In case you missed it, local customers are on-line. I believe there is a lot of low-hanging fruit out there still for local small businesses who play it smart when it comes to web-based or on-line marketing – whether it be via web sites, e-mail marketing, social networks/media, or web-based advertising. Here are some places where I often see huge gaps in what local businesses are doing to capture search traffic looking for what they’re selling. Maybe you can close some of these gaps in your own small business’ on-line presence or marketing by the end of today.

Web Sites

1. Small business owners can make more money by giving customers and prospects more reasons to buy. Being able to update your own web site (content, photos, and links) should be as easy as writing an e-mail to a friend. If it’s not, you have room to improve.
2. Small business owners should know who is visiting their web site and how they got there. Web site traffic is like a focus group of valuable information – without the expence. If you don’t have this data from your web analytics (which should be basically free to access), then you’ve got room to improve.
3. Small business owners should be able to understand and implement (or have someone who can) basic search engine optimization techniques for their local web site. If you don’t know what searches are popular in your local market in your category, and how to optimize your site to grab that traffic without breaking the bank, you have room to improve.
4. If your local business web site isn’t the center of your marketing universe and isn’t well-positioned as an extension of your brick and mortar customer experience, then you’ve got room to improve.
5. If your web site doesn’t provide a way for customers to sign up automatically for your e-mail communications, then you’ve got room to improve.
6. If your web site doesn’t provide a way for customers to connect with you via social media (and vice versa), then you’ve got room to improve.

E-mail Marketing

1. If you aren’t using e-mail marketing to promote your business, you’ve got a huge opportunity awaiting your local business marketing program!
2. If you aren’t using an e-mail marketing program that allows you to split test, segment lists, trigger an unlimited amount of e-mail communications and measure who opened what when and how often – then you’ve got some serious room to improve – and sell more stuff for your local business!
3. If you aren’t consistently sending e-mails to your list – you aren’t staying top of mind, and you’ve got room to improve. If you think “regularly” is less than once a week, then you have room to improve.
4. If you aren’t collecting e-mail addresses aggressively in your business (collecting better than 80% of everyone that walks into your business), then you aren’t doing enough. E-mail addresses are worth gold to your business, and you’ve got room to improve your local marketing!
5. If you aren’t sending a series of thank-you e-mails to new folks on your list to train them to read your e-mails for the rest of your customer relationship, you’ve got room to improve your local e-mail marketing program.
6. If you aren’t using your social media, off-line and web site interactions as a way to gather e-mail addresses straight into your database, you’ve got room to improve your local business marketing.
7. If you aren’t using e-mail to drive traffic to your web site and to learn more about what interests your customers by having multiple options available for their “click,” you’ve got room to improve.

Social Networks or Social Media

1. If your local business doesn’t have a YouTube channel with a username that matches your other social network usernames, and if you don’t have a way to create video quickly and cheaply to share your customer experience and to educate your customers – you’ve got room to improve your small business marketing.
2. If you don’t measure video views by posting a link to the same video link  (usually on YouTube) across all social media and on your web site to replicate your efforts using video, then you have room to improve.
3. If you’re not showing not telling by using a social photo sharing site like Flickr to both show your customer experience, give samples of what’s inside the store and to create inbound links to your web site – then you’ve got lots of room to improve.
4. If you’re not getting a lot of business out of Facebook for your retail business, you’ve got room to improve. Think about how photo albums, video, wall posts, custom tabs, notes and Facebook messages can help you share your customer experience and sell things at full price. Facebook is a powerhouse – if it’s not being one for you, then you’ve got low-hanging fruit to go pick…on Facebook.
5. Don’t get Twitter? Don’t know how to pick customers up – as easily as you’d hail a cab in the city? It’s just that easy… If you’re not listening on Twitter and using Twitter to drive traffic to your web site, you’ve got serious room to grow your local business.
6. If you’re a restaurant, coffeeshop, café or local commercial district and aren’t on Foursquare, you’ve got to get with the program and you’ve got room to grab customers for your local business or business district! If you haven’t claimed your business on Foursquare and haven’t posted offers for folks who are nearby or to reward loyalty, you’ve got some low-hanging fruit ready to pick!
7. If you’ve never heard of Google Buzz – or don’t know how it can help your business strategically get the word out, then you’ve got room to improve.

