Cheap or free marketing that works really does exist – especially for small business owners. Guerrilla marketing is still alive and well! In this post, several creative and marketing savvy small business owners share their top off-line marketing ideas to increase sales.

Remember these three things when applying these tips:

• Have your goals in place so that what you’re trying to accomplish with any marketing.
• Then, make sure that you have a strategy. This is the tone or slant that will make each of these tactics your own – or even dictate whether the tactics will work or not work for your business.
• Finally, remember that all marketing, even off-line marketing, works best when you use your domain name (your web site address) to extend your brand and your customer experience.

1. Print Customer Loyalty Coupons.
Adeena Mignogna, former retail store owner and author of Cute Little Store: Between the Entrepreneurial Dream and Business Reality, recalls using her own customer loyalty coupons to make the shopping experience fun and memorable while leaving customers with a strong incentive to return for another visit!

“We always had a theme to go along with the coupon. Often it would be a set of different coupons, related to the season or a major holiday coming up. We would make it a lottery and have all the coupons in a bag. At check-out time, the customer would take a coupon from the bag. Since my retail store was very kid and family focused, often the kids would pick the coupon and have a lot of fun doing it. We frequently saw these coupons come back into the store!”

2. Be an Educator.
Shel Horowitz, author of six books on marketing, including his latest, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet, says that he picks public speaking as his favorite cheap or free marketing tip.

“When you have 50 or 100 or 500 prospects in a room who are there to hear your message and learn from you, it does great things for your business!”

3. Label Stuff.
Dave Greenbaum, owner of a small computer repair business, recommends using magazines and mailing labels to market your small business. We think that this is a great concept that could be adapted for many uses. Keep in mind that most waiting rooms are known for having old, out of date magazines…

Here’s how this works:

1. Get magazine subscriptions at a discounted price.
2. Read the magazines and enjoy them, as appropriate.
3. Print a label or sticker that says “Magazine Compliments of…” and include all of your contact information (including web site address) and logo.
4. While visiting your local auto repair center, coffee shop or doctor’s office, leave behind a stack of current magazines with your label on the back (with the blessing of management at each location).
5. Reel in referrals from those who see the label and those who ask office management about “that guy that left the magazines.” “Doctor Dave” tells us that employees at each location rave and add value to the referrals.

It’s a win-win proposition on many fronts. Adapt this one creatively to your own business’ service or product offerings.

4. Take advantage of advertising “remnants.”
Bonnie Harris at Wax Marketing reminds us that “ALL traditional media sell what are called ‘remnants.’ These are open ad spaces in print magazines, outdoor vehicles (like a billboard or bus sign), radio ads” etc. that haven’t sold. She recommends knowing ahead of time what traditional media best fits your business and marketing strategy. Then “call the advertising reps and let them know that you are always interested in hearing about remnant ad deals.” Bonnie warns however, “You have to make a decision quickly. Be available to the rep and have your ad ready to go right away.”

Bonnie says that she’s gotten some incredible deals this way…including a block of drivetime radio ads on a top station for $5 per ad!

5. Wear your marketing.
Beverly Solomon, creative director at muse-solomon, a high-end art business, tells us that she loves wearing her marketing…literally. Beverly says, “I had a run of high quality knits done with our muse-solomon name on it. Yes, it is in effect a fancy t-shirt. However, I can wear it to elegant functions and openings. I also wear it for travel. We also give knits to our models and photographers.”

Name recognition and conversation starters are both key in business marketing. Instead of regular t-shirts and polos, consider a fashionable clothing run that serves you well in most environments. There are so many options out there now! Just be ready if you wear your marketing to tell your story!

6. Help customers find you again.
Kerri Halligan of Athena Creates in Jacksonville, Florida reminds small business owners to make sure your customers know how (and when) to find you if they want to do repeat business. Unfortunately, as Kerri so aptly points out, we sometimes miss some of the most obvious marketing opportunities! Kerri explains, “I get so many repeat customers that sometimes they turn a so-so day into a great sales day. My repeat customers seem to buy more than new customer initial purchases because they now have confidence in my products. I see many other businesses that transact with a customer, but they don’t provide ANYTHING that has the business name or how the customer can find them again.” What a shame, but it’s so true! Aside from great signage, here’s what Kerri does to make sure her customers can find her again:

1. All products have some sort of tag that includes the business name. (We would recommend she also include logo and URL on each of these tags if she’s not doing it already!)
2. She hands out business cards to all shoppers or tucks one into their bag at the time of purchase.
3. Her cash register is programmed to include her business name, logo and web site onto all receipts.

