Tag: small business

Holiday Marketing during Covid 2020

What holiday promotional opportunities are awaiting B2C and B2B business owners and marketing managers?

Covid-19 has brought a change into the typical holiday season marketing.  Holiday Marketing during Covid 2020 is going to be tricky.  The same-old may not work for your small business. Find out what adjustments you should make with your small business plans here.

From October through January, every small business owner should be anticipating what’s to come.  Obviously holiday sales are on the horizon for retailers, however, many newcomer ecommerce shops and those planning virtual events offer more avenues to spread their holiday cheer.

Read the Facebook Holiday Marketing Guide here.  With insight and inspiration, find out how to get your business page more visitors for this upcoming Holiday season.

Get Started Now!

Don’t forget about email marketing when Holiday Marketing during Covid 2020. Update your email marketing list to send out digital holiday messages to customers & clients, reps and vendors/suppliers.  Schedule your drip campaign messages accordingly.

This is also the time to dive into your holiday ordering and shipping processes. Anticipate volume increasing and hire more staff accordingly.  Investigate your sales numbers from previous seasons to give you a sense of expectations.

Many supply chains are running low during the pandemic.  They key here is to plan, plan, plan, and be ready to change course if your suppliers don’t have inventory.

Do you also need to deliver holiday baskets or gifts to loyal customers?  Add this into your frenzied upcoming schedule.  Schedule shipments way in advance so they arrive on time.

November 26th-Thanksgiving

 

The obvious turkey and ‘give thanks’ posts are very common.  Shake it up a bit and add unique flair.  Since Thanksgiving will not be celebrated with extended family members in the colder climates (unless they snagged some outdoor heaters), think about how to reach those nuclear families with your brand and service offerings. Ramp up to Thanksgiving and Black Friday with these email marketing suggestions from Constant Contact.

 

November 27th-Black Friday

 

Get Ready, Set and Go!  This is the big day.  But it’s just been given a tailspin from Coronavirus.  What’s a small business owner to do besides encourage mask-wearing and social distancing?

Crazy enough, think outside of what big box retailers are doing.  How about creating your own Black Friday on a different date.  That way you aren’t in direct competition with the big box retailers.
See more suggestions about how to gain momentum for Black Friday shopping blitzes in this Bloomsberg article.

November 28th, 30th, and December 1st
-Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and #GivingTuesday

American Express created small Business Saturday to help the local retailers who were getting overlooked on Black Friday. This year, the resources for Shop Small® include a workshop on October 20th for business owners, resources for black-owned businesses, a shop small® map of participating businesses and more.  Click here.

Cyber Monday is November 30th.  Most consumers have adjusted over the past several months to buying almost everything and anything (raise your hand if you bought a Peloton!) online.  Cyber Monday celebrates that.  Perhaps stockpiling toilet paper can take a back seat while you gear up your small business to an online Ecommerce presence, ready to take on Cyber Monday.  Need more ideas for Cyber Monday? Read this !

On Giving Tuesday, because of Covid-19, most donors plan to maintain or increase the amount they give to charities.  This is terrific news for non-profits.  But it also brings the bad news of less volunteering during the pandemic.  Small businesses can join in on Giving Tuesday by highlighting all of the community support they have given to local non-profits over the past year.  Consumers love businesses that give back and help others.

Thursday, December 10-Friday, December 18

Hanukkah

Try to get on “Top 10 lists of what to buy for Hanukkah” to sell your product or service.  You can do this by signing up for HARO, Help a Reporter Out, and answer queries related to your product/service.
Post a menorah with lit candles to commemorate Hanukkah with your customers who celebrate.  Encourage your customers to share their Hanukkah celebrations with your brand.

Create a ‘Hanukkah or Holiday Gift Guide’ for your customers. Suggest gift ideas, cross promote other businesses within the guide and read this article for more creative ideas.

