Marketing on a Small Budget

What can you do with a small budget? You have a small business and know you need to do some marketing. How do you decide what to spend? For starters, you can take your gross sales and multiply by about 5-8%. See what that number comes to. Then start with your priorities.

1. Take a look at your branding and logo. Is it clean or could it use some updating?
2. How is your website? Google analytics takes a look at how often you refresh your content. Is your content up-to-date? How’s the design? If you built your website 3 or more years ago, chances are it could use a refresh.
3. Marketing Material. Do you have a good selling brochure, business cards, flyers, postcards. Do they currently reflect the look and feel of your business. Do they contain links to your facebook page, twitter etc.?
4. Social Media. Have you started developing a social media community around your brand? Should you dedicate more resources to Facebook or Twitter?
5. Have you been relying too much on social media and your website? Should you consider reaching out to new customers via traditional print advertising or a postcard mailing. You can use these tactics not only to bring in more customers, but to introduce your social media and get more “likes” or followers.
6. Buy mailing lists from organizations like infousa. The prices are reasonable and the lists are reliable. Choose the area you’d like to reach and then hone in on the specific demographics of your ideal customer.
7. Professionally design your mailing postcard and don’t forget to include a call to action, or an incentive. I usually like a high value offer that expires in a short amount of time.
8. Have you completely forgotten about advertising? A consistent message in a small local paper works. There are local papers, for example, in my neighborhood that can cost as little as $50 per week. The key is consistency. Putting one ad in occasionally probably will not bring you business, but an ad every week for a few weeks at a time throughout the year will keep your business in front of potential customers.

You would be surprised how $5,000-$10,000 a year can grow your small local business. Planning and planning ahead are the keys.

 

 

 

What is WordPress and how do I get it?

WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog.  And the best part is, WordPress is free, though most would say “priceless!.

The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 25 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home”

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

Everything from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the community. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for anything from your non profit organization’s home page to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee and a number of other important freedoms.

You can go to wordpress.org and download the program or use an experienced web designer to install and design the site for you.

When you first open the site after installation, it will look something like this, depending on the theme you have chosen.

From there, you can go in and customize the settings, add images and content.

With experience you can turn the blah gray site to something like this. And the best part is, you can go in yourself and update content and photos, the things that client’s most like to do themselves to save money and time.

OK, it’s not so easy, but with time and practice you can make a pretty decent site, a lot nicer than some of the “free” websites on the web.

If you are interested in learning more, Kaye Marketing would be happy to help.

 

 

 

 

Adding QR Codes to Your Marketing Mix

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside of industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of any kind of data (e.g. binary, alphanumeric, or Kanji symbols)[1].

Most people use the QR codes on print media, such as a business card, flyer or brochure. With a quick scan, the barcode can take the consumer directly to the URL, or website page of your choice.

Here are some tips:

• Always use dark colors for foreground color and light colors for background color. If there is not enough contrast between foreground and background colors, your device will most probably fail to decode the code.
• Is their a minimum size for a QR Code so that it can be scanned with all devices?
  The answer to this question cannot be given with exact proportions. New devices with autofocus cameras can scan very small QR Codes, but old devices that don’t have autofocus cameras will have problems with scanning codes smaller than one or two inches. Also it depends on the size of the information that you put into the QR Code. You need to test your QR Code with many devices, old and new to find the best compromise.
• Is there a minimum size for a QR Code so that it can be scanned with all devices?
  New devices with autofocus cameras can scan very small QR Codes, but old devices that don’t have autofocus cameras will have problems with scanning codes smaller than one or two inches. Also it depends on the size of the information that you put into the QR Code. You need to test your QR Code with many devices, old and new to find the best compromise.

How can you get a QR code?

There are many websites that offer free QR codes. This is the one I used.

 

 

 

Setting up your marketing plan.

If you haven’t started your marketing plan for 2012, now is the time. Some people get overwhelmed by even the thought of putting it all down on paper, but a simple plan is really not that hard. The first step is determining what your marketing budget should include. Write down a complete list which could include:

• Advertising
• Marketing
• PR
• Website design/maintenance
• Social Media
• Promotions
• Brochures
• Email Marketing
• Direct Mail

Excel offers a basic spreadsheet which may help get you started.

Next, determine your budget. You can start with a percentage of sales. Both the Counselors to America’s Small Business (SCORE) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) define the variable for a proper marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales. For a small business, you could start with 7 or 8% of sales.

Once you have that number, start adding up all the projects you know you have to do, considering seasonal and peak periods of business. Start ups will have to budget considerably more.  Then work backwards and start adding projects you’d like to do. Develop a media plan and divide up resources for key advertising opportunities.

Don’t be nervous that you are not doing it right, having something is better than flying blind.