What say you? What are the most effective cheap or free marketing ideas for your business?
Photo Credit: ecastro

B. Liles Studios is a jewelry studio owned and operated by Betsy Liles in Ridgeland, MS.  After 22 years as a nurse, Betsy needed an outlet for her creativity.  She took a class at the Mississippi Gem and Mineral Society and set up a studio in her home.  While still working the day-shift at the hospital, she began selling her jewelry wholesale to gift and dress shops and running her business on the weekends.   A year and a half later the jewelry business became her full-time job and she started to focus on retail markets as well as wholesale.

In 1997 she began attending regular workshops with nationally known jewelers.  Betsy then began intense, private tutoring with jewelers in specific areas of the craft.  Finally, in 2005, B. Liles Studio outgrew Betsy’s home and she opened a production studio at 206 W. Jackson St. in Ridgeland.  As an afterthought, she set up her travel showcase just in case anyone came in to shop.  At the end of the week it was obvious that the new building was a great place for a gallery for her B. Fine Art Jewelry line.  Betsy purchased another building across the street to use as the production studio.

B. Liles Studio now has design and gallery space at 215 W. Jackson St. to bring the whole business under one roof.  Betsy says having the gallery for B. Fine Art Jewelry in the same building makes for a much more professional workspace and easier for sales and consultations.  It is located in close proximity to the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi, of which Betsy is a member.

B. Liles is quite unique in that almost everything that pertains to their jewelry is designed and made at the studio.  A few elements are purchased, such as small chains and clasps for children’s bracelets, but the rest is created from scratch by Betsy and the other artisans.  All pieces are signed and dated and because the items are handmade, the output is limited.  This is a place to find one-of-a-kind pieces that won’t be popping up all over the place.

We can’t wait to hear more from Betsy about Retail Marketing and Product Development: two areas in which she has plenty of experience! Don’t miss this episode of ResultsRevTV on April 27^th to find out more!

Butterfly Thank You Card from Peru Paper (www.perupaper.com)

I’ve been thinking a lot about being thankful lately. Here are a few random ideas that will hopefully spark more of your own. Please post YOUR ideas or expansion on these ideas or your experience with using thankfulness in business in the comments section…

Here are a few of my ideas for customer appreciation and showing thanks in your local small business:

1. A local restaurant could give out free dessert gift cards that say “Thank You!” in random check presenters throughout an evening. At the beginning of the evening, stuff random check presenters with the gift cards for a fun twist on a thank you. With slight alteration, this same principle can apply to your locally owned small business.

2. Write thank you notes. Use the handwritten note, an e-mail or a Facebook private message. Any way you do it, the effort to say a specific “thank you” is always appreciated. No matter how small or time-limited your business, you can do this one.

3. Conduct a non-advertised “thank-you” promotion. Pick a random day each week to offer customers a discount upon checkout. Keep it a secret until the moment of checkout, then say something like “Guess what? We are having a secret sale today to say ‘thank you’ to our customers. Just for shopping with us today, we’d like to say ‘thank you’ with a 10% discount.” It’s not a big discount, and the discount didn’t motivate their shopping. This keeps your business from being positioned as a “discounter.” Instead it uses the discount as a happy surprise and a genuine “thank you.”

4. Publicly post a list of things you are thankful for in your business on your Facebook wall weekly. Tag people, places or just list the little things that make you thankful. Good weather, smiling faces, loyal customers, new merchandise, popular items, a community event, a person, place or thing that you love. Thankfulness is contagious, and your customers will catch it quickly!

5. Participate in thankfulness on Twitter by saying what you are thankful for in 140 characters or less on Thursdays and applying the hashtag #thankfulthursday. You will join others who are thankful around the globe and promote your business at the same time.

Bonus story:
Last night, our client and Results Revolution sponsor, Patty Peck Honda, gave us FOUR tickets to the Mississippi Braves baseball game. Andy and I used two of the tickets. When we arrived at the game, we walked up to the ticket counter area where there was a pretty good crowd waiting to purchase tickets. We walked to the rear of the line and Andy said, “Excuse me, does anyone here drive a Honda?” A young college aged guy turned around and pointed to his friend, “He does.” The young gentleman, looking a bit confused, said, “Yes, I drive a Honda.” Andy said, “Sir, you just won two tickets to tonight’s game. You don’t have to stand in line any more. Patty Peck Honda wants to say ‘thank you’ for driving a Honda.” After a quick snap of the camera to document the event, we were on to find our seats while overhearing a wake of rumbles through the crowd “That guy just won free tickets from Patty Peck Honda… Who?… Patty Peck Honda just gave away tickets… Patty Peck Honda… Cool… That’s great… Great folks over there at Patty Peck Honda… He won free tickets to the game… Nice…”

What random acts of kindness can you do today in your business? How can you show thanks today? Post ideas in the comments section – and more than that, go be thankful! (I have a feeling it will pay you back…)

It’s been a full 8 years since I filed my first LLC documents with the Secretary of State’s office forming my first limited liability company.