December 25th Christmas

Christmas this year is unlike any other.  Making the shopping experience as safe as possible for consumers with options like curbsite, contactless pickup, and less face-to-face interaction, will be the key to driving sales for small businesses.
Business2Community, in a recent article about Holiday marketing in 2020, came up with some clever ideas and adjustments because of Covid-19:

For example:

  • An entrepreneur in the hospitality industry could offer an “experience in a box” for customers who can’t travel right now.
  • A clothing retailer could focus more on casually chic clothing people can wear in or out of the home, rather than on high heels and festive dresses.
  • A sporting goods retailer could highlight solo sports like skiing and swimming in newsletter campaigns, to encourage socially distancing folks to get out into nature.”  

 

January 1st-New Year


For many health-related businesses, this is the perfect opportunity for potential customers to hear your message of fitness, wellness and good nutrition.
Give prospects an idea of what their new year’s resolutions may look like.  For example, post the following on social media “This new year, 2020, I resolve to …..”  (fill in the blank with how they may use your product or service).

The best gift you may give to your customers is holiday cheer, so no matter what you decide to do for your holiday promotional messages, thank your supporters and uplift them with your holiday spirit.  This year is especially challenging to everyone, mentally and financially.  Stay positive and upbeat with your messaging. Add humor to your social media posts and emails.  Create new opportunities to your product/service offerings. And don’t forget to spread joy!

Do you have any more unique marketing suggestions for the 2020 holiday season?  Email us at info@highkeyimpact.com.

Cheryl Friedenberg, President
High Key Impact, LLC
Digital Marketing Consulting for Small Business Owners
www.highkeyimpact.com
cheryl@highkeyimpact.com

Your Small Business Holiday Marketing Guide

 

As the holiday season approaches, so do the opportunities to ramp up your marketing efforts.  Whether you have a retail location, professional organization or service-oriented small business, the amount of possibilities to get the word out are plentiful this time of year.

Here is a list of just a few of the ways to boost your business:

*November 25th is American Express Shop Small Business Day. Small business Saturday is a way to put the focus back on small businesses after the big Black Friday retail box store frenzy.  Amex provides digital and print marketing materials to help promote the event.

* Google My Business is a powerhouse for helping your digital marketing efforts.  A new, creative tool introduced by Google allows you to search your business and create marketing materials using recent online reviews.  Take a peek at Small Thanks With Google to see how it works. All you need to do is to plug in your business name.  Google will generate a poster available for print,
Google Small ThanksYour end result  may look like this:  (from a bra store client)

Around the holiday season, as more potential customers find your business online, your online reviews are golden as they could make or break getting a new customer.  Utilizing Small Thanks With Google promotes your positive reviews throughout your social media channels.

*The most common way to promote holiday cheer is to follow the website NationalDayCalendar.com for fun, unusual and to keep up with National Days such as December 15th–National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day or December 21st–National Re-Gifting Day (just to name a few).

The usual suspects of Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa are mixed in with National Days & Weeks including National Hand-Washing Week (Dec. 4-7) or Crohn’s & Colitis Week (Dec. 1-7).

You’re probably wondering how these National days may help your business?  If you are in the medical field, national days revolving around medicine are apropos.  Some National Days may not apply to your business, however, if you think they will put a smile on someone’s face, then post about it.  (for example, Dec. 20th is National Absurdity Day!)

*Charitable giving shows that you are interested in helping out the community at large.  A large donation check is not always necessary to publicize charitable giving.  Small acts of kindness such as offering free hot chocolate, free shipping, free gift wrapping are a good start. Or how about taking your team to an organization to contribute their time.  There are warehouses for the underprivileged where you can help sort clothing and toys or you may volunteer at a local soup kitchen.  Volunteer choices are endless!

Posting about your team’s volunteer contributions show your company’s dedication to the local area and citizens.  Post video or several photos telling the story of your employee volunteer achievements.

