If you’ve been waiting to see if Pinterest would catch on in the social media world, you really shouldn’t wait any longer. Especially if your target audience is women. Women make up 80 percent of Pinterest users and since women make 85 percent of all consumer purchases, you don’t want to miss out on all these eyes seeing information about your business. Now, Pinterest is offering Web Analytics so you can measure how well your Pinterest business account is performing. Be sure to set up your Pinterest account as a business account and then sign up for Pinterest Web Analytics. You’ll find out how many people are pinning from your website, seeing your pins and clicking on your content. Plus, pick a specific timeframe to see how your numbers trend over time.
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Marketing Articles
6 Tips for Building Your Personal Brand
March 25th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen
Whether you’re a small business owner, blogger, or employee at a large company, your personal brand is the most important thing you have. It’s a combination of your personality, skills, experience, knowledge, and network – and most importantly, how you are perceived by others.
Here are 6 ways to cultivate your brand:
1 – Have an online “home”
Why: Showcase who you are and what you do without the constraints of a structured box (like your LinkedIn profile).
Back in the day, if you wanted an online presence, your option was a website. Now, you have many other options: You can set up a free account with About.me or Flavors.me, or you can set up a free blog through Blogger, WordPress, or Tumblr. Your choice – just choose one and use it!
2 – Make your CV interactive
Why: Engage people by using the power of visual content to your advantage.
If you want to really stand out and get people to sit up and take notice, create a video, infographic or SlideShare presentation to showcase you and your work – and embed it into your website or blog.
3 – Create your own content
Why: Content – visual and text-based – will keep your site fresh and demonstrate your knowledge.
Creating content on a regular basis is the best way to demonstrate your knowledge. If you choose to blog, one short blog post a week is fine – share success stories and your deep subject knowledge. If you choose to go visual, consider video blogs on your own YouTube channel – that you also embed in a blog post. If you are a designer (web, landscape, interior, clothes), upload your work on your blog.
4 – Clearly demonstrate your value
Why: You need to differentiate yourself from everyone else out there.
Your approach to your work is different from everyone else’s, so be absolutely sure to explain what you bring to the table. What are the benefits of working with you, and what kind of results do you deliver?
5 – Be “you” on social media
Why: You and your company are two separate entities.
When I set up my Twitter account a couple of years ago, I purposefully chose to be me, not my company. Same on Instagram and Pinterest. That’s because, from my perspective, these are more personal social networks and a way to let people get to know me better. If my company should suddenly collapse, well, no biggie – I’ll just shut down a Facebook page and continue to maintain my other social networks.
6 – Build a portfolio of success stories
Why: It’s an ideal way to show why you’re so great.
Customer or project success stories demonstrate how awesome you are in a very tangible way. These stories need not be long – just state the problem, how you addressed it, and what the result was. If your customer can tell it in his or her own words, even better.
Are you cultivating your own brand? What other tips can you add?
Image courtesy of success.com
Google+Hot Market: Indie Women
March 25th, 2013 :: Rieva LesonskyBy Rieva Lesonsky
When you think of marketing to women, do you think of moms? Then you’re missing out on a huge and profitable target market of “indie women.” Age 27 and up, these single women are living without partners or kids, and pack a disproportionate amount of spending wallop, as MediaPost reports.
Currently, indie women account for 31 million or about one-third of all U.S. women over 18, and their numbers are increasing: There will be a projected 50 million indie women by 2035. What do you need to know about this powerful market?
Indie women have higher incomes than the average woman and spend $1 trillion each year, including:
- $22 billion on vehicles (that’s five times more than “indie men” spend)
- $20 billion on entertainment
- $50 billion on food
Indie women watch more television than average women and are multi-screen users, meaning they frequently accompany TV-watching with a “second screen” such as the tablet, laptop or smartphone.
Indie woman are highly socially engaged online. They are 6 percent more likely than average women to rely on online ratings and reviews, 12 percent more likely to report that friends and family routinely ask them for advice on health and nutrition advice, and 10 percent more likely to say they are frequently the first among their friends to purchase from a new brand or store.
Indie women are professional: They hold 59 percent of masters’ degrees and 52 percent of managerial positions.
What should you do to reach indie women?
- Use social media. These women are key influencers and brand advocates, so engaging with them on social media can drive your success.
- Treat them with respect. Indie women are successful on their own terms, so make sure your marketing reflects the fact that they’re happy with their lives and making their own decisions.