Wow, a lot has changed, but then again maybe not that much. You see, about 2002, when I was getting my first business underway, America was recovering from the burst of the dot com bubble and the tragedy of 9-11. Companies weren’t really hiring the skills that I had – at least not unless one had loads of prior experience.

Turns out, that “bad economy” propelled me to start my own business a little sooner than I had planned. I started what is now Fox Web co in 2002. Eight solid years, 3 kids and thousands of miles traveled later, I’m a thriving small business dad.

There are hundreds of articles and perspectives on work-life balance, but after just spending five days swinging the balance a bit more towards the “life” side of things during a Spring Break vacation in Point Clear, Alabama, I’m going to throw my 2 cents in the ring, too.

For me, there are a few of non-negotiables that afford me the lifestyle flexibility I enjoy:

1. Priorities. Everything has to be kept in perspective. I struggle to keep an eternal perspective at all times. I may lose a sale here and there, miss some networking events, or fail to line up every appointment I’d like, but I want to NEVER miss the important things. I’m hardly perfect in this realm, but taking a real break on Sunday from all work stuff has been huge for my sanity. It’s easy to run out the door every day without spending time on the REALLY important things, but hopefully I’m getting progressively better at that. Time with my wife and kids are a priority, too. If I lose a sale or an opportunity because I didn’t miss an opportunity to spend time with my kids, I’d have to say that I did the right thing. I’m 31 years old, and there will be plenty of time to build the business, but “daddy dates” and enjoying activities with the kids like hunting, fishing, museums, the zoo, cooking together and dancing in our living room are really important investments of time. Much more so the time spent with God, that I often neglect.

2. Breadwinning. All of that said, keeping food on the table is REALLY important. Sometimes that means that I’m up working at 11:30 p.m. after the kids are asleep, moving project forward, answering emails and checking things off the list. Sometimes I’ll drive six hours to spend time with my daughter in one day, but I have to purpose to redeem the time while I can in the car, using technology when I can to keep my business moving.

3. Unplugging. I’m often the guy you see in the airport or restaurant with the cell phone in my hands nonstop. I look like an ADD kid, pulling it out in between ordering my food and fixing my drink at a restaurant. Or I can be seen frantically texting while I wait for the waiter to bring me my lunch. Am I just a geek? Maybe. But I use the tools that I’ve been able to acquire to keep my business moving, my employees connected, and my customers informed. Sometimes though, it’s hard to really unplug because there’s always something going on that comes directly to my queue. E-mails don’t filter themselves out or categorize themselves for the different priority levels. For me, it’s been important to create a system so that when I do unplug, customers know where to get an immediate response, even if that response doesn’t come from me. I’ve set up auto-responders, changed voicemail messages, or just forwarded messages on to my associates to help me have those moments of unplugged sanity for myself and my family. Everything doesn’t constitute an emergency, and clients who consistently call me on a Friday night needing help with something probably need to come up with a different plan. I’ve had to part ways with a few of those sorts of clients over the years, and because of that, my sanity and quality of life has increased greatly.

4. Technology. Specifically, mobile technology, has been a key to my lifestyle and mobility. My phone allows me to manage my calendar, multiple e-mail accounts, to-do lists, project management and much more. Apps for Iphone and Android allow all small business owners the freedom to take care of financial matters including bank transfers and bill pay from the convenience of our phone. Voicemail transcribed to text messages lets me know what a message says at a glance without having to step out of my kids’ events or playtime, because I can learn quickly that it isn’t an emergency. Would you rather work two hours later at the office, or be interrupted a couple of times to text or email during a baseball game outing with your family? For me, I know where the real value is. Staying connected but not tied down is easier to do than ever before with the new smart phones. The advertisements that say “There’s an app for that” is really true. Regardless of who your phone carrier is, you can probably increase your productivity a great deal, simply by going into their store and finding a HELPFUL representative who will spend a few minutes helping you find ways to help you and your business be more productive – and flexible.