Ratings & Review Sites

1. If your pin isn’t on the Google Map, you’ve got room to improve your local business marketing.
2. If you haven’t claimed your business on Google Places and optimized your Google Place Page with current status updates, coupons and offers, then you’ve got room to improve your local business marketing.
3. If you haven’t claimed your business on Yelp and if you don’t check it regularly and stay in touch with your customers there and keep your information up-to-date and if you don’t have a system in place to encourage positive reviews on this site, then you’ve got room to  improve the image of your locally owned small business online.
4. If you are a restaurant and you haven’t optimized your business’ presence on Urbanspoon, and if you don’t check it regularly and stay in touch with your customers there and keep your information up-to-date (including menus, food photos, Twitter connections, and comments back to customers), then you’ve got room to improve your small business online reputation.
5. If you don’t know about CraigsList, Thumbtack, Ebay, Angie’s List, Judy’s Book, Merchant’s Circle – or how they can help you sell more stuff for your business of nearly any sort – then you’ve got some serious room to improve your small business sales.

Maybe the easiest way to close the gap is to engage someone who makes it simple and easy to get help with new media and social media marketing  - and grab some easy wins for your local business in the sales department – an expert that really understands locally owned businesses. Get in touch with us directly if you have such a need…

I bet you didn’t know there was so much low-hanging fruit out there, did you? I bet you didn’t know that HOW you did all of these tools mattered so much – but it certainly does. Where will you start today picking low-hanging fruit for your local small business?

Why do you, as a local small business owner need help with your local marketing? Because you want some cars to pull up in front of your business. That’s why.

Because as of last April, 63% of all American consumers across all demographics, looked on-line before making a brick and mortar buying decision. (via USA Today/Neilson poll, April 2009). The same data showed that while America was shopping or making decisions WHERE to shop online, less than 80% of American small business owners were spending less than 10% of their marketing budgets online.

Here we are 18 months later, and Citibank has released data. The statistics show there’s still plenty of room for improvement when it comes to local business marketing:

• 40% of small businesses don’t have a web site
• 81% of entrepreneurs still don’t take advantage of social media
• 47% don’t think that Facebook, Twitter or even LinkedIn are beneficial to their business
• 84% don’t provide for e-commerce
• 62% don’t use email marketing

Local customers are online doing research and making buying decisions. If you aren’t there – or aren’t there to your full potential – you are leaving money on the table. Period.

For those of you that are defying the odds and actually spending on-line, how do you know that you’re doing it best? Or even good enough? I wonder how you can be an expert at all things about your business, your inventory, your payroll, your employee policies, your customer care, your brick and mortar store maintenance, insurance, and payments while making sure you comply with IRS policies and paying your other bills and making sure your windows and every other aspect of your brick and mortar customer experience is great……… all while being a marketing expert in a world where marketing has changed so fast that even the heads of the brightest experts are spinning and it takes the lion’s share of an expert’s professional life just to read and experiment enough to keep up with the pace so when we recommend something – it works and it works well? Can you know confidently that what you know about the world of web-based marketing is even “good enough” to not be leaving the money on the table that would send your child to college or pay off your mortgage five years early? What is “good enough” for you?

As for me, I don’t try to do everything in my business – I pay the bookkeeper and CPA to do their thing that they do well and a WordPress expert to do her thing and a graphic artist to do her thing. I can’t do it all in my business – and if I tried, my business would be mediocre at best – close at worst. But I do know social media and on-line marketing. And I know that your customers are there, and they’re asking for your stuff – where are you? Maybe we can help each other out.

Is this an eye opener for you? What’s your next move?

Photo Credit: dave_mcmt

The Doherty Hotel - a historic, independently owned hotel in Clare, Michigan with a catering department that actually cooks yummy food and truly caters to the specific needs of their conference customers.

I was delighted to wake up today to find Chris Brogan’s new post on Detroit in my RSS reader. From where I’m sitting, I don’t think enough ‘atta boys’ can be sent Michigan’s way. Despite all the publicity scars they’ve endured from national media, national politicians and even their neighbor Canada, Michigan’s passionate citizens have persevered and are under the radar turning lemons into lemonade at a mind-numbing rate.

A local taco joint in Almont City, Michigan – a really small town where more than 100 folks came out to learn how to do small business better. That’s passion to succeed.

Two years ago next month, I had the privilege to keynote the Michigan Downtown Conference. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of visiting community after community and meeting business owner after business owner and to work with state and development agencies across the state – and all the time, I was learning firsthand what passion and perseverance really looks like. In Michigan, more than any other place we’ve worked, they “get” social media, and they’re using the power of human relationships to change their world and transform their image from the inside out.

