Content Marketing Archives - The Elliott Group

5 Small Business Marketing Tips

April 2, 2015 by Michele Elliott

While the responsibility of owning your own small business can be overwhelming, it can also be very satisfying. It’s no wonder that small businesses continue to be the backbone of America’s economy. Almost 28 million small businesses employ 50% of the nation’s workforce and have created 65% of the country’s new jobs since 1995. Small business success doesn’t happen overnight — and it doesn’t come without a lot of work and worry. Small business owners are extremely skilled at providing their services or making their products, and usually, that’s what they like to spend their time on most. Dealing with other aspects of the business, such as accounting, HR or marketing can be either daunting or a drag. But, if you don’t send out invoices, you won’t get paid, and if you don’t do marketing, you won’t have anyone to invoice. Here are a few basic tips to get your small business marketing program underway.

1. Set a marketing budget. This is critical, because without a somewhat firm marketing budget, you run the risk of either spending too much or too little. Spending too much can leave you extremely dissatisfied when the results don’t measure up. Spending too little can stunt efforts that show promise. Ideally, your marketing budget should be about 7-8% of your projected annual revenues; but up to 15% if you’re running a start-up.

2. Develop a marketing strategy. With your budget in hand, map out your goals and plan the strategic marketing efforts that will help you achieve those goals. Identify your primary and secondary markets and research how those markets shop or search for your products and services. Are they mainly using their phones to search for your business? Do they still read the newspaper every day? Do they use social media — and if so, which outlets?

3. Be part of the community. Your small business marketing plan should include ways to demonstrate your commitment to your community. Whether it’s through sponsorships, educational offerings, social media, donations or volunteer work, take an active interest in the people, businesses and happenings around you and your business will be rewarded. Remember, people do business with people they like.

4. Solve problems. A key component of your marketing strategy should be helping your customers solve problems — or get answers to their questions. Rather than using all of your marketing budget on hard-sell tactics, be sure to include some soft-sell techniques, like content marketing. E-newsletters, blog posts, webinars and instructional videos can all help you establish expertise, form relationships, get more referrals and increase search rankings — all while you’re providing a valuable, relevant service to your customers.

5. Be consistent. Part of your marketing plan should be a carefully timed schedule of all of your activities along with who is responsible for accomplishing each step along the way. Be sure to keep track of the plan’s progress. Lack of consistency and ill-timed promotions will kill the best of marketing plans.

BONUS: Don’t do everything yourself. As a small business owner, I can guarantee that you already have enough on your plate. Marketing is not an aspect of your business that you can afford to let slide, no matter how pressing your other priorities are. Delegate marketing tasks to other capable employees and hold them accountable for staying on track (and on budget). If you can’t delegate the implementation of your marketing plan to others in your organization, consider using an agency. Best wishes for small business success!

5 Online Strategies for Every Small Business

March 18, 2015 by Michele Elliott

5 Online Strategies for Every Small Business

Content Marketing: How to Write Great Blog Posts

February 4, 2015 by Michele Elliott

Original blog posts have become de rigueur in content marketing strategy. And, while many small business owners know they should be writing a blog, they often don’t know where to start.

Why write blogs?

One of the most important things to realize is that your blog is an inexpensive, yet highly effective, marketing tool.

Blogs help small businesses achieve several important marketing goals at one time:

Building robust website content
Appearing higher in search results
Establishing their expertise in the community and marketplace
Helping customers get to know them
Developing a loyal customer base
Engaging customers and potential buyers
Attracting social media followers

Plan Blog Topics and Keywords

Map out your topics 3-6 months at a time, keeping in mind that everything you post should have a strategic purpose that directly relates to your business and marketing goals. There should be a regular interval between each post, as well as a deadline for every article. Make sure you identify who in your business will be writing each post and that they stick to the schedule. Your article plan should include an article title; keywords that you want to appear in the title, subheads and body; and a brief description of what you want the article to accomplish.

Basic Blog Format

If you look at blogs as a very subtle soft-sell marketing method, rather than a press release or a news article, you can start to envision where you want to go with the copy. What types of challenges/problems/wants/needs do your customers have and what do you do to help those customers? Educate your customers, and then provide tips and solutions for them.

I usually shoot for an ideal range of 500-800 words per post. I like to use subheads because they help with SEO, as well as make the copy “skimmable”. Other ways to help readers skim your text is by using bullets, numbers and lists.

Provide Links in the Text

It’s important to include some text links back to your website to help with the post’s SEO rank. I am not a big fan of overdoing text links. I think it’s a turnoff and, anyway, most people view articles with too many links as overt selling. The whole point of doing blogs is to NOT be too obvious. That being said, if you have a good opportunity to link to more information on a certain topic, especially if it’s another post you wrote, include the link.

Don’t Plagiarize

Your blog needs to be ORIGINAL. It should be in your words, written in your tone, in language that you use and that your customers understand. Statistics and supporting quotes should be cited.

Your entire site’s search rankings can be seriously penalized if Google detects too much duplication on even one page on your site. That means, if Google deems that your site contains too much duplication of any other online page, even one on your own site, your site will start appearing lower in search results. And believe me, Google CAN and WILL know. To protect yourself from plagiarism, invest in Copyscape, an inexpensive and very easy to use tool that can check each article for duplication/plagiarism. There is no hard and fast rule about how much duplication is OK. In my opinion, your duplication rate should be less than 10% of the text for any one source.