Andy Chapman is co-founder of the Results Revolution, social media expert and business advisor at HALO Business Advisors and President of Fox Web co. He is husband to Marianna. They have three kids, a Springer Spaniel and a marathon training habit.

Whether you are a startup business owner, a seasoned veteran, a designer, a wedding planner, or a theatre director, chances are you have the occasional basic spreadsheet that needs to be put together or sometimes a more technical analysis that you may need done as well.

In this economy and with a lean small biz budget, we do not always have the necessary funds to purchase or license fancy software. The bottom line is that most people have Microsoft Excel on their home and/or work computer and much of the analytical work that needs to be done for your business can be accomplished in Excel!

The 411 on Excel

Some of the valuable tasks a business owner can accomplish with Excel include:

• Perform basic and/or complex formulas
• Place to create and store a database
• Cleanse and organize information
• Create charts & graphs
• Create company reports: Excel is often used for Monthly reporting. Whether your data dump comes from another system and is exported into an Excel File (xls or csv), users can create standardized professional reports that merely need to be updated with the new data as it becomes available (weekly, monthly, quarterly etc). These reports can serve as a great template for reporting and ensuring consistency.

Excel and then SUM

In addition to some of the fundamental tasks that can be done in Excel, Excel can also be used to house some more advanced items. Below are listed some sample cases of companies who have used Excel to house some fancy spreadsheets.

Wage Performance/Tracking and Reports: Many small businesses do not have the budget for a fancy payroll system like ADP, or their needs are too specific to use a generalized system solution. That being said, everyone needs to monitor employee pay. Custom databases can be created to track employee payroll that will allow small businesses to easily calculate and keep track of employee hours, payroll and benefits.

Data Management/CRM: Lots of small businesses have databases full of useful data, like customer lists, inventory items, or sales leads, but they don’t always have ways to effectively utilize that data. Often times, it is hard to organize this data in a useful and productive manner. By creating a clean database in Excel, that will house all of this info, you can:

• track each customer call made
• use simple filtering techniques that will allow you to see quick lists of customers based on criteria like Location, Customer Rating and past purchases
• get rid of all of the paper cluttering your home office
• create fancy (well kind of… we are still just talking about a spreadsheet) reports

Financial Analysis: Plenty of business owners, from finance novices to econ experts, use Excel as their go-to place for financial forecasting or budget planning.

Get your spreadsheet on!

So check out Excel, it can be simple and fun. Store your data here… maybe you will become obsessed and use Excel forever. Maybe Excel is just a band-aid till you can afford something else. If this is the case, you will easily be able to import your Excel Spreadsheets to other software when the time comes.

Happy Spreadsheeting!

This guest post was written by Jen Portland. Around the Results Revolution, we also love spreadsheets as a dashboard for keeping up with small business marketing metrics. We export our stats from Google Analytics or our e-mail marketing software and manipulate them to help us reach our customers better and to learn how to market smarter from our data. Excel is definitely a friend to small business owners, so if you want to get more from your spreadsheets, chat with Jen Portland, founder & spreadsheeter at Excel Rain Man, an Excel outsourcing and training service. Check them out at www.excelrainman.com.

This isn’t a post about what to do with the traffic once it gets there. Nor is it an advanced tutorial on Search Engine Optimization – that will be left to someone far smarter than myself, like maybe our friend Will Scott down in New Orleans, who specializes in local search optimization or another friend Ryan Kelly out in San Antonio that is behind one of the smartest, most user-friendly SEO tools I’ve seen in a long time.

For now, I just want to remind you that your small business web site needs attention in order to bring you a return on investment. Andy often says it this way: “A web site truly begins when it’s finished.”

Here are a few basics that you absolutely must address with your small business web site, no matter how local or “mom and pop” you are.

1. Update your site often. Often equals no less than once per week. If you do not have a web site that you can easily and quickly update yourself or train a teenager to update without need for any additional software, you might want to get a site update done. In 2010, there is no reason that a complete novice can’t update his/her own web site in a basic way in about ten minutes. Updates mean a lot to the search engines and to your customers. Regular updates mean there is a REASON for me to visit your web site repeatedly – and visiting reminds me to buy.
2. Create a strong collection of inbound links. Inbound links are simply links on the web that point to a page on your web site. It is much more complicated than this, but when boiled down you simply must have an increasing number of inbound links pointing to various pages of your web site. How do you get inbound links? Here are a few ideas:If you’re a locally owned and operated, independently owned small business, take advantage of the free listing in our Shop Main Street Business Directory. It provides you with an inbound link to your web site and your blog (as well as your social media if you use those). Both huge wins for you in this department.

