There are a lot of marketing strategies and techniques available to the business owner. The trick is in being able to analyze and make educated guesses as to which activities will yield the best results. Of course, there really is no perfect guarantee that the conversion rates will soar, but with observation, testing, and critical analysis, you are bound to get the results that you want.

Web presence has always been a popular term. It means that people know that you exist and that they can find you online easily. One way you can achieve a strong web presence is by exposing your content to your audience.

What do I mean? You have a web site, right? You want people to visit it and see what you have to offer. This means you might have to engage in activities such as paid search so that your site will come up as a sponsored link (such as in Google). This is one way to go about it.

Another way is to push your web site content to other locations which receive more traffic. Let us say you have videos on your web site. What is the first web site that comes to mind when I say video? I bet it’s YouTube. The idea is to publish this video on YouTube as well. The chances of people discovering that video through YouTube are way higher than if you let the video remain on your web site alone.

The same principle applies to other context such as text and photos. You have to figure out which sites aggregate various content and make sure that your content gets in there.

Social media, social networking, social web sites – we hear of these things practically all the time now. Employees from all sorts of industries have various social networking accounts that they use, even at work! Many employers are quite concerned, especially since these sites may eat up bandwidth that could be used for more “productive” purposes.

The question remains, however, of whether these social media platforms can be made useful for business purposes. The truth of the matter is that IF you want your business to stay competitive, you NEED to engage in social media activities. What are the reasons for this? There are several, but the main thing that I can think of is the fact that social media platforms serve as an alternative means of communicating to the outside world; a means which is practically free; a means which reaches out to a much wider audience.

Let’s look the reaching out part. I don’t have hard numbers, but I can say without doubt that a huge majority of people in the WHOLE WORLD are engaged in social media activities. Facebook and Twitter are only a couple of the most popular platforms today, and a lot of businesses have already set up their own accounts. Why? Because they know that they can communicate with existing and potential customers through these sites; customers which they may not reach otherwise.

Of course, there is the FREE part. No need to pay consultant fees. No need to pay for the account – unless you want to upgrade. You can have someone in your staff to maintain the account, or you can even do it yourself!

So yes, social media should be an important part of marketing your business.

Your business has been on the internet for some years and you’ve suddenly realized customers are not coming back. Why, well maybe your site is getting too much traffic it can’t handle it anymore. That is one of the most common mistakes businesses make, failure to regularly assess their businesses status and strategy over the internet. One simple check would be to go to the web site itself and try to see if your existing design is working for you and similarly for your customers. Ever heard of the suggestions box in your site, it might be overflowing with mail of suggestions of customers your staff may be failing to take account of. As business managers/owners, you need to be on top of things that other people may have overlooked thus ensuring all bases are covered and your business grows with your customers. Remember, as more and more customers try to get into a site, your current set-up may not be enough to handle all the added load so a thorough review and status report of your site traffic and other statistics might be in order.

Too much traffic, consider getting a dedicated hosting service so you get ample resources dedicated to you and your customers all the time. Much is the disdain of customers for sites that fail to load or cannot handle the traffic, for small to medium businesses this can prove to be a killer. Hosting is one of the best ways to save on equipment and other supporting hardware for they are so expensive and costly to maintain you might not be able to handle the costs. That’s why hosting services abound and that’s why you’re earning money, or are you? Better take a look to find out!

Now, more than ever, businesses are feeling the crunch of the times. It was so easy to be overly optimistic in December, when the year was ending. The rationale of many people was that, a new year brings new beginnings. Things can only get better, right?

But did you see Circuit City closing? How about Timberland? Not to mention many other smaller companies closing shop because of financial reasons.

This does not mean, however, that your business has to close as well. In fact, you can even bank on the economic troubles as part of your selling point. Instead of painting the prettiest picture you can come up with, you might want to stick closer to reality and use that picture to convince people to buy. When doing so, however, you should bear some things in mind.

One, do not lay it on too thick. Everyone knows how hard the times are but it does not mean that you should dig too deep to make a connection between “recession” and your business or product. If your business is related to the financial sector, then yes, you cannot avoid talking about the recession but let’s say you sell meat products – you really can’t go around using big words such as financial planning and relate it to what you sell. Don’t force it.

Two, find the right approach. This is to counterbalance the first point. Going back to the example above, the meat products store…instead of throwing around big financial terms, why not stick to something that your customers will understand? Something like value for their money? Make your sales pitch revolve around this idea and cash-strapped people will flock to your store.

Got any other sales/marketing ideas banking on economic woes? Why not share them with us?

You didn’t think that I only have two resolutions for the New Year, did you? As a matter of fact, I was a bit surprised at how easy it was to think of things that I can work on in 2009. I thought for sure that I would have a hard time coming up with my business resolutions but here are a couple more.

Schedule more ME time
This is in line with learning to delegate and to let go of work. Though I put so much weight on work and its importance in my life, I also have come to realize that work is not everything. There are some times in my life when I have to sit back and put my feet up – even for just an hour or so. This is necessary to maintain a balanced life and to be even more successful in various respects. This year, I will make it a point to set aside time for myself, for something I enjoy outside of work.

Revamp promotions and marketing
Marketing is something that is essential to any business – I have long come to that realization a long time ago. However, I would have to admit that I have not been really paying that much attention to this aspect of the business. Perhaps an infusion of fresh ideas and activities would be beneficial to the business. This is something that needs to be looked at in 2009.

So there you have some of my most urgent business New Year’s resolutions. What do you have on your list?