- Know where they’re spending. Indie women are more likely to dine out, entertain at home and spend money on home décor and apparel than the average woman, making these potentially lucrative areas for your business to focus on.
NBCUniversal Integrated Media began studying the indie woman because this group does a lot of discretionary spending, but is not yet widely researched in demographic studies, making it an undiscovered marketing opportunity. You can learn more about this demographic by watching NBCUniversal’s Integrated Media group’s film about indie women here.
Image by Flickr user EpSos.de (Creative Commons)
Google+What Do Female Breadwinners Mean for Your Business?
March 22nd, 2013 :: Rieva LesonskyBy Rieva Lesonsky
Are you trying to target women with your marketing message? Then you’d better be aware of a demographic that’s grown in power since the Great Recession took hold: breadwinning wives.
The Great Recession was dubbed a “mancession” by some due to the large numbers of men who lost their jobs. As a result, more women found themselves the main breadwinners of the family. But an end to the recession hasn’t meant an end to the trend, reports Marketing Daily. In fact, research by Kristin Smith, a research assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, shows that the rise of the female breadwinner could be a permanent change.
Smith analyzed earnings data from the U.S. Census Bureau and found that in 2007 (pre-recession), wives with jobs outside the home accounted for 44 percent of total family earnings. Between 2008 to 2009, that percentage climbed to 46–the biggest single-year gain in 23 years. In 2010 and 2011, it was at 47. Overall, from 1988 to 2011, wives’ share of earnings rose by 9 percent while husbands’ share dropped by 9 percent.
Women were more likely to contribute a higher percentage of the paycheck if they were married to men with a lower level of education. For instance, women whose husbands had a high school degree or below contributed 51 percent of total family earnings in 2011. Women whose husbands had a college degree contributed 42 percent.
During the recession (December 2007 – January 2010 in this study), America lost 8.7 million jobs, with most of them in construction, manufacturing and other male-dominated industries. At its peak in October 2009, men’s unemployment reached 11.2 percent while women’s was 8.7 percent.
Smith believes that the trend toward female breadwinners will not only continue, but strengthen even as the economy improves. Why? She believes families will still need to make up for lost time and restore diminished retirement accounts and savings. As a result, more women will stay in the work force. Smith’s report did not take into account emotional factors like fears and worry sparked by the recession; if you consider those factors, the staying power of the female breadwinner seems even more ensured.
What does this trend mean to you?
- If your product or service has traditionally been marketed to the “head of the household” or breadwinner, keep in mind that role may have changed. You may need to tailor your message to suit women or both men and women.
- Since women typically earn less than men even in the same jobs, female-breadwinner households will have tighter budgets. Reach out to them with marketing messages about value, savings and smart shopping.
- If both spouses are working, time will be at a premium, so one way you can justify higher prices is by focusing on how your product or service saves precious time that can be better spent on more important things, like relaxation or family.
Image by Flickr user DonkeyHotey (Creative Commons)
Google+Web.com Small Business Toolkit: Brother Digital Color HL-3000 Printers (Color Printers)
March 21st, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichBrother Digital Color HL-3000 Printers
Sometimes color just says it better. But if ever you take your documents to be printed in color you know how high the price per copy can be. Printing your documents in-house can save you as much as 60 percent, but is it worth the cost of investing in a big, professional color printer? If your small business wants to look like a big business, check out the new digital color printers from Brother. For under $300, Brother’s new series of digital color printers give you professional-grade color documents fast, with resolution up to 600 x 2400 dpi.
Google+Event Marketing for Small Businesses Part 3: During and After Your Event
March 21st, 2013 :: Monika Jansen
If you’ve been following this series on event marketing for small businesses, you’ve seen in the first two posts that planning a small event like a seminar, roundtable, or breakfast, lunch, or dinner isn’t really that hard – but it is a great way to grow your business and build relationships.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of why and how to do event marketing and how to plan and promote your event, let’s take a look at what to do during and after your event.
During your event:
During your event, tweeting or blogging live or posting photos is a great way to engage your social media audience, show how great the event is, and build interest for a future event. (Granted, you’ll probably be pretty busy during the event, so the following jobs will probably fall to an employee or intern.)
Live tweet
Tweets from events are most helpful when they are useful, so focus on sharing quotes and tips. Use hashtags that are event- and topic-specific and tag people in tweets with their Twitter handle – they’ll most likely retweet your mention.
