FastTrac Programs Starting This Week
New business owners should check out the FastTrac programs, where successful entrepreneurs share their expertise with new and growing businesses. See the FastTrac website for more information on these programs.
FastTrac® NewVenture™
An entrepreneurial program that assists the start-up entrepreneur in developing their business concept and evaluating it through each step of the business planning process.
New Venture begins June 16, Meets Mondays for ten weeks, $195.
FastTrac® GrowthVenture™
An entrepreneurial program that assists entrepreneurs in evaluating their current business framework and determine the changes needed to improve performance and grow the business.
Growth Venture begins June 17, Meets Tuesdays for ten weeks, $295.
Are People Finding Your Website?
If you’ve got a website (of course you do!), you want to make sure people are finding it. Here are a few ideas to get the word out:
- Optimize your site for search engines. In a previous post, we gave some tips on how to optimize effectively.
- Encourage people to contact you through a contact form on your website.
- Offer an email newsletter that people sign up for on your site.
- Direct customers to your site to find out about sales and special events.
- Include your web address on your business cards, adverting, direct mail, and promotional pieces.
Once you’ve gotten the word out, you’ll want to track your website’s traffic. A great tool that provides stats for your site is Google Analytics. You simply enter a piece of code into your site’s metadata, and you have access to a control panel that tells you where your traffic is coming from, what sites are referring people to yours, and a myriad of other important pieces of information.
Set Your Company Apart
“Before you can beat your competitors, customers have to be able to tell you apart,” says Kim Gordon, marketing coach at Entrepreneur.com. For customers and clients to choose your company over your competitors, they have to know why you’re different and how that makes a difference to them. In an excellent article titled “No More ‘Me Too’ Marketing,” Gordon explains how to differentiate your company from the others. Check it out here.
Taking Advantage of Economic Challenges
Economic challenges are the perfect opportunity to take a hard look at our businesses to see if we are really operating at peak performance. Are we giving customers everything they’re looking for in our product or service, or is there something we could offer that would meet our customer’s needs or wants on a higher level? Are we efficient? Are we relevant? What can we do to raise the bar?
If we take the time to think outside the box, to consider how we can offer our customers and clients something they want but aren’t receiving elsewhere, we can take advantage of the challenges and reach a new level in our businesses. Smart business owners aren’t afraid of difficult times–they view them as opportunities for growth and even greater prosperity.
Lessons from Starbucks
I admit it. I’m one of those people who pays $4.00 for a Starbucks frappuccino. I have a friend who works for an investment company, and he’s always saying how I could save such-and-such amount of money by the end of the year if I just cut out the frappuccinos. But I’m still buying them. Why? Because Starbucks knows what they’re doing. And smart business owners can learn a few things from them.
- It really is all about image. How many of us would continue paying Starbucks prices if the stores looked like run-down and mismatched? You feel good when you go in a Starbucks because of the atmosphere they’ve created.
- A smile goes a long way. I’ve never been in a Starbucks where the barista was rude. Especially at my local Starbucks, the employees go out of their way to be helpful. I’ve had many enjoyable conversations with several of them, and their friendliness is one of the main reasons I keep going back.
- A good product (or service) is the foundation of a good company. Arguments against strong coffee aside, Starbucks makes excellent products. I have visited countless Starbucks stores across the country, and I have never had a poorly-made drink. They are consistently delicious, and I know I can always count on a quality product.
- A few perks make an impression. How cool is the new Starbucks card that you can recharge and get cool perks when using? I bought some for my clients and referral partners. I give them as gifts. I’m actually trying to think of more people I can give them to. Now that’s effective marketing.
Upcoming IgniteGreer Event
If you’re a young professional in the Greer, SC area, you’ll want to mark your calendars for the May 20th event: Networking with Impact! The event will be held at Cafe Rivera in downtown Greer.
Here’s a brief synopsis:
Kim Niskey, President of ConnectsU, will share some practical tips on how to effectively “work the room”! Learn how to maximize your networking efforts when you network with prospects, peers in the community and clients at industry and community meetings/events. Turn every networking opportunity into profitable business relationships! Known as a “connector” in the community, Kim enjoys building relationships and has gained the majority of her business from referrals through viral marketing. She has more than 25 years of experience in outside sales including her past experience as a Membership Sales Representative for the Greater Greenville Chamber for over 6 years where she brought in $1 Million in revenue while on staff.
The May 20th event is Guest Day, so be sure to bring your friends! Free appetizers,cash bar, social networking time to follow the class to practice what you’ve learned!
This event is one you don’t want to miss! Register for the event by visiting the Greer Chamber of Commerce website.
To find out more about all that ConnectsU offers, check out their site at www.ConnectsU.com.
Get Your Website Found with SEO
If you Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you’ll find a myriad of companies offering this service and many claiming to be able to get your site on the first page of the search engines. SEO is as much an art as it is a science, and the algorithms the search engines use are constantly changing. While no one can guarantee you a top position in the search engines, there are definitely some things you can do to dramatically increase your ranking.
- Determine what keywords are commonly-searched but under-used by your competitors in your industry. Finding the right keywords to focus on is the foundation of effective SEO.
- Make effective use of your page titles. Titling your home page “Welcome to [Company]” or “[Company] Home” is a waste of prime real estate in the world of search engines. Page titles are one of the main on-page pieces of code that the search engines look at when determining where your site will appear. Use keyword-rich titles that explain the subject matter of the page and utilize the keywords you’re focusing on.