For more small business digital marketing ideas,
contact Cheryl Friedenberg at High Key Impact LLC.  cheryl@highkeyimpact.com or https://highkeyimpact.com/contact/ 

 

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Digital Marketing Secrets Revealed Part 2

Ready to learn more digital marketing secrets?  To help small business owners become more aware about the opportunities available online, I’ve developed this list, along with the first list published last month entitled:  Digital Marketing Secrets Revealed.

By empowering  business owners to take charge of their marketing efforts, my hope is to help them understand the latest tools available.

Biz Yelp

No small business is immune to online reviews, good or bad.  Your small business is no exception.  Yelp is the ‘go-to’ for online reviews.  Claim your Yelp page by visiting https://biz.yelp.com .  They typically offer $300 worth of free ads.  Try it just for the free version to see what it may do for you.  Free never hurts.  And Don’t forget to respond to ALL online Yelp reviews, whether positive or negative.

Bing for Business

Just as Google My Business offers a free business listing, Bing Places for Business does the same within it’s search engine.  Register your business by going to Bing Places, fill out your company’s profile and get verification from Bing.  Add photos, reviews and utilize their platform to help advance your company’s SEO beyond Google.

Adwords or Adwords Express

Through your Google My Business page, your small business may easily set up an Adwords Express campaign to further your reach.  The  key benefit of using Google Adwords Express is that it is virtually maintenance free.  Set up a campaign, choose an audience, define your budget and then Go!  See results quickly.

Google Adwords is more complex.  Typically small businesses in highly competitive industries need a larger monthly spend on Adwords to see substantial results.  Google Adwords usually involves hiring an agency or Google partner to help set up the ad, oversee it and tweak it as necessary.  The complexities are taught online with video lessons, however, if you are spending the ad dollars, it’s worth hiring an expert or Google Partner.

Facebook Page

Get your business page Verified on Facebook to maximize it’s reach.  It can be said for Facebook verified pages that better results, impressions, ad campaigns and optimized search are reported.  How do you know if your Facebook page is verified?  This article spells out how to check and verify your page.

Have other Digital Marketing Secrets to reveal to Small Businesses?  Any questions about the content I shared?
Feel free to comment to this post.

Cheryl Friedenberg, cheryl@highkeyimpact.com
www.highkeyimpact.com 

Need Some Marketing Oomph?

Is your Facebook Page’s reach dwindling? Are your website visits at a standstill?  Trying to come up with the next big marketing push but don’t know what to do?

Many marketing gurus look at analytics and algorithms to see what works on a never-ending basis.  And there are some obvious current trends.
Where content marketing is King, live video is Master-of-the-Universe!
And the  ‘Oomph-iest’ live video tool available is free and easy to use!

Facebook Live  
You’ve probably tried it a couple times and thought “I hate myself on camera” or “What should I say?”.
The idea with Facebook Live is to give your followers information which is interesting & relevant, timely and grabs their attention.
Are you attending an industry-related gathering?  Broadcast a few minutes from Facebook Live.  Is there an expert guest visiting your business?  Broadcast it!

Also, script your ‘Live’ feed in advance so you know what to say.  A Facebook Live feed without direction tends to get few viewers, however, if you are introducing a new product or highlighting another product or service, describe in detail all along the Live feed what is happening.  Silence will not keep followers watching.

Another key is to stay ‘Live’ more than a minute or two (our normal Facebook video cut-off point) in order for Facebook to notify your followers.  Once they see you are live, the hope is that they interact with your broadcast.  After the Live portion is over, the Facebook followers who missed it may view it as a newsfeed post.  We’ve heard by using Facebook Live consistently, your reach organically tends to get more attention.  Try it at different times of the day and various days of the week to see what works best!

By using Facebook Live, your small business marketing may just jump to the next level!

Cheryl Friedenberg, Marketing Consultant, High Key Impact LLC
www.highkeyimpact.com, cheryl@highkeyimpact.com

Crazy, Hectic and No Time for Marketing!

Small business owners know how overwhelming their operations can be.