Live blog
For a seminar or roundtable, it’s especially fun to blog. As with tweeting, keep your blog posts actionable and interesting – you can share insights, tips, advice, etc. – whatever you think is most useful for your audience.
Post photos
A picture is worth a thousand words, especially in social media. Take photos of the action – a small group huddled together brainstorming, people shaking hands as they’re introduced, someone addressing the group, the food and décor, etc. Again, use whatever you think your audience will respond to.
After your event:
Categorize leads
If you host seminars and roundtables to generate leads, go through your attendee list and categorize everyone. For current customers, identify upsell opportunities. For potential customers, are they ready to convert or are they window-shopping? Doing this will keep you organized and help you craft messages for the next step.
Follow up with personalized emails
Write template messages for your leads based on category, then personalize an email for each attendee. Remind them of something they said during your conversation, or send them the follow up information you said you would.
Include an offer
For each lead category, what can you offer to get them to “yes”? A special promotion for an upsell? An ebook for a prospect? Your portfolio of work or success stories? Based on what you know about them, send them the information you think will have the biggest impact.
Calculate ROI
Last but not least, calculate your ROI so you know if the event was worthwhile – and worth repeating. The best way to do this is by looking at how many potential sales you gained and how much each project or customer is worth. Keep track of when you close on each sale and calculate how much that customer cost to acquire. That’s your ROI.
Have you ever live-tweeted or blogged from an event? What tactics have you used to close a sale after an event? Share your tips in the comments section below!
Image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org
Google+Web.com Small Business Toolkit: Infocaptor Bubble My Page (SEO Tool)
March 20th, 2013 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichIf you’re having a hard time figuring out whether your SEO strategy is working and you’re struggling to make sense of your website analytics, sometimes it helps if you can visualize the data. Infocaptor’s Bubble My Page scans your website for word content and coverts the keywords into a bubble word cloud so you can see what words you’ve used often on any given page of your website. (Only the first 100,000 bytes are read from any page.) The tool is useful to help you keep on target when writing content for your site by providing an easy way to visualize whether you’re sticking to your keywords and topics.
Google+How Can You Get Affluent Consumers to Spend?
March 20th, 2013 :: Rieva LesonskyBy Rieva Lesonsky
Unity Marketing’s latest Luxury Consumption Index, which measures the spending plans of affluent Americans, shows that after a surge of optimism in October leading up to the November 2012 election, wealthy consumers are getting cautious again. The LCI lost 19.4 points in January–its second biggest loss since the first quarter of 2008.
The LCI measures the optimism that affluent consumers feel about the state of the economy in general as well as their personal financial situation. Affluent consumers are defined as the top 20 percent of U.S. households based upon income; this demographic accounts for more than 40 percent of all consumer spending, so their plans are crucial to business growth.
“Affluent consumers are starting 2013 with a dismal view of the overall economy and their personal financial situation,” says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing. Here’s a closer look:
- Skeptical About Economy: Before the election, 37 percent of affluents felt the U.S. economy was improving, but in January, just 29 percent did. Although this is still higher than the 25 percent average throughout 2012, it’s not exactly a vote of confidence in the nation’s future.
- Pulling in the Purse Strings: More than one-quarter (28 percent) of affluents say their spending on luxury will decline over the next 12 months; in October, just 18 percent said they planned to cut back.
- Personally Pessimistic: The largest share of affluents since the recession believe they will be worse off financially 12 months from now. “Typically affluents are an optimistic bunch,” Danziger says. “However, in the latest survey nearly one-fourth (22 percent) predict that they will be worse off in the next 12 months as compared to today.” This is the highest this measure has been since the depths of the recession in 2008.
What does the poor outlook mean for your business? Tom Bodenberg, Unity Marketing’s chief consumer economist, offers this advice: Reposition luxury goods as a value proposition.
“That means to keep the luxury image and connotations (advertising creative, packaging, media and service), but communicate (in a very implied, almost one-to-one way) affordable pricing,” he explains.
Your goal, Bodenberg says, should be an “almost subliminal” positioning of value. “The current cultural climate can’t support showy displays of luxury,” Bodenberg warns. Affluents still want brands that offer quality and value, but they don’t want to trumpet the luxury factor—instead, they want to feel that they’re making smart buying decisions.
Image by Flickr user (Creative Commons)
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Event Marketing for Small Businesses Part 2: Planning and Promoting Your Event
March 19th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen
Event marketing is not for just big companies with large staffs. Small businesses can host or participate in events, too – just on a smaller, more intimate scale.