Be Relevant

Your blog posts need to provide relevant, valuable information that people are searching for online. Google and other search engines are always looking for ways to provide more value to their users and customers. The more valuable your information (i.e., the more people that are searching for it), the more Google will reward you with higher search results.

For more information on content marketing and tips to write effective copy, visit my blog or contact me. Look at all those links! I just broke my own rule.

How Small Businesses Benefit from Content Marketing

January 10, 2015 by Michele Elliott

While it’s not a new strategy in big business, content marketing is still a somewhat foreign concept to many small business owners. Many small businesses aren’t quite sure what content marketing is exactly, and how it could benefit their bottom line.

What is Content Marketing?

Social media, articles on your website (blog posts), e-newsletters, case studies and videos – all of these marketing strategies can be classified as content marketing. Each serves to provide content that educates your target market and provides them with relevant, valuable information that appeals to their specific interests and needs. This sharing of information with your potential and existing customers helps develop a deeper and more trusting relationship with them than you could with traditional advertising methods. Because content marketing is more of a conversation, it allows your target market to learn how they can benefit from your business without them even realizing it. It’s a soft-sell technique that positions you and your business as an expert in the trade who is willing to provide free helpful information.

Benefits of Content Marketing

Besides helping you establish your brand and grow your customer base, content marketing (when done correctly) can help you build a positive reputation in the local community. Content marketing can also help you increase your website’s search rankings. The goal of Google and other search engines is to provide users with the highest quality and most relevant content possible. Creating and posting valuable, relevant and original content adds meat and depth to your site – giving the search engines more important keywords to index and thus improving your site’s ranking in search results.

The Need for Quality Content

When developing content, it’s important to focus on quality. Original ideas, original copy, original positioning – your articles and social media posts need to truly convey your philosophies and ideas. The information you present needs to be transparent and accurate, presenting a real picture of what you are doing and why it’s interesting or beneficial to the consumer. Avoid plagiarism at all costs. Not only will you not be saying anything uniquely interesting to your market, but your entire site could be penalized if Google detects too much text that duplicates other online pages. One plagiarized blog post could ruin it for your entire website. Last, remember that content marketing is different from traditional marketing in the sense that you never want it to sound like a sales pitch. The goal is to deliver substantive information that your customer wants and needs.

Content Marketing is on the Rise

For now, content marketing is not only here to stay, but it’s a strategy that’s being adopted by more and more businesses around the globe. With the explosion of online content that will result, it’s more important than ever to have a solid strategy that hinges on unique ways of relating to your clients. Many small business owners don’t know where to start with developing the ideas, plans and writing for their posts. Or, they simply have too many other pressing projects to handle. If you don’t have the time or skills to devote to mapping out and executing a comprehensive content marketing strategy, consider hiring a professional writer or agency to put it together for you.

Should Your Small Business be on Facebook?

November 3, 2014 by Michele Elliott

I have a couple of clients who really hate Facebook. For one client, it’s a privacy issue and for the other client, a learning issue. The first client is a very private person and even the thought of a business Facebook page makes him uneasy. The second client does not use the internet much for personal purposes and has a huge learning curve when it comes to social media. And, human nature is sometimes to distrust what we do not know. Both of these clients own small local businesses that rely on search and referrals; therefore, even though they don’t particularly like it, they know they SHOULD be using social media to market their businesses. Maybe you should, too. If you have a local target market, Facebook can help you:

Reach people who live within a few miles of your location
Strengthen your relationship with your known customers
Advertise directly to your customers’ friends who live nearby

Four Types of Businesses Who Should be on Facebook

Not every small business can truly benefit from advertising on Facebook. In their book Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising, online marketing and Facebook ad experts Perry Marshall, Keith Krance and Thomas Meloche describe the four types of businesses that might do well with a robust presence on Facebook. Examples include local businesses with a physical location where consumers regularly come to purchase goods and services — from doctors and fitness clubs to restaurants and bakeries.

If your small business falls into any of the four categories below, Facebook can be a winning part of your marketing plan:

You have unique products.

Facebook is a highly personalized medium. So, it’s not the place to sell the same products that consumers can find easily online or in the big box stores. It IS the place to sell unique, personalized and customized products – ones that allow for individual expression.

You sell to consumers.

Facebook is mainly used by consumers to connect with friends and family. If you sell to other businesses, you probably won’t have much success on Facebook. But, if your business is consumer-oriented, then you, too, can connect with individual consumers and people in their personal networks.

You sell great experiences.

Facebook is also where people go to connect, to play, and to socialize. It’s a great place to sell events, club memberships, experiences, personal improvement, travel and entertainment. All of these products involve fun and positive emotions, and offer plenty of naturally social subjects for posts.

Your business appeals to people with strong convictions.

Does your company — and your target customers – lean toward a particular religious, political or social direction? If your business harmonizes with a person’s identity, that person will be predisposed to do business with you. You can take advantage of this harmony between your business and your customers by targeting them on Facebook and discussing the issues they care about.

Don’t Know Where to Start?

I’m a big believer in social media and its power to help small businesses grow. My own small business owes all of its clients to social media. And, my business technically does not fall into one of the four categories above. Imagine what an increased social media presence could do for your company? If you’re not sure where to start – or simply don’t have time to manage a social media campaign, know that there is affordable help available. The Elliott Group can build a strategy for you and also ensure that it is executed. We manage every detail. Contact me today for a free consultation!

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