If your small business is in a rut – just look to the passionate folks in Michigan for some inspiration. Is your local community or state in need of a boost of energy or even a complete image overhaul? Connect with some passionate folks in Michigan – they’ll show you how it’s done.

Need some places to start?

My first recommendation and go to person in general is my friend Joe Borgstrom (@JoeBorgstrom), a guy that didn’t wait for permission and created enormous buzz that reaped big dividends for Michigan’s downtowns among media, politicians and local shoppers alike by personally taking Michigan’s Main Street initiative into the social media world – and keeping it human and real every step of the way. He’s the guy that made the “OPEN” video happen – a video that went viral all over the U.S. last year, and he’s the commander of the simply brilliant Pure Michigan Living initiative. You should also know his wife, Kirsten, because now her PR genius unveiled at Travel Michigan is now available to the world (Congrats, Kirsten, on being another cool Michigan entrepreneur!).

Catching Fireflies is in a rehabbed train depot in downtown Rochester, Michigan.

Check out the passion at Getz’s (@getzs, Getz on Facebook) – the third largest Carhartt dealer in the nation – at home in an old building in downtown Marquette, Michigan – and running what can only be described as a Santa’s workshop on the top floor.

I’m also in love with Sandy at the Howell’s Mainstreet Winery (Howell’s Mainstreet Winery on Facebook) – where a great couple, both former auto industry folks, combined some passion with savings to start a wildly successful micro-winery, classes, and wine shop in a great downtown building in Howell, Michigan.

April at Catching Fireflies (@whimsicalgifts, Catching Fireflies on Facebook) in downtown Rochester, Michigan also has a store in Berkeley – and a fantastic wholesale line that is bringing money into the state every time she goes to market to sell. She’s creative and brilliant when it comes to making human connections using Facebook, Twitter, her blog and regular e-mails. I can never resist her passionate offers – or her fun notes stuffed in my packages when they arrive.

There’s Motorless Motion (Motorless Motion on Facebook, @motorlessmotion on Twitter), a little bicycle shop in Mt. Pleasant that loves people and educating customers – and now they can do it on Twitter and Facebook and reach the world with their information – and sell bike parts that way, too. There are the local cops who bought the floundering donut shop in downtown Clare, renamed it Cops & Donuts (Cops & Donuts on Facebook) – and made the national news in the process.

Marianna with the owner of Starring, a brilliant art gallery experience started by a former automotive exec.

And there are dozens and dozens more stories just like these – where pure passion is sprouting “green” for folks in Michigan.

Watch out world.

Michigan’s identity is transforming from the inside out. After spending some time there, I want to be more like those folks. Hardworking, passionate, friendly, helpful people they are…

How about you?

If you do social media right for your small business, your customers will become more loyal. If you do social media wrong, you will lose customers. But how do you know which category you fit into for certain?

We’ve been seeing a lot of situations where business owners are blasting their Facebook connections too frequently on Facebook with a pushy sales message, and it’s turning off customers. How do we know? Facebook provides outstanding Insights for Page administrators now, and one of the metrics you can monitor is the number of fans who have chosen to hide your posts from their News Feed. This means that you didn’t LOSE the fan, per se, except that you really did because they have hidden you from their view by removing you from their News Feed. This is bad…very bad.

Unsubscribes indicate that you were saying worthless stuff or being too annoying or in their face with your small business Facebook messages. Your business was basically spamming it’s Facebook connections. Think whatever you like about them, but their opinion matters and on Facebook they can do something about it – they click the “hide” button, and you’re outta there. Never to market directly to them again via their News Feed. Not cool.

So, what I recommend is taking  a closer look at your Facebook Insights.

1. Go to the Insights, click on your Page name on the left hand side of the screen (it may default to your Page if you only administer one Page).

2. Then, right under your Page name on the left hand side two words will appear: Users and Interactions.

3. Click on “Interactions” and the top graph they show will be for “Daily Story Feedback.”

4. This graph shows the number of “likes,” “comments” and “unsubscribes” for each day.

5. If you see a spike in “unsubscribes” on a certain day, look to see what you posted on that day or around that day. And don’t do it anymore. If you see a steady stream of “unsubscribes,” that also is an unhealthy sign because you might need to re-think your Facebook strategy and messages overall.

However, if you only get a rare unsubscribe, congratulations, that is an indicator that you’re doing Facebook well, and is a sign of Facebook health – that can only lead to increased customer loyalty since they hear from you more often and in a more valuable and meaningful way.