In my previous post in this series, I talked about why and how to do event marketing. Now that you’ve decided whether to host a seminar, roundtable, or breakfast/lunch/dinner, it’s time to plan and promote your event.
Planning a Seminar
- Choose your topic and invite partners to participate
- Brainstorm with your partners on the best, most timely topics to cover and how long each person will speak
- Nail down the agenda, location, time, and cost
- Task your partners with organizing pieces of the event so you don’t have to do everything
- Work with the events manager at the site on logistics – check-in, room set-up, food and beverages, audiovisual needs, etc.
- Set up event registration and payment online using Eventbrite or Cvent
Planning a Roundtable
- Choose your topic and invite partners to participate
- Nail down the agenda, location, time, and cost
- Work with the events manager at the site on logistics – room set-up, food and beverages, audiovisual needs, etc.
- Set up event registration and payment online using Eventbrite or Cvent
Planning a Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner
- Put together an invite list; you can invite customers, prospects, partners, or a mix of all three
- Reserve a private dining room at a favorite restaurant
- Work with the events manager on the menu
Promotion
If you are working with partners, pool your contacts to send out email invitations and reminders from one central location; this will also make tracking responses easier.
Email Invitations
So as to not bombard people with email, send out an invitation a month ahead of time and a reminder a week or two later. Send a final reminder within a week of the event to encourage last-minute registrants, and one the day before the event to remind registrants about it.
Besides including the pertinent day/time/location/cost information, stress the benefits of attending, make it clear how to register, and give an overview of the agenda.
Leverage social networks
You and your partners (if applicable) should promote the event on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook – and on any other social media networks you use. You can also write a blog post about it and publish it on your site – it’s a great way to get more detailed information about the event out there.
Get listed on calendars
In the DC area, there are numerous online event calendars you can get a free listing on, from local papers to industry-specific sites. If you don’t know of any in your area, just do a search for “online events calendar in [your area]” or ask your network.
Send out a press release
Send a press release to local journalists and bloggers, and invite them to attend for free. In your press release, be sure to explain why your event is particularly newsworthy and worthwhile to attend.
In the final post for this series, we’ll take a look at what to do during and after your event. What are your favorite events to attend, and why?
Image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org
Google+Restaurant Owners Are Bullish on Their Industry
March 19th, 2013 :: Karen AxeltonBy Karen Axelton
Restaurant owners are feeling optimistic heading into the spring and summer seasons, and The National Restaurant Association’s latest Restaurant Performance Outlook reflects that enthusiasm, reaching a five-month high in the latest survey in January.
Restaurateurs’ outlook for same-store sales, capital spending and the economy as a whole all improved in January, pushing the RPI (a monthly composite index that tracks the health of the U.S. restaurant industry) to 100.6, up 1.0 percent from December and its highest level since August 2012.
An RPI above 100 means key industry indicators are in a period of expansion; an RPI below 100 means key industry indicators are contracting. The Index measures two components – both the Current Situation and the Expectations.
The Current Situation component measures current trends in same-store sales, traffic, labor and capital expenditures. The Expectations Index measures restaurant owners’ six-month outlook for same-store sales, employees, capital expenditures and business conditions. The Current Situation index was 99.7 percent, while the Expectations Index was 101.6—both an increase from the prior month.
Although there was a lot of uncertainty at the end of 2012 during the “fiscal cliff” standoff in Congress, restaurant operators’ outlook for sales growth has improved since then. Forty-six percent of restaurant operators believe they will have higher sales in six months than during the same period in the previous year. That’s an increase from 37 percent last month, and the highest level measured in seven months. Meanwhile, just 17 percent of restaurant operators believe their sales volume in six months will be lower than it was during the same period in the previous year—about the same as the 16 percent who felt that way last month.
Restaurant operators have a net positive outlook about the overall economy for the first time in four months. Thirty percent of restaurant operators say they expect economic conditions will improve in six months, up from just 17 percent last month. Twenty percent say they expect economic conditions to get worse in the next six months—a decline from 29 percent who said this last month.
Restaurant owners are planning to put their money where their mouths are, with more of them planning capital spending in the coming months. More than half (59 percent) say they will make capital expenditures for equipment, expansion or remodeling in the next six months, an increase from the 50 percent who reported such plans last month.
Image by Flickr user Willem! (Creative Commons)
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