- Take advantage of alt tags. Create alt tags not only for navigational buttons, but also for photos, logos, illustrations, and other significant images.
- Create keyword-rich content that utilizes synonyms for your keywords. The search engines are getting smarter, and they reward content that reads well. As your writing your content, be sure to include the keywords you’re focusing on as well as synonyms for these keywords.
- Be sure each of your pages is accessible by a navigational link, since this is how search engines crawl your site and log data about your pages.
- Set up both on-page links and off-page links. Probably the largest factor in a high rank is the number of quality sites linking to yours. Search engines, especially Google, rate popularity as extremely important. Links in your site to other pages in your site are significant, so be sure to use those, but most important are the links appearing on other sites. A word of caution: Google is beginning to look down on reciprocal links, since they are being used as simply a way to generate higher page rank. The best type of links are those that appear on high-quality sites that aren’t reciprocal. But how can you get high-quality sites to link to yours? It’s not as hard as you might think. Here are a few ways to do it:
- First, keep in mind that as a general rule, you want sites linking to yours that have at least a rank of 5. You can check the page rank of any site here.
- Register your site with top search engines (Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, Ask.com, etc.) and quality web directories (Dmoz, Librarian’s Internet Index, Jayde, etc.).
- Submit articles to e-zines in your field.
- Submit press releases to newspapers that post content online.
- Post thoughtful comments on popular blogs and include a link to your site.
- Respond to questions on web forums and include a link to your site.
- Create great content that’s helpful to others–they will link to this information from their blogs and websites.
- Avoid underhanded SEO at all costs, including keyword spamming, invisible text, buying inbound links, link farming, cloaking pages, sneaky redirects, etc. Search engines will penalize you if you do these things, and they may remove your page from their listing altogether.
SEO takes time to put into place, and it takes time for the search engines to register your information. But as you make your site more search-engine friendly and build your SEO arsenal, you’ll watch your page rise in the search results.
If you choose to have a company do your SEO for you, be sure it’s a reputable one. There are countless schemes out there and many of the companies offering SEO use tactics that are questionable. Go with a company you trust and you’ll be glad you did!
Best of luck!
Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking
While I was at Barnes & Noble this weekend, I picked up this great book by Andy Sernovitz–Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. This is a fun, practical look at what makes word of mouth marketing work and how you can get people talking about your business (without resorting to tacky promotions). A very cool book that you really should check out.
De-stress After a Hard Day
Every business owner has hard days. One of the hallmarks of successful business owners is that they know how to deal with those hard days in a productive way and stay positive. Here are a few ideas to help you de-stress:
- Get out in nature. There’s something about nature that puts everything in perspective. Taking a walk in the park or going for a hike to a waterfall can calm your mind and revive your spirit.
- Grow a garden. Getting your hands dirty and growing something beautiful or tasty can give you a sense of accomplishment unrelated to work that’s very refreshing.
- Check out a new destination. It doesn’t have to be an exotic, faraway location. Visiting a coffee shop you’ve never been to or stopping in a bookstore that you’ve been wanting to browse expands your horizons.
- Cook a special meal. Going out to eat can be relaxing, but finding a great recipe and cooking it up yourself is fun, especially if you do it with a friend.
- Enjoy a cup of tea. It’s simple, but there’s something about preparing a good cup of tea, breathing in its fragrance, and sipping it slowly that calms and restores.
- Take up a creative hobby. Painting, playing guitar, writing poetry. . . . Especially if you have a right-brain type of job, doing something creative can be a relaxing change of pace.
- Exercise. Go for a jog, take a pilates class, get out your bike. Studies have proven that exercise relieves stress on the muscles and on the mind. You’ll feel better and be healthier too!
Have fun de-stressing! And feel free to share your own ideas in the comments!
It’s Not About You
Everyone has a tendency to think about things from their own perspective. People, companies. It’s natural. It also causes marketing campaigns to fall flat.
People today are bombarded with marketing messages. To break through the cacophony, you must catch your target market’s attention. How do you do that? By appealing to what they care about–themselves. How does your company, your service, your product fit into their lives?
Unless you have been lucky enough to create a cult following around your brand (which is a topic we could devote a whole book to), people won’t care about what you have to say if you just talk about yourself. So as you’re creating ad copy or content for your company brochure, think about your target market. What do they care about? What are they looking for? What makes them tick? Then frame your message around what’s driving those people. Package your message in a wrapping that will make your target market want to open it!
Let’s look at some examples. I just visited the Target website and saw this message next to an attractive photo of a furniture display: “More style for your money.” That’s a market-focused message. As a customer, I care about style. I don’t want something boring-looking when I’m shopping for furniture. I want something that looks great and makes my home or office look great. So this message catches my attention, appeals to me, and ultimately gets me looking at what Target has to offer in the way of furniture. (I just bought a super-modern-looking side table for my office there this past week–they do have stylish stuff!)
Another example, a small business: Cafe Rivera in downtown Greer. When you visit their website, you’re greeted with the message, “Travel the world right here at home.” As someone who loves travel and loves unique ethnic food, that grabs me. It appeals to my interests and my tastes (no pun intended!). The whole structure of the website is customer-oriented. The navigation buttons below the message ask “Which one are you?” and provide choices like “looking for a great place to eat lunch or dinner,” “in need of a place for a meeting or private party,” and “searching for catering for a special event.” Brilliant.
Engage your customer by creating a customer-focused message. See your company, product, or service from their perspective. Figure out how you fit into their life. They’ll respond. And you’ll see the increase in your bottom line that you’re looking for.