If you do Facebook the right way, lukewarm customers will become fans. And existing fans become super fans as they follow – evangelists that spread the word and point new customers to your business through social media in droves. The personal relationship, access and frequent top-of-mind provided by Facebook and social media usage in general secures customer loyalty like nothing else can. Check those Facebook Insights and measure your own Facebook marketing health.

What are your Facebook Insights telling you? What other Insights do you find important for your business? Share with us in the comments section below.

For all businesses and organizations, regardless of size, the experience that the customer has with your business from start to finish – from the moment they meet you via marketing or word of mouth until the moment they cease to be your customer – must be flawlessly consistent.

When small businesses pull off this hat trick of “consistency” especially well, they reap generous rewards on the bottom line. Consistency in a desired customer experience that makes your customers feel like insiders is a sure meal ticket to success – the magic formula that all businesses are looking for – and few achieve. A desired customer experience is one that is remarkably different (for a true understanding of “remarkable” – read some Seth Godin books), convenient, and most of all creates a simple, easy-to-understand and experience…well, experience.

What does consistency look like in small business?

Merriam-Webster.com defines “consistency” as “a condition of adhering together” and as an “agreement or harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole.” But this is the part I really like… Merriam-Webster says “specifically: ability to be asserted together without contradiction.”

That’s really the bottom line. Examine your business today and look for anything that might contradict the specific and remarkable customer experience that you want for your customers to get from your small business. Marketing is only one piece of that puzzle, but it is critical that everything from your social media messages (including the tone and frequency of your posts) to your visual advertising to your visual merchandising and in-store way-finding to your employees’ dress, attitudes, personalities, expertise and ability to serve the customer… to the shopping bags, the after-the-sale service and follow-up to the on-going e-mail marketing, customer loyalty and retention efforts to yes, most of all, the experience that you put forward through your 24/7 presence on-line through your web site and blog – it all must be CONSISTENT. It must go together without contradiction.

Customer experience

Are your employees confusing your customers? Does your marketing message contradict your in-store experience? Is your in-store experience confusing – do all of your sensory experiences not play together to make a “harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole” in your small business?

Then, when you’ve created a system of customer experience that is consistent – you must replicate that system of customer experience every single day. It is this repetition that will grow your business.

Set your sacred cows aside today and look at your business in an effort to banish inconsistencies and create systems and experiences that grow a consistent customer for your business. A great customer experience is not an optional exercise.

What are you doing today to improve your consistent customer experience?

One of the number one questions that we get lately is NOT how to get on Facebook initially… it’s how to fix Facebook missteps. What if you messed up and you did it wrong? How do you now go about fixing it – or should you even worry about it?

The answer is a resounding YES! You should definitely worry about it, and you should definitely FIX your mistakes.

Facebook Mistake #1: I set up a Facebook personal Profile for my business or organization instead of a Page. How do I convert it to a Page?

First off, here’s WHY you must convert it to a Page. This isn’t an optional activity, and maybe the necessity will motivate you despite the possible short-term repercussions:

Here’s what happens if you violate Facebook’s Terms of Service and insist on using a personal Profile for your business or organization. Facebook can and will discover your plight eventually – usually after you’ve amassed a significant and active following – and they will, without hesitation or warning – disconnect your Profile. They owe you nothing, but they do leave you with an explanation screen that looks something like this picture below:

(NOTE: This is a picture that my friend Cary Tyson sent me in confession of his own Facebook blunder and the resulting Facebook fall-out. If you’re a follower of this blog, you’ve seen this image before, but apparently it stands repeating since so many of you are still in violation of Facebook’s very specific Terms of Service.)

Yes, this means what you think it means. If this happens to you, you just lost all of your contacts, connections, conversations, photos, goodwill, social capital and any other goodness you may have held dear on your Facebook Profile.

Now… If you find yourself in the predicament of having created a PERSONAL Profile for your business or organization’s Facebook presence, here are a few easy steps that we recommend (without going into the detailed in’s and out’s of how to create a Facebook Page) to convert your following over to a new Page:

1. With a real person OTHER THAN your existing, wrongfully created Facebook Profile as the administrator, create a “Page” for your business or organization.

