America’s Backbone Weekly: Stay Connected

Promote Your Small Business With E-Newsletters

By Nicole Altavilla for America’s Backbone Weekly

Spending the time and energy to obtain clients’ email addresses can give small businesses a big advantage when it comes to marketing efforts. E-newsletters, for example, are an inexpensive yet highly effective way to communicate with clients that can enhance a business’s reputation, provide instant tracking results, help publicize services and special promotions and increase client loyalty. And because 95 percent of online consumers use email, according to an infographic by renowned digital marketer Wolfgang Jaegel, small businesses can be confident that the e-newsletter is reaching a large number of current and potential clients. Erika Taylor Montgomery, CEO and chief publicist at Three Girls Media, with locations in California’s Silicon Valley and Seattle, offers tips on what to include in an e-newsletter to engage clients:

• A Personalized Introduction: According to Montgomery, most e-news providers like Constant Contact and MailChimp allow a company to upload a list of contacts, including the recipient’s first name. “It’s a nice personal touch to start an e-newsletter with, ‘Hi Susan,’ for example, followed by an introductory paragraph from the company CEO or other senior executive,” she says.
• Blog posts:Montgomery believes that providing links to blog articles is a great way to gain exposure and increase website traffic. She recommends including the first paragraph of a couple of recent blog articles in each e-newsletter, along with a “read more” tag at the bottom that takes the reader to the full post. A financial advisor, for example, could include a link to a blog article about how to effectively budget spending costs and save money.
• Upcoming Events:Including information about upcoming events allows clients to stay in-the-know about events the small business will be participating in that are open to the public. A spa, for example, could highlight an upcoming Girl’s Night Out pampering event to attract both new and current clients.
• Social Media Links:Social media links in an e-newsletter help drive traffic and encourage clients to find out more about the company on those channels. “Include not only a link, but an introduction to the content such as, ‘Are you following us on social media?’ followed by one or two posts from each social media platform,” says Montgomery.
• Images: Montgomery suggests including one image for each different section of the newsletter. “It breaks up the copy and is visually stimulating for the reader,” she says.
• A Coupon or Special Offer: By offering a discount or special offer of some kind, it gives recipients incentive to work with the business and try something that they may not have done otherwise. For example, a retail store could include information about a special promotion or coupon to save on in-store purchases.
• Business Information: Montgomery recommends including information about the small business, like a description of services and contact information, and have a link to the company’s website at the bottom of the e-newsletter.

The Wolfgang Jaegel infographic indicates that for every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investments, which means that when done right, e-newsletters can be an inexpensive yet highly effective way to connect with and attract new clients and keep current clients engaged. “Former clients are more likely to refer new business to a company if they receive regular reminders, which can be included in an e-newsletter,” says Montgomery. “It is also a great way to keep current clients in the loop of what’s going on at a company, and gives potential customers insight into a business that they may not get simply from the business’s website alone.”

Nicole Altavilla is a freelance writer with more than seven years of experience writing for B2B publications, including American Spa and American Salon. She resides in New Jersey with her husband and son.

Planning a charity event can take months, but what’s the use of all that event planning if no one knows about it to show up? Promoting your charity event is a vital part of the process and needs to be a factor when considering your overall budget. While you want to make sure costs are covered when planning any event, the purpose of a charity event is to make sure that the funds raised can go directly to the charity.

When budgeted improperly, costs can add up quickly, but promotion is one area in which you can keep them low. Think of inexpensive or free ways to get the word out about your upcoming event. With a little brainstorming and creativity, you and your team can come up with what will work best for your event. Here are some ideas to get started:

1) Use Social Media

Generally, social media is free. You don’t have to buy into the advertising that is offered to share your event with the public. Create an event on Facebook that lists all the important information with regular updates counting down the days until the event. People like to see the details all in one place and keep track of who is going. If you are using Eventbrite to sell tickets, make sure this link is included within the Facebook event.  Also, use social media to share your event with online influencers who might be interested in attending and will help spread the word. Twitter and Instagram are two useful networks for planning posts to be released several times a week to increase viewership and engagement. It is also a good idea to find the sub-Reddit of the city or town that your event will be held in to notify those users as well.

2) Reach Out to Your Network

Put together an email blast to be sent to everyone you know. It is important that you encourage them to attend your event without feeling like they are being spammed. Make the email fun and include information about the charity and why it’s an important cause to you. Use a service such as MailChimp to create a template that will be eye-catching and informative. Let your network know you’d love for them to be part of your meaningful event and make sure all the details are included. For a tentative guest list, you can also set up a free Evite account online.

3) Get Creative with Signs or Fliers

Marketers have found that promoting brand messaging online has a better chance of being seen than paper fliers, but it’s still a good idea to put efforts into both, especially when considering your target audience. You can order signs online delivered to the event space to help spread word around the town of the event.  Create one simple design and share it across all the promotional materials you’ll be using to reach the people you already know and also the people in your community who may be interested in your charity. Since you can create signs in bulk, this cuts down on cost and makes it so you can reach a larger audience in a more cost effective manner.

4) Hold a Raffle

Everyone likes a chance to win something and when the money is going to charity, people are likely to be more generous. Contact local businesses who may be interested in being an event sponsor and ask if they’d be willing to provide prizes to be raffled. They’ll get additional promotion and you get fantastic raffle prizes – it’s a win/win situation. Prizes don’t have to be expensive or over-the-top either. They can be as simple as restaurant gift cards, gift baskets filled with products from a few of your sponsors, or even handmade items from your crafty friends.

5) Word of Mouth

People immediately turn to marketing online when promoting their events, but forget the power of good old-fashioned word of mouth. Most likely if you are spending months planning your charity event, your friends and family will be well aware of what you’re doing. Encourage them to tell others about the event and talk about it in your social circles. The more people who know about it, the better chance for a successful turnout you will have.

Although there is a lot that goes into planning and executing a successful charity event, these are just a few tips and tricks to make the entire process easier for you.  As a leader, you have a lot of choices and decisions to make.  Have you ever thrown a charity event? What worked for you? What didn’t?  Let us know down below in the comments.

Infographic contributed by Keith Tully of Real Business Rescue

Source: How B2B Businesses Are Tackling Social Media In 2015

Are you starting a new restaurant? Do you want it to grow faster with online marketing?

The number of people who are connected to the Internet is growing at an exponential rate. Many restaurant owners are looking at it, and they are trying to latch onto the trend.

There are many ways to market your restaurant online. In this guide, we will only look at practical ideas that a fairly new restaurant can do to bring patrons to its doorsteps.

Here’s the thing about branding and marketing: most of the time we think that it has to be as big and bold and loud as possible. We want one tiny branding message to reach and be acted on by the entire world. It’s the mentality that makes car dealership owners shout and wear crazy costumes during their commercials.

Covert marketing is sly and smooth and, when done properly, the recipient of the marketing effort doesn’t know that you’ve been trying to sell them. They are convinced that their impulse to check out your site, buy your product or talk to their friends about you is their very own idea. It is the best kind of marketing possible because it relies on real people to say genuine things. One person says one good thing about you to two friends. Those two friends tell two friends, etc. You’ve heard the analogy before. So how do you do it? How do you get in there without being obvious and potentially alienating the recipient?

Be a Human First

One of the first rules of marketing and networking is to realize that networking and marketing opportunities are everywhere. A chance meeting in line at the coffee shop, if played right, could lead to your next business connection! If you look at every person you come across as a potential sale, though, you’re going to alienate more people than you attract.

Try to relate to each person you meet as a human being. Don’t mention your business. Instead, say “it was really nice talking to you. Can I give you my card?” If the person says yes, give him or her your card. Or, you can be more direct and ask what the person does for a living. It is one of the laws of polite society that questions about occupation must be reciprocated. When they ask what you do, tell that person and hand over a card. Then let the conversation move along naturally.

Always Put Your Best Face Forward

Do you remember when we talked about the importance of always using and giving away high quality stationery supplies? This is true out in the world, too. Actually using high quality products in natural every day settings makes people curious about you. Leaving notes on company stationery, signing credit card slips with good pens, etc: it projects a subtle air of success.

There is no reason to use a generic cheap pen when you have branded high quality merchandise that doubles as a marketing ploy at your disposal.

Using the above example, with the exchange of business cards “in the wild,” it is important that you not hand over a hand printed card or something that is poorly designed. Your business card is your first impression and since business card printing has gotten much more affordable, even bootstrapping startup entrepreneurs can hand over beautiful cards.

Trust us: ink jet printed business cards stops working once you leave your college campus. Go pro or go home.

Finally: Let it Go

So many branding messages and marketing attempts have a distinct air of desperation about them. Desperation kills sales. Instead, focus on the connection and if a sale happens as a result, great! If not, there are other opportunities out there. This works on you when you shop somewhere, right? Being descended upon by employees makes you want to run right back out of the store. But a shop employee who greets you warmly and then leaves you alone (but is happy to answer questions when you approach them) makes you want to buy twice as much, right?  And, if you’re focused on the person and not the opportunity, you won’t have any trouble putting your blatant selling techniques away.

This all probably feels counter intuitive to what you’ve already learned. Trust us; taking a relaxed approach and letting your materials do the work for you will go further and farther than any “hey, look at me!” approach you can think up.