A Quick Guide To Low Cost Internet Marketing Strategies | Getentrepreneurial.com

When it comes to internet marketing, most small business owners are reluctant to start. They can only imagine spiraling costs in a highly competitive market – but with the right strategies, that won’t be the reality. In fact, you can conduct your internet marketing on a shoestring budget and still get your name out there. Here’s a quick guide on how to do it.

Use social media

This is the number one strategy that you will be using, and it should be a constant process. Social media is free, and that means you can do as much of it as you need to get those sales in. First, set up an account in your business name on all social networks – even if you don’t intend to use them all at first, at least you have reserved it for later. Set up a regular posting schedule, using scheduling software if you want to make it easier. Use hashtags and other best practices to ensure that as many people as possible see your updates and start following your brand.

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How to Perfect Your Lead Generation Follow-up | Duct Tape Marketing

Today we tackle Step #4 – How to Perfect Your Lead Generation Follow-up

The current infatuation of the internet marketing set is complex automated lead funnels. Go on Facebook, and you’ll likely be hit with ads offering to show you how to make it rain thousands of leads on autopilot.

While I’m not opposed to teaching lead generation techniques, I do think there is an issue with just thinking about the lead funnel as a standalone. After all, you don’t just want leads—you want new and returning customers on a consistent basis.

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Fertilize Your Business: Successful Trade Show Ideas and Insights | Getentrepreneurial.com

Trade shows are a fantastic opportunity for businesses of all sizes to publicize their products and make new leads. But a bit of prior planning can make all the difference to an average trade show, helping to make it into a success for your business.

If you are planning your next trade show, here are some tips to help you plan for the event so that you can take full advantage of it.

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What Today’s Small Businesses Can Do to Beat Giant Competitors | PROFITguide.com

Retail used to be about shelf space. Own those precious inches, and you controlled the consumer relationships. But the multitude of new buying channels enabled by e-commerce platforms has exponentially widened the shelf. Small brands now have far more control over who sees and has access to their products, as well as where and how.

The decision between two products no longer comes down to how they look side by side in-store, but how well the mission and vision of the companies producing them are communicated through a screen. Consumers are hungry for information on which to base their choices, so it’s imperative that small businesses tell their stories. That’s creating a new class of “craft” brands, which thrive on their uniqueness and connection to their customers.

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Why Small Business Owners Should Consider Getting an App | Duct Tape Marketing

As a small business owner, asking “why should I create an app?” is a lot like asking “do I really need a website?” was a few years ago. Sure, it was (and still is) possible to do much of what you need using a Facebook page, but they’re just not built to do what a website can.

While a Facebook page can, for example, show opening times, it’s not so easy to offer a detailed breakdown of lunch, dinner and a la carte menus. In that respect, Facebook pages are to websites as mobile websites/responsive sites are to mobile apps; they get the job done, just about, but you generally can’t use them to do EVERYTHING that you’d like to.

This post will cover a few of the advantages of creating your own app as opposed to using a responsive site or, even worse, not doing anything with mobile at all.

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3 Ways To Penetrate A Saturated Market | Getentrepreneurial.com

Launching a business in a saturated market can be an overwhelming experience. Depending on the industry you are in, you may have competitors that have high brand equity and those who have existed in the business for several decades. Establishing credibility and trustworthiness in a market overrun by such competitors is no easy task. But it can be done. Here are a few ways a startup entrepreneur can take on competitors with high reputation in a saturated market.

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The Biggest Marketing Challenges for Small Businesses | Duct Tape Marketing

I’ve written about marketing for small business for years and spend enough time with business owners that some might consider me an expert on the topic. In order to ensure I stay on top of trends and provide you with the most current information and tips, I continue to conduct my own research and get as much current data as possible to provide for you. I recently reached out to my friends at Alignable to get a pulse on what the biggest marketing challenges for small businesses are today and today I’d like to share a few of these insights.

More than 75% of the respondents of this survey had 1-5 employees and serve a mix of local, regional, and national customers. 22% of those polled focused solely on B2B, 19% on B2C, and 53% targeting both.

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5 Myths About Your Clients and Social Media That You Should Forget Right Now | Duct Tape Marketing

When it comes to social media marketing, any small business can utilize their online presence for lead generation. But, if social media marketing is so easy to leverage, then why do 65% of companies state, according to Hubspot, that lead generation and traffic is one of their top marketing concerns? It’s because many businesses aren’t using social media to its full potential. They are blinded by the many myths floating around regarding their clients and social media.

These misconceptions are hindering your marketing effectiveness and should be forgotten immediately.

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4 Questions You Must Answer to Develop Your Marketing Strategy | Duct Tape Marketing

Developing a marketing strategy for your business can be tough, especially if you don’t know where to start or what to focus on. I’ve found that if I get stuck while putting together my own strategy, or a marketing strategy for clients, I just need to refer back to the four questions below to help guide the way. I hope they help you get started down the right path as well.

Why do you do what you do?

I know I’m not the first person in business to discuss the value of identifying why it is you do what you do, but here are my thoughts nonetheless.

When I talk about the “why,” I mean your personal “why.” How are you trying to change the world? What wrong are you trying to make right? What gaps are you filling?

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How a German-Jewish Mystic Created an American Soap Company Determined to Clean Up the Planet | Adweek

Read the label on most soaps and you’ll find a few words about freshness and lather. But pick up a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s and you’ll read this: “Whatever unites us is greater than whatever divides us! … Only if constructive-selfish work, perfecting first me, like every arctic owl-penguin-pilot-cat-swallow-beaver-bee, can I teach the Moral ABC.”

It goes on. And on. Hundreds of these tiny, preachy, semi-coherent phrases cover every inch of the bottle. All of them are the work of late visionary Emanuel Bronner, a German-Jewish soap maker who escaped Hitler, then came to America to preach his vision of a unified mankind. Bronner’s mystical rantings landed him in a mental institution (he escaped that, too), after which the good doctor (who wasn’t really a doctor) started selling his family-recipe peppermint soap to finance his itinerant sermonizing—only to begin printing his sermons on the label once he realized people were more into his soap than his teachings.

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