2. Create a “profile picture” on the new page that is different from the existing Profile that you are moving away from. This helps prevent confusion for customers. Ideally, I would recommend that the new profile picture be a custom graphic that includes both your business or organization’s logo as well as some sort of witty message stating that this PAGE (the new spot) is the “official Facebook presence” for this business. That lets folks know that they are at the right spot. Profile pictures can change as frequently as you’d like, so this “official Page” wording on your “picture” – which can yes, really be anything graphic or photo related that you desire – is just a temporary measure to aid the conversion process.

3. Add the wrongfully created personal Profile as an administrator to this Page. (You don’t want them to be the ONLY one, because if/when the profile is disconnected, it would also leave you disconnected from your new Page.)

4. Invite all of the friends of the Profile to “like” the new Page.

5. Send personal messages to all of the movers and shakers on your existing Profile and ask them to “like” the new Page and to also comment in some fashion.

6. Post on the Profile that you are ceasing activity on that Profile space immediately and where folks can go to stay in touch. Encourage them to “like” the new Page, so they don’t miss a thing.

7. Make certain that you are actively posting, interacting and growing the community on your new Page right from the start. Don’t invite folks to a dead space. Post photos, wall posts, information on the information tab, and other multi-media content and custom content BEFORE you invite folks over. That way they don’t miss a beat, aren’t confused and hopefully love the new Facebook Page more than the old Profile.

What else would you add to this process? Have you already undertaken a Profile to Page conversion? How did it go for you? Post your comments and let’s help others along this path!

Each case is a bit different and would require some custom strategic moves, I imagine, but hopefully this encourages you to get started on your quest for Facebook compliance and ultimate success!

Guest post by Mandy Becker, owner of Swagger in Cary, North Carolina

Do your sales slump a little during the summer months?  Maybe since “no one is around” you slack off on your marketing efforts.  Sound familiar?

I used to do this. I was a major summer slacker. We would be having such great May sales numbers, but I would be depressed, because I knew June, July and August were right around the corner, and our sales would slow down.

Thank goodness I finally kicked myself in the rear and said “you, Mandy, are in control of your own destiny.” Well, it went kind of like that, but you catch my drift.

I realized that our summer sales were slow, because I made them slow.  How did I make them slow?  Well…

1. I wasn’t sending out our store newsletter as often during the summer. Why bother – people weren’t around to read them anyway – right?
2. I didn’t order as much “new” stuff to come in during the summer months. Why bother – people weren’t around to buy the items – right?

Um – WRONG!  Yes, people do go on vacation, but not (usually) for the entire summer!

I finally realized that:

1. Our customers still had friends and family who had summer birthdays.
2. Our customers still needed summer hostess gifts for parties or gifts for the people they were visiting on vacation.
3. Our customers still “needed” little summer pick me ups for themselves!

So I changed my entire attitude. Summer was going to be a time for new items, new promotions, and new energy in my business!

First off – new product!

Keeping new product rolling in all summer long is key. Even if it is new colors or patterns in best sellers – that’s NEW to your customers. New merchandise gives your employees fresh stuff to talk about with customers and reasons for the customers to come back. Think about your busy seasons. Do you tell your customers “Ooh – come in next week too – we will have these really awesome new things coming in”? It works in December and it will work in July – you’ll see. People love new, and they LOVE to be in the know! Entice them and they will come back.

Your monthly (e-mail or print) newsletter is a great way to “get the word out” about your new items and store events, so is your Facebook Page or your blog. And the latter two can be done so easily! New product comes in, picture is taken, picture is posted to Facebook with witty saying and VOILA – 30 minutes later the world knows you have “new stuff”! I am a big fan of Photo Albums on Facebook. Create them for new product lines or do a “snapshot of your store right now” album. We have sold a lot of products out of photo albums!

New promotions

This one is my favorite because it’s fun! There are lots of ways to promote your store – giveaways, contests, and more – be creative! Your customers will love it! This year, we decided to do a summer Facebook photo contest “Where have you Swaggered lately?”  We believe it will help us reach our goal of 2000 fans by November and our customers are basically promoting our products to other customers! I’ll let you guys know how it goes, but we have already created quite the buzz in our store and online! Just yesterday a customer wanted the “baby mat” from the photo contest!

And finally – New Energy!

Our new energy comes in the form of cause-related marketing events during the summer.  We team up with local charities and have trunk shows or other types of events that are promoted to our customers and the charity’s supporters. We give back to the community, and we get exposure to new people – it is a win-win for both parties involved!  Be sure to promote the events both online and off.

I hope this helped get you motivated for a great Summer Selling Season! What are some of your summer promotion ideas? I know we would all love to hear them!

Thanks!

Mandy