game where I take hundreds of clients to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field," says Kate Koziol, who owns a public relations agency in Chicago. "Last year, I took 300 people and we raised $10,000 for a local children's hospital. Few people turn down a game and it's a great networking opportunity for guests. It lets me reconnect with current clients and impress potential clients."

7. Create a destination. Bookstore chain Barnes & Noble has its coffee bars. Furnishings giant Ikea offers child-care centers and cafeterias. Why? So customers gravitate to the stores to enjoy an experience, to hang out for a while. Sunday morning at Barnes & Noble becomes a pleasant weekend routine, rather than a shopping errand. Steal this idea.This tip isn't limited to offline destinations, either. Using pay-per-click advertising, you can cheaply drive traffic to a one-time news event or specialty offerings, points out Jay Lipe, a small-business marketing consultant based in Minneapolis. Lipe recently set up a Web site for Games by James (www.gamesbyjames.biz), a retailer of board games, and quickly attracted customers via pay-per-click ads. "The effect was overnight," says Lipe. "Traditionally in the marketing world, it takes weeks or even months to generate acceptable awareness and traffic. Here we saw traffic spike overnight." (For more about pay-per-click marketing, see this article.)Other tips to become a destination:

8. Become an online expert. This is the "free sample" approach to bringing in business. Research active e-mail discussion lists and online bulletin boards that are relevant to your business and audience. Join several and start posting expert advice to solve problems or answer questions. You may need to keep this up for a bit. But the rewards come back in paying clients and referrals. "E-mail discussion lists have been my single largest source of clients over the last eight years," says Shel Horowitz, a small-business marketing consultant based in Northampton, Mass.

9. Court local media. Editorial features convey more credibility with prospective clients than paid advertising does. To get coverage from the local media, whether from the town newspaper, from TV or radio stations, or from trade journals, you need a fresh, timely story. It's usually worthwhile to hire an experienced publicist to position the stories, target appropriate media representative and write and send press releases. Usually, you can work on a short-term or contingency basis.

10. Finally, don't let customers simply slip away. Make an effort to reel them back in. It costs a lot less to retain a disgruntled or inactive customer than to acquire a new one. If you haven't heard from a customer in awhile, send a personalized e-mail (you can automate this process), inquiring whether all is well. For a customer who suffered a bad experience, pick up the phone, acknowledging the unpleasantness and ask if there's anything you can do. A discount can't hurt either.Being kind to customers is the smartest low-cost marketing you can do.

Excerpted from Small Business Resources. Joanna L. Krotz writes about small-business marketing and management issues. She is the co-author of the "Microsoft Small Business Kit" and runs Muse2Muse Productions, a New York City-based custom publisher.