Perhaps the sales funnel is dry and administrative needs are taking over your  day-to-day functions.  Or clients are in need of a lot of TLC lately and your marketing gets pushed to the wayside.  Is it that your accountant is awaiting your P&L’s to get taxes together?

My advice:  Don’t let your marketing blitz fall apart!

Here are 5 EASY ways to fill your sales funnel this month:

–Send a Quick Email to your clients asking for referrals, testimonials and online reviews.

–Hop Onto LinkedIn and Connect to more friends and professionals as well as local business groups.  Post about what you do for a living every so often to remind others what your business is all about.  Approximately, 10% of your posts may be ‘sales’ related….the remainder should be industry focused.

–Knock on a Few Doors at a local corporate park and hand out fliers (menus, product brochures or your business card).  Follow up with a friendly phone call  and potentially offer a freebie if there is any interest.  If one administrator in the building is a fan of your product or service, the word-of-mouth referrals may start funneling in.

–Call 5-10 Existing Clients with whom you are most comfortable speaking with and ask for referrals. What can you offer them in return?  (It doesn’t necessarily need to be a financial reward..perhaps just a referral for their needs.)

–Keep Up With Your Social Media Accounts with simple posts.  You can post a ‘Quote of the Day’, a ‘Slideshow’ of recent photos or all about an Employee of the month.  Don’t stop the posts to maintain your social media momentum!

For more quick-hit marketing ideas, contact Cheryl Friedenberg at cheryl@highkeyimpact.com, www.highkeyimpact.com

6 Free Ways To Promote Your Small Business

With the opportunity growing daily for small businesses to utilize social media marketing opportunities as a sales tool, many business owners are not taking advantage of the many freebies provided.
As small business owners focus on sales, budgets, daily customer deliveries and P&L’s, social media marketing may take a back seat.
What are the lesser-known easy-to-use tools to help small businesses grow their online presence?  Here are just a few:

Facebook Slideshow
Cheryl FriedenbergGo to your Facebook Business Page, Create a new post and click Share a photo or video.  This drop down menu will show you several options with ‘Create a Slideshow’ towards the bottom.  Click the button and Facebook will walk you through the process.  You may add several photos, text and audio to your slides.  In the end, the slideshow is just as impactful as a video!
Analytics from Google, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook.
With a business account, you will have immediate access to your daily, weekly and monthly views, clicks, likes, comments and more.  Analytics are designed to inform the business owner what types of posts, ads and content works best for their pages.
Customer Video Testimonials
Have a happy customer or client?  Have a cell phone or mobile device?  It’s that easy to record their story and experiences utilizing your product or service and share it on your pages and/or platforms.
Google Tools
Sign into your Google My Business account and go to Google Optimize, where you may  now sign up for a Beta test.  From Google’s page:  “Whether it’s a custom-tailored message at checkout or a completely revamped homepage, Optimize shows you which site experiences engage and delight your customers, and gives you the solutions you need to deliver them.”
Google also is providing a Data Studio to take analytics and transform the data into reports, graphs and spreadsheets.  Click here for the Google Data Studio.
Video Marketing Tools
Vimeo, Wistia and You Tube all offer free online versions to create and market video promotions, testimonials and your business story.  If you haven’t heard the news, video is overtaking the social media market by storm and is the ultimate platform to reach the widest audience.  Make a small business video today.
 Family and Friends
Did you know that the simplest way to spread the word about your small business is through your existing network of friends and family.  Post on your personal Facebook and LinkedIn pages all about what your business offers.  Ask family members and friends to like your page and share content.  If you have 500+ friends on Facebook, think about what that means for your reach!
What tools do you already use for your small business?
Use the hashtag #highkeyimpact and tell us what you use…

6 Ways to Send Better Small Business Emails

 

Email marketing takes up a lot of time and effort.  Many small businesses either try to do it themselves or hire vendors to help them.  Either way, it’s important for emails to be as effective as possible.