Just to recap the tips that I gave in the last post…when choosing Christmas cards to send for your business, remember to bear in mind these three things:

1. Do not be a scrooge.
2. Be careful with your sense of humor.
3. Be sensitive to your customers’ religious beliefs.

Here are some more things you can bear in mind for your business Christmas cards.

Do write a personal note inside the card.
If you decide to get store bought Christmas cards, there will be messages written on the inside already. However, what you want is to make your customers feel your personal touch and that is why you have to add at least a short note of your own. If you have time to write it yourself, that would even be better.

Do use a company stamp.
Remember that one of the reasons that you are sending out Christmas cards is to help promote your business. As such, it would be good to include information about the company in your Christmas cards. To make it look professional, have a company stamp made which contains all the pertinent info – business name, address, contact number, web site, and email. Alternatively, you can print out small labels which contain the same information. Just make sure you use high quality paper and ink when printing out these labels as the last thing that you would want is to make your card look tacky.

I hope that I convinced you to send Christmas cards to your clients with my last post. I really think that it is one way of keeping in touch with them in a genuine manner. Here are some things that I believe you should bear in mind when choosing Christmas cards and sending them out.

Don’t be a scrooge.
There are Christmas cards and there are Christmas cards. What I am saying is that you can probably buy Christmas cards for dirt cheap but the quality might suffer. How would you feel if you received a card that is obviously of poor quality? I need not explain further, do I?

My point is that you should go for the best quality cards you can find. If needed, you can have your own printed out. The impression that this will impart to your clients is worth the extra that you might have to pay.

Be careful with “humorous” Christmas cards.
Between friends, naughty and humorous cards will probably not be a problem. However, if you are sending out cards in the name of your business, I suggest playing it safe. It is not really business-like to be sending out cards with a naked Santa on them, right? Well, unless your business leans towards that nature, that is.

Be sensitive about beliefs.
There are two things that you should be careful with on most occasions – religion and politics. When sending out Christmas cards, do realize that not everyone shares the same beliefs. If you are unsure as to what faith your clients may have, stick with the generic themes – Happy Holidays and the like.

(more in the next post)

When I was a child, one thing that I looked forward to each Christmas was the chance to send out Christmas cards. There was no email back then. We had to go to the bookstore to pick out the cards, write on them, and send them through postal mail. I would almost clap my hands in glee as I picked out special card for each person I wanted to send one too. It was like a ritual for me.

In these days where email and other electronic means of communication are the rave, it is quite rare to see people going gaga over Christmas cards. However, I would like to challenge you to think of ways that sending out Christmas cards would benefit your company. In one way, it could be a marketing technique. Having Christmas cards – “real” ones and not the electronic kind – made and sending them out to your customers is a great way to personalize your business!

If you are thinking about the cost, why don’t you just add it to the total cost of your marketing plan? After all, you are already probably setting aside a certain sum for marketing activities. Just add Christmas cards to that. The time, money, and effort that you spend on Christmas cards will definitely be worth the results. This is especially true if you place high value on building relationships with your clients – which is always advisable. If I were you, I would get those cards printed now and send them out asap.

Just because you run a relatively small business does not mean that you cannot have relatively big clients. After all, size can be a matter of perspective. Then again, what if you really operate on a small scale and yet you believe that you can provide a beneficial service to an establishment that operates on a much larger scale, say a government agency or some other private institution? Will this partnership even be possible?

The good news is that yes, it is indeed possible for a small business to cater to the needs of much larger entities. The trick lies in finding the right channel of communication in order to get your message across to the larger entities. If you have not heard of the Small Business Administration’s Business Matchmaking, then it is about time that you did. This program is intended to give a lending hand to small business owners so that they can build contacts that can open wide doors for them.

InYork carries this story:

Presented by SCORE, Hewlett Packard, and other private companies, Business Matchmaking is a series of regional events that bring corporate and government buyers to small-business owners. Since the program began in 2003, business owners have landed more than 20,000 appointments with key government and corporate officials from hundreds of major corporations and agencies.

The best thing about the activities under this program is that they are free! You only have to make sure that you have your killer pitch ready. You never know, you just might land yourself a big fish soon.

In these days of economic turmoil (no, the problems are not over yet), it is not surprising to hear of businesses, big and small, cutting back on their expenses. I was just talking to a friend who runs a big BPO operation based in Europe. Majority of his producing entities can be found in Asian countries. Despite the fact that he has already saved a considerable amount in moving his operations offshore, he is still very much worried by the economic situation.

I can just imagine the plight of small business owners. With the prices of most everything going up, they are also being forced to increase their prices and at the same time, cut back on costs. I read something about a lean business – that is, one that spends on only what is necessary to improve profitability.

However, the author notes that cutting back on costs should be examined thoroughly as there are some cut backs that may actually do more harm than good to your business. Rieva Lesonsky highlights some of these areas in her article.

Of the areas she took note of, I particularly liked two. These are little perks and marketing. This is what she has to say:

Don’t be a penny-wise and pound-foolish business owner. You may think you can trim the fat by eliminating the morning donuts or the company parties, but the money you save will quickly be replaced by lowered employee morale.

I think that nothing can match a good morale and work attitude. These things should be nurtured – the rewards are worth more.

With regard to marketing, this is what Lesonsky thinks:

I’m a big believer that recessions (or near-recessions) are actually a good time to increase your marketing budgets. While that might sound counterintuitive, it’s not. While most businesses are hunkering down, waiting for the good times to start rolling again, your marketing message will be heard more loudly in the vacuum. Trimming your marketing budget (whether that means creative or staff or both) will likely hurt, not help, your business.

I tend to agree with her. Take advantage of the times. Be more aggressive and gain the attention while your competitors are quiet.