Posts Tagged ‘small business marketing tips’

How To Grow Your Email List & Boost Business

Posted by Modern Maze

Boost Business-Grow Your List!

Contests are a great way to get involved with your client base and Halloween is one easy topic.

Having people submit their entries and include their phone, address, and email now gives you license to reach out and contact them when they win (or even if they DON’T win) the contest.

Every contestant can be a winner (or runner -up) and be required to visit you again to redeem the prize.

By developing more ways to get your existing customers back through your doors more often, you will build a continuingly more valuable business.

3 Small Business Marketing Tips

Posted by Modern Maze

One of the major things which makes you different from any other business is YOU.

Regardless of whether you interact with each and every client, your personality and style is woven into the culture of your business and the way your people act and serve.  Your people are a direct reflection on you and ultimately, the buck stop with you.  

Tip #1. Be ready to to turn every new customer into your best customer. SOMEBODY is going to be your best customer, big spender, raving fan and hopefully, all 3. Treat every new customer as if they have the ability to be those things. Demonstrate that behavior to your employees. Remind them when they forget.

Tip #2. Put your picture or your name (or both) on all your correspondence, especially email, and always personalize it with your clients’ name whenever possible. Never write, “Dear Client” in your emails if you have access to their name. and never sign your stuff with “From All Of Us” or “Your Company Name”…make it come from YOU.

Tip #3. When people get to know you, they may feel shy or cheap about redeeming your coupons.  You should encourage them to do so. Why? They will frequent you business more.

One of my first clients on moderncoupon.com, Amy Kinzel of Be Well Massage in Haddonfield, NJ smartly encourages her clients AND PROSPECTS to visit her moderncoupon site to pick up coupons. “If people call and ask how much we charge for massage, I tell them and then I direct them to our online coupons. It definitely helps to get them in for the first experience. I use my coupons to reward existing clients for their patronage. It works”.

Suzanne Kovlak of RockStar Tanning in Haddon Township, NJ says “I refer existing clients to the coupons to help me up-sell them into more expensive packages and tanning products “.

Nick & Joe’s Pizza in Westmont, NJ makes sure all their customers know about their always-available coupons because they know as a time-tested fact, their customers come back more often when they have a coupon to redeem.  

When your clients feel cheap for using your coupons it’s because YOU haven’t been inviting enough.

When they’re redeeming coupons, they’re spending money. THAT’S GOOD!

Most of you reading this email are moderncoupon advertisers. Are you clicking coupons from your fellow advertisers’ ads and patronizing them? You should!

Search Engine Optimization For Local Small Businesses: The Internet Gravity Wheel

Posted by Modern Maze

I created Internet Gravity Wheel (sm) as a way to visualize a concept of a local business online marketing system. A method of search engine optimization.

The term, “internet gravity” refers to the way a local business “attracts” the attention of search engines.

The web is very friendly to local business today but only a fraction of businesses are proactive in “working” this awesome tool.

Google is by far the #1 search tool on the web and its claim to fame is that it reports the best, most relevant search results of any other search tool. But it doesn’t work alone nor is it the only search engine people use. True, Google does harvest immense amounts of online data on its own but part of its unique way of determining high relevance in searches is from where it gathers the information. That’s where the Internet Gravity Wheel comes in.

A company’s website is just the tip if the iceberg when it comes to a presence online. Not to diminish its importance, but there are other significant places around the web that draws much more visitor traffic that a typical stand-alone small business website.

Having content all around the web pointing back to your business and your website is what Internet Gravity Wheel is all about. What I mean by that is a presence and optimized profile on directories and citation sites.

Online directories and citation sites are abundant. Many of them are free and your business is very likely already listed on many of them. But you can make your business stand out by “claiming” your listing on these directories as the business owner. 

“Claiming” your profile on these directory listings usually permits you to upload photos of your choice, your logo, a link to your website, and to describe your business the way YOU want to. Many times, the information in these directories is inaccurate and inaccurate information can not only confuse prospective customers but can also confuse the search engine robots which pull information about your business and reduce your rankings because of the conflicting information.

You can also find relevant directories your business could or should be listed in and upload your business information. Many of these are free and have upgrades available which offer extra marketing for more exposure.

Some online directories are fee-based, like moderncoupon.com which offers a full web page to showcase your business with pictures, unlimited business descriptive detail, video and engages your prospective customer with unlimited coupon offers. 

moderncoupon.com gets high search engine rankings because it combines relevance of content: local business information and coupons. 

Whatever your business, it’s wise to find as many free directories to be in as possible. It’s also advisable to find one or 2 fee-based directories to test.

Businesses owners can do this work themselves. However, it IS time consuming. Turning this project over to us is a good idea because we can do it better, faster and cheaper than you can do it yourself.