• Make a list of all of the major brands that you carry in your store. Contact your rep and ask to be listed as a dealer on their web site along with a link to your web site.
• Contact every organization of which you are a member. This includes Chambers of Commerce, civic clubs, etc. Ask them to post a membership directory with links to business owners’ web sites. Make sure you are there with a link back to your web site.
• Submit press releases to the local newspaper when you have events or announcements, including new hires, new product lines, new or altered services, etc. Make sure they post on their web site with a link back to your business. Most will accommodate this request gladly if you write the article for them.
• Offer to write guest blog posts for related web sites and get links back to your web site through the attribution of these posts. This is a double whammy because it lets you show off your expertise, has relevant keywords that match your web site (hopefully) and gets you the inbound link(s). We love guest bloggers here… just ask me.
• Post articles in article directories.

3. Drive traffic to your web site. Inbound links certainly help with that. However, you can do a lot OFF-line and through online marketing that can increase traffic.
4. Traffic tends to beget traffic. Simply put, search engines often follow the crowd, so the more traffic you drive to your web site, the more traffic you will get through search. Here are some additional ideas for driving traffic to your web site.

• Send out regular e-mail messages with multiple links back to specific pages of interest on your web site.
• Include your URL on all store signage, advertising and other outreach efforts.
• Create a bag stuffer or bag tag that gives your customer a new reason to buy or increase their shopping frequency. Point them to the web site to learn more.
• Create on-line exclusives, coupons, and contests that can only be accessed at your web site. Promote these offers off-line.

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

The most important thing to remember is that social media is still a media. Which means it is still a marketing TOOL – not an end to itself. However, in contrast to both traditional media and new media tools, such as web sites and e-mail, social media is used differently. By name and nature, it is SOCIAL which dictates a relationship. At the very least, this demands a TWO-SIDED conversation/interaction format.

More specifically, social media differs from traditional media in that anyone can create, comment and add to social media. Social media can take the form of text, audio, video, images and communities. Traditional media doesn’t let you PROVE how many visitors or engaged customers you really have (Yes, I know all about Neilson ratings and circulation numbers – How many of you really believe all of that?). Social media shows you REAL numbers for your audience – or at least a more “real” number than any other media that’s ever existed for small business marketing purposes. Social media also allows you to track and know information about your audience – not just know that they’re there.

WHO USES SOCIAL MEDIA & NEW MEDIA?

1. Practically everyone uses Google and other search engines regularly, and the searches frequently return blog posts, YouTube videos or other social media content high in the search ranks. So even people who say they don’t use social media are actually consuming social media content without knowing it.
2. 63% of consumers turn to the Internet FIRST to find a local business. (Yet a whopping 80% of business owners reported spending LESS THAN 10% of their marketing budget on web-based marketing.) – Source USA Today Snapshots, March 5, 2009 – cited Neilson Online/Web Visible survey of small business owners.
3. When people who are NOT social media users ask their non-social media networks for advice (usually via e-mail or phone call), the answers come back include URLs to blog posts and other social media content.
4. There are more than now 400 million active users of Facebook (up 150 million from one year ago). More use Facebook than any other existing media (including television). The fastest growing demographic are those 35 and older. More than 2/3 of the users are outside of college age. By nature of the beast, those users are also at least semi-educated, literate and computer literate – making them far more likely than average radio or television listeners to have a decent income.
5. YouTube statistics – Recently, I got to inform a client that 74% of his target audience visited YouTube at least once every two weeks and often multiple times a day. They were shocked. They where even more surprised when I told them that a significant number of those visitors used YouTube on a daily basis to research products and services, view product demonstrations, and find information for work purposes. But, when I told them that visitors to YouTube actually based their buying decisions on what they saw on YouTube, well, they were shocked and couldn’t wait to hear more.
6. On October 9, 2009, the third anniversary of the acquisition by Google, Chad Hurley announced in a blog posting that YouTube was serving “well over a billion views a day” worldwide. comScore had previously reported that the number was actually over 10 billion per month. In September 2009, and the average video viewer watched more than 10 hours of video during that month. That’s pretty significant.

Those are just a few reasons why social media is critical to your business. This doesn’t tell you how or when or how often to use social media. (Strategically is a good start – it’s not a waste of time play tool anymore! And it’s getting crowded, so you have to stand out in the crowd by doing it smartly.) But hopefully, if you’re a business owner or community leader trying to convince yourself or your fellow locally owned, independent small business owner friends and colleagues to network with you, promote your business and your community using social media tools, this will give you some ammunition to open some eyes during that conversation.