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How to Build a Powerful Small Business Brand Online and Offline

By on May 16, 2013 in Branding & Marketing, Q & A Interview, SmallBizChat, Social Media

SMALL BIZ CHAT LOGO 20121 300x123 How to Build a Powerful Small Business Brand Online and OfflineEvery week I conduct interviews with experts on #SmallBizChat. In honor of my 200th episode of my Twitter talk show, the tables have been turned and my co-host Amanda Miller Littlejohn, decided that my fans might want to hear from me. #Smallbizchat takes place every Wednesday on Twitter from 8-9 pm ET. This is excerpted from my interview on branding and social media marketing. Don’t forget to grab a copy of my latest ebook How to Become a Social Media Ninja; 101 Ways to Dominate Your Competition Online and join my #Smallbizchat group on LinkedIn to get even more information on building a strong business brand online.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: What is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when it comes to branding their business?

Melinda Emerson: The biggest problem small business owners have is they market their brand too broadly.  If everyone can use your product or service, no one will. Don’t be generic with your small business; be specific in your branding. Your message must speak to your target customer. Your brand should say what you and your business are all about. I’m @SmallBizLady and my mission is to end small business failure.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: Can a business be marketed effectively without a strong brand?

Melinda Emerson: I do not think a small business stands a chance without a strong brand. Keep in mind your brand is everything you do. How you dress, who answers your phone, are you always late. Your brand is also your website, which is your welcome mat into your small business. You must make sure it’s tight and helpful.  Check out a recent article I wrote for the New York Times on having a strong website.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: What steps should entrepreneurs take to identify and define their brand?

Melinda Emerson:  First, they need to define their target customer. Then, they need to carve out a specific niche and secret sauce to stand out. The niche can be geographical, product specific, or it can be based on a segment of your target customer. If your target is audience is women, drill it down because that is not specific enough. It can be tween girls, young adults, single moms, professional women, soccer moms or baby-boomers. Just pick one and become the czar or czarina of that niche.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: I’ve heard you talk before about how important business cards are to a brand, Can you elaborate on your philosophy?

Melinda Emerson: Social media is great, but business cards are still important. Small business owners should invest in a real logo. Word art or clip art or those dreadful free business cards you can get from a template will not cut it.  Your brand should also be at least two colors and use quality paper to print them on.  A cheap looking business card will kill your credibility.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: Can a small business be effective in social media without a strong brand?

Melinda Emerson: It’s even harder to distinguish yourself in social media with a weak brand because there is so much noise online.  No one will pay any attention to a “me too” brand. You must distinguish yourself online and offline. How you conduct yourself in social media makes a brand statement. Is it clear who your customers are from your tweets? Well, it should be very clear.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: How should your brand influence your content strategy for social media marketing?

Melinda Emerson:  Once you have a defined target customer you need to focus in on that customer’s pain. People are moved to buy when they have pain. As you think about the content you want to develop, you should start with a list of your customer pain points.  If your brand speaks to your solution for solving the pain, you will have customers for life – if you can deliver service based on your brand promise.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: What are the signs of a well-defined brand?

Melinda Emerson:  When you become top of mind to anyone who needs what you do, your brand is well defined.  When you get prospect calls and they already have decided they want to hire you, and all you are discussing is their budget and your availability, your brand is well defined. When you stop needing to explain what you do or what your logo “really” stands for, your brand is well defined.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: How does branding relate to the broader marketing strategy of a business?

Melinda Emerson:  Marketing starts with a well-defined brand. You must know who you want to speak to first, then you develop your sales goals.  Now you know I tell my readers to only focus on 30 day sales goals, which will help you focus on weekly sales goals.  Once you have your weekly sales goal, you design your marketing tactics to meet your weekly goal.  How many calls, emails, tweets, handwritten notes, and networking events do you need to attend each week to reach your sales goals.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: How important is it that a marketing strategy be tied to measurable results?

Melinda Emerson:  If a marketing tactic is not measurable, it’s useless. But keep in mind that you must have a realistic goal for what you want to achieve. When you start using social media, it’s not going to start raining money in your business immediately. It took me 18 months of daily tweets to get noticed and respected.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: What are the marketing tools that should be in every entrepreneur’s tool kit?

Melinda Emerson: 1) Create a helpful website. 2) Develop a fantastic free giveaway to build an email marketing list. Some affordable email marketing services are @mailchimp, @constantcontact, and @aweber. 3) Update your LinkedIn profile to speak to your target customer, you are not looking for a job. Especially – secure recommendations from customers like the ones you are trying to pursue. 4) Focus on only one social media site! Too many small business owners are killing themselves trying to do too many social media sites. Claim your profile on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube but spend your time where your best target customers hang out online.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: How can social media add to the effectiveness of a small business sales strategy?

Melinda Emerson: The #1 thing social media marketing can do for a small business owner is drive traffic to your small business website. That said, social media doesn’t deliver results overnight. You must use the HELP Mantra consistently for 18 to 24 months to start seeing results. HELP stands for Help others, Engage people, Listen first, and Promote yourself with care. That last one is really tricky because it’s the one people really do not understand. Do not start selling too quickly before you have a relationship. Just be helpful and position yourself as a resource and your best target customer will beat a path to your door.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn: What are the top 3 priorities for entreprenuers who want to build a social media brand?

Melinda Emerson: 1) Develop some specific goals for your social media marketing campaign. 2) Know your best 5 keywords that people use in search engines to get information about your product or service 3) Conduct a listening campaign to figure out where your best target customer hangs out online and then join the conversation.

If you found this interview helpful, join us on Wednesdays 8-9 pm ET; follow @SmallBizChat on Twitter. Here’s how to participate in : http://bit.ly/S797e

For more tips on how start or grow your small business subscribe to Melinda Emerson’s blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com.

Melinda F. Emerson, known to many as SmallBizLady is America’s #1 small business expert. As CEO of Quintessence Multimedia, Melinda educates entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies on subjects including small business start-up, business development and social media marketing to fulfill her mission to end small business failure. She writes a weekly column on social media for The New York Times. Forbes Magazine named her #1 woman for entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. She hosts  Wednesdays on Twitter 8-9pm ET for emerging entrepreneurs. She also publishes a resource blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com Melinda is also the bestselling author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works and the ebook: How To Become A Social Media Ninja; 101 Ways to Dominate Your Competition Online.

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Why You Need To Build An Email List, and Not a Social Media Profile

By on May 14, 2013 in Branding & Marketing, Guest Articles

Why You Need To Build An Email List and Not A Social Media Profile 300x272 Why You Need To Build An Email List, and Not a Social Media ProfileGuest Article

I’ve got news for you — when you’re building your social media profile (and not your email list), you’re setting yourself up for failure. Here’s why: Your goal with social media should be to drive traffic back to your own website.  Once your target lands there, you’d best have at least three ways to get them to give you their email address.  Without a way to follow-up with more helpful information, your chances of converting a visitor into a customer are quite slim.  Here are more reasons why you should focus your marketing efforts on building your email list first — before social media.

#1 When you build your social media profile, you’re at the mercy of a third party company that you don’t control. One day Facebook might change their EdgeRank, and you’ll have to start paying to talk to your own fans (oh wait, that already happened). Another day, your account might get banned for no reason. Another day, another travesty. Do you really want someone else to control YOUR business? Put your best effort into a platform you control, your website.

#2 When you build your social media profile, you’ll be plagued with mediocre results forever. Here are some numbers: If I share a link with my 16,000 Facebook fans, I might get 200-300 hits… MAX. If I share a link with 16,000 email subscribers, I’m going to send AT LEAST 2,000 hits. Now, I know you can’t spend hits, but those hits are people. And the more people you can send to your website, the more money you can make. Period.

#3 Despite email not being sexy, it’s still the BEST way to keep in touch with YOUR ideal customers. Think about it. When people use social media, your business competes with close friends, party invites, and photographs. When you use email, your business competes with other businesses–and possibly coworkers who want your subscriber to do something they don’t want to do. I don’t know about you, but I would rather buy a new John Varvatos jacket from Gilt than another set of business cards.

How to Start Building An Email List

Now that you want an email list, the question is, how do you start BUILDING the email list?

#1 Three High-Converting Places to Add Email Signup Forms to Your Website

When you want to build your list, you’ve got to place email signup forms in the right places. Why? A form at the top of your site converts almost 5 times higher than a form on the bottom. Small changes–just like that—mean big results.

Where can you place them?

Try The Halpern Header

When you go to SocialTriggers.com, you’ll see a big box at the top of the page. A box that spans across the top of my content and sidebar. I call this the “Halpern Header.”

This box at the top converts amazingly well. Whether you’re running a blog or not, giving prime real-estate is a surefire way to start turning more of your visitors into leads (and customers).