(Internet Gravity Wheel is a Service Mark of Affordable Online Marketing Systems)

How To Put CraigsList To Work For Your Small Business

Posted by Modern Maze

CraigsList is an incredible FREE resource you can and SHOULD use as part of your small business marketing arsenal.

Thousands of people in your area refer to craiglist.org every day. There’s probably not a whole lot of people on Craigslist actually looking for a business like yours but fortunately, that’s not important. The important thing is that you have a listing with a good headline so when people are browsing around for OTHER stuff; they notice your headline and click on your post. Not unlike most other advertising.

Here’s what you do: Go to www.craigslist.org. Choose the geographical location where your business is located and review the index. Most likely, you’ll be interested in posting an ad under the “Services” category and in the “Small Biz Ads” subcategory. So go and review some of the ads already there.

If you’re unfamiliar with Craigslist, notice the brand new postings are at the top and the previous days’ postings drop down. There are about 100 listings per page and postings stay up for a whole month. Create a CraigList account. It’s free. Now click “post to classifieds”. It’s very self-explanatory so I won’t get into every minute detail.

Your headline is important. You want to grab attention with it because again, people probably aren’t there searching for what you’re selling. Then you describe your location or service area. You can name more than just your specific town. You can also name adjoining towns or otherwise describe the region you serve. Moving on to the body copy of your message-Now just tell prospective visitors your offer.

For example:

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SPECIAL FOR CRAIGSLIST USERS

FREE 2-litre COKE WITH A LARGE PIZZA

Go to (your moderncoupon.com website address), click a coupon and write “CRAIGSLIST” to receive the FREE COKE!

Big Deal Pizza

123 Main St Yourtown,

NY 555-555-5555

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A CraigList ad will expire in 30 days. It’s a good idea to write and save your ad on a WORD or some other document so you can just copy and paste it again once a month. You can keep ads going up every day if you change the headline and alter the message slightly. If you have identical ads, the CraigsList system will zap them.

A CraigList post is easy to do, it’s quick and it’s FREE. It may not set your world on fire but being “out there” in as many places as possible increases your chances of getting discovered. So put a CraigList post on your monthly to-do list and see what happens.

Check out our recent post to promote moderncoupon.com. http://southjersey.craigslist.org/biz/2201176342.html The format you see here is an advanced use of the CraigsList. It’s actually an image which is a clickable link to the moderncoupon sign-up page. We can help you create a CraigList post using this advanced technique for a very small fee. Please inquire.

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Andrew Mazer (Maze) is the owner of Affordable Online Marketing Systems and creator of moderncoupon.com. Maze delivers a 21st Century-Style Small Business Marketing System for about the price of a cup of coffee a day. Reach Maze at maze@moderncoupon.com
 

How Coupons Can Produce High-Ticket Sales. 2 Success Stories

Posted by Modern Maze

It’s a well-known fact that higher-income, higher-educated people find and redeem coupons. The population of computer-using, coupon-hunting people is growing exponentially. Every day, more people are signing on to various business marketing membership sites and programs to get the inside scoop on what’s available at a discount.

Smart business marketers know they can use coupon offers to attract new customers without giving up profitability.

Recently, a residential garage door company and moderncoupon business subscriber incorportated a $50 discount coupon and made a sale for a new garage door sale & installation. That $50 discount represented less than 10% of the over all sale. A $700+ sale that could have gone to a competitor. Because the customer found his coupon, the buying barrier was lowered and a profitable sale was made.

I recently convinced a hair salon owner to give moderncoupon a try. This fellow was initially against using coupon offers for his business, yet he was really feeling the pinch of the economic downturn. I suggested 2 offers:
1. A discount for new clients. This is rather mundane but it IS an enticement for someone looking for a new hairdresser. Every hair salon ad has a similar coupon.
2. A 10-haircut package for a deep discount. THIS is a coupon offer you don’t see often.

About a month past and no calls or redemptions came in until last week. That’s when a doctor who lives about 5 miles away called for and came in as a response to the 10-haircut offer. This is the kind of sale this salon owner never considered and never thought possible. A huge win-a high-ticket sale and a new customer all at once.

In both cases, these 2 business owners will have likely had their marketing expense on moderncoupon.com covered for the year with just one sale and one new customer.

How many new customers a year do you need to cover the cost of a small business marketing system that’s about the price of a cup of coffee a day?

Click her to receive a notifiation each time a new article with great small business marketing tips is published.

I’m Andrew Mazer, and I’m not a computer geek, I’m a business owner, just like you. I have a passion for helping the independent business owner survive and thrive in an environment where the odds are stacked against the little guy. That’s why I’ve created moderncoupon.com The cost is minimal and the results are guaranteed. You need this.