Here are 6 tips for small business email marketing newsletters:

  1.  Use an email marketing platform such as AWeber, MailChimp or Constant Contact.  These online tools allow you build email lists, create unique newsletters or emails and give you reports and feedback helping you improve your next send.
  2. Continue to build your list.  Have an email sign-up landing page on your website, post a text to sign-up icon on social media sites and utilize many of the sign-up tools your email marketing platform provides.
  3. Your Subject line should rock!  ABC company newsletter for March, 2016 does not cut it anymore.  As one who is probably inundated with emails, you should realize that standing out in a subject line is critical to get your email opened.  If you are serious about getting  your mail opened, write a subject line such as the following:   ‘especially for you’, ‘welcome to’, ‘don’t buy…until you read this’, ‘how to….’, ‘what if…’, ‘5 experts share their ……’, ‘avoid these’, ‘am I the only one who…’, ’10 hacks to…’.  There are more— but you probably get the idea.
  4. Keep it short and sweet.  Did you ever receive an email where you scrolled down 5 or 6 (or more?!) pages to see all of the content.  Try to keep your content visible within 2 pages.  Three or four main articles along with small snippets of information is typically an ideal.
  5. Use visuals.   Images speak louder than words.  This is truly the case for any online communication today.  Use high resolution photos or  create your own visual through a platform such as Canva.com.
  6. Timing counts!  Your email program may offer suggested times/days to send your email.  Listen to their ideas.  Especially if you are unsure about your audience, let the email marketing manager do the work for you.  Tuesdays, early morning at about 5:30/6:00am is typically suggested on Constant Contact.

Email marketing is a non-negotiable tool to use when you want to keep your brand in front of customers.  In order to send emails with a professional flair, utilize an expert within your business, hire a marketing consultant or outsource a marketing company.  This will give your business the face it needs to show in front of your most valuable asset, the customer!

Cheryl Friedenberg, Marketing Consultant
High Key Impact LLC
www.highkeyimpact.com
cheryl@highkeyimpact.com

4 Ways to Obtain Reviews

 

Google search your business name. Try it now. See what comes up? How often do you do this?
Now Google your business name and the word ‘reviews’. How does it look now? Hopefully all 5-stars? If not, let’s talk about your next steps to make your online review presence top notch.

When a customer is thinking about doing business with you, one of the first things a savvy prospective customer will do is search your online reviews.
I do it all of the time when trying to decide between various retailers, services or anyone with whom I’d like to purchase from.  Do you?

What can your small business can do to help amp up those online reviews?  Several suggestions below, 4 Ways to Obtain Reviews, will do the trick:

1. Ask for reviews via phone calls to happy customers.
Your salespeople are in touch with your customers on a daily or weekly basis.  Their goal should be to call satisfied clients periodically inviting a review.
Request their reviews on a specific site such as Facebook, Yelp, Google + or other popular review platform best for your business.  Most likely, the customer will need to have an account on these platforms.  Provide the URL to your review page.  Make it as simple as possible for them to accomplish this.

2.  Answer all reviews whether good or bad.
Post an apology for a bad review stating that you appreciate the feedback and will use their comments to help better your business.  Offer a discount the next time the reviewer purchases from you.  Additionally, give positive reviews the same attention.  ‘Like’ the post and thank the customer for taking the time out to review your business.  Be sure to have an administrator monitoring online reviews every day.

3.  Testimonials.
Do you have any testimonials on your website or social media pages?  By creating a testimonial page, especially on your website, you can periodically share it to your social media followers.
The most effective way to elicit testimonial responses is to ask customers for a 2-3 sentence summary of their experience with your location or services.  Video testimonials, as you can imagine, are even more powerful.  If a happy customer walks in, use your cell phone or tablet to video a 20-30 second clip of your customer giving rave reviews.  Always ask for permission first!  Use the video clip on your website and social media sites.

4.  Referrals.
We all know ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising is the most enterprising tool to grow your business.  How much do you or your staff ask for referrals?  Make referrals a priority when dealing with every satisfied customer.  If your business is doing a stellar job, customers enjoy spreading positive experiences via the grapevine.

Reviews, testimonials and referrals are a key piece of the marketing puzzle for small businesses. If business owners focus on sales and customer service, 5-star reviews, outstanding testimonials and widespread referrals will be an easy prospect.

 

Small Business Tips and Tricks When Posting Online

To the small business owner, the social media world may seem like a simple undertaking.  Post on our Business Facebook page here and there, update my LinkedIn profile and try my hand at Instagram.  Do this and that, read an article here and there and BOOM!—-my business will take off… all because I started a social media presence.

You probably realize my point already.  Social Media Marketing is not as easy as it may seem.

In order to have your posts seen and heard, first you need a following.  Then your posts need to be engaging. And finally, a call-to-action is the glue that binds it all together.

When jumping onto social media platforms, here are some tips and tricks to make your time more effective:

  1. Decide Which Platform Will Give You the Biggest Push

Is your business B2C or B2B?  What are you selling; a service or product?  Who is your audience and what is your message? Just because you use Facebook for your personal posts does not necessarily translate into the same for your business posts.  Research each social media platform, see where your competitors have a strong presence and adjust your game accordingly.

2.  Add Links, Photos and Videos

If you post a sentence about your product, service or industry, back up your statement with a link.  Standalone text posts sitting out on the social media world tend to get lost.  Add a link to your website or contact page.  Or link to an article you found on the web.

Photos are even more powerful than links when it comes to social media.  A picture may tell a story about your customers benefiting from your services, feature a staff member profile or simply showcase what your business is all about.

Finally, the icing on the cake is video.  Videos are the most likely post to be liked, shared and viewed.  Use video to showcase your product or service, feature a client testimonial or talk about your business and what makes it unique. There are several high-quality video apps available on your cellphone.  Shop around to see what works best.

3.  Timing is Everything

Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat all have specified times of day and days of week when your post will reach the most views.  Research your social media platforms to find out the ultimate publishing schedule for your business.

4.  Seduce Your Followers
Think about what posts on social media platforms you would personally click before you post about your own business. When you publish on your own business pages, try not to give the entire point of your post away in your text. Build anticipation of what may be in the actual post so that users will click on your link or video.  Ask a question, give a hint and keep them guessing.  Generate suspense so that your followers will keep coming back to your posts for more!

5.  Need Help?
Professional Marketers are tuned-in to what it takes to succeed in digital marketing.  Hiring an expert consultant or an in-house staffer is the most effective path in creating a influential online presence.  Contact cheryl@highkeyimpact.com for a free 1-hour consultation. www.highkeyimpact.com

Cool Marketing Tips and Tools

Take a look at our weekly roundup of social media ideas to integrate into your small business marketing plans:

-Pinterest. Create boards for local neighborhoods or towns in your area and pin photos related to your business to those towns.  Perfect fit for Realtors, Restaurants, Doctors, Dentists, Retail Stores and any local area business.

-Instagram. Don’t forget to Geotag your posts when promoting a local business or product.  Read more here about geotagging and how it helps showcase your small business.

-Facebook. If you haven’t done so already, post a My Business Story video.  Since it is a Facebook-created post, their search algorithm will show it to a wider reach than your typical Facebook Page posts!

-Twitter. Tweets are matching to their audiences more and will show up first rather than the chronological tweet settings you have become accustomed to.  To change this, untick “show me the best tweets first” on your settings.  Read this article for more details.

-Landing Page.  What is it and why do you need one?  If you are promoting a business online and a user clicks onto your homepage from an ad, what motivates them to contact your business?  Not much, right?  With a Call-To-Action (CTA), along with a Landing page, your campaign’s results will skyrocket.  Read more about CTA’s here.

Want more news for small business social media campaigns?  Sign up for our newsletter here.