You might think, “Well, won’t people get sick of seeing it?” And the answer is no. Why? Because once people get on your email list, they’ll rarely visit your homepage anymore. Instead they’ll follow your emails directly to content.

(Note: Even if you don’t run a blog, creating a Halpern Header works because it’s asking for an email in the most highly viewed part of your page)

The Top of your Sidebar

Most websites have sidebars, and yours is likely no different. Most people put an email signup form at the bottom of their sidebar, but they shouldn’t. An email signup form at the top converts almost twice as much as an email signup form at the bottom.

One note: You should put your email signup form ABOVE your social media profiles. As we talked about earlier, email crushes social media.

Try the bottom of your content pages

When a website visitor reads your content, and reads the entire thing, and they love your work (or at least like it enough to actually read it) Why not ask them to sign up right after the post ends?

It converts well, and it grabs a reader right when they’re feeling great about your work.

#2 How to Start Getting Traffic To Build Your Email List

Now that you’re ready to convert visitors into subscribers, the next thing you need is traffic. Traffic that converts.  And that’s where what I call “The Drafting Technique,” comes into play. Here’s the deal:

When you’re racing at high speeds, like with cars, there’s wind resistance that slows you down.

But you can eliminate that resistance by drafting, which is fancy for “get behind the guy in front of you.”

How? You see, the person in front breaks the wind resistance, and the people behind him can maintain their speed while expending less energy because they take advantage of the “slipstream.”

Now, like with racing, top bloggers also have a slipstream, or better yet, a “link slipstream.” What’s a “link slipstream?”

Bloggers (or journalists) have a history of linking to businesses, websites, or topics. It’s your job to find people who write about the same thing you’d like to be featured for. You do this by looking for people who wrote about competing products, competing companies, or even someone just like you.

As an example, back when I started Social Triggers, I looked at someone like Lewis Howes (a friend). I discovered he was landing interviews all over the place, and decided to try and get interviewed by the same people.

This works because the people already had a history–a link slipstream–of covering people like me so I knew I could land the same interviews.

See how that works? This is the exact strategy YOU can use to start doing this as well!

And that’s it!

You can start building your list TODAY.

Now that you know why you should build a list… and how to convert traffic into email subscribers… and how to get traffic… you’re all set.

How do you plan on using these strategies to grow your business? Leave a comment and share!

Why You Need To Build An Email List, and Not a Social Media ProfileAbout the author: Derek Halpern is the founder of Social Triggers, a top marketing blog with 102,532 subscribers and a top marketing podcast on iTunes.

At Sign Aeroplane Shows Web Mailing Communication courtesy of Stuart Miles / www.freedigitalphotos.net

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How to Reinvent Your Small Business Brand

By on April 22, 2013 in Branding & Marketing, Business Inspiration

How to Reinvent Your Small Business Brand 300x225 How to Reinvent Your Small Business BrandIt’s springtime and this is a great time to not just prune the bushes outside, but this is equally a good time to take a hard look at your small business.  After you assess how well, or not so well your small business is doing, it might just be time to do something new.  I have four areas of to consider changing as you reinvent your small business brand.

Change Your Story – People do not remember pitches and slogans they remember the story you tell about your business. Reframe your message about who you serve and the results you develop for your customer. Remember it’s not about you — it’s about the problems you solve. Focus on the new problem that you want to specialize in solving. You may not want to eradicate your old brand entirely. Maybe think of it like getting a facelift. Honor what you learned when you launched the 1.0 version of your business, and emerge as the new and improved version.

Change Your Target – Small businesses succeed when they focus on a specific target customer. As you go through the process to reinvent your business, you will likely need to focus on an entirely new customer base. It’s actually easier to do that. People who already do business with you will always try to remind you of who you used to be.  It’s exhausting to constantly reeducate people about your new thing. When I first got into business, my firm Quintessence Multimedia was a video production company. These days we are a social media marketing firm, but I remember the first year or two when I changed my market, people still wanted to refer to me as “the video lady.” Subsequently, as my business changed my customers changed, too.  These days, I have only clients in Philadelphia where my business is based. You must make a mindset shift first in how you see your business and others will follow your lead.

Change Your Style – Your physical brand is a reflection of how you do business. Change your logo and brand colors as you reinvent your small business. Give your website a refresh. Send out a sleek direct mail piece to all your existing customers. Position yourself as a thought leader by blogging, seeking out speaking opportunities and sharing the latest trends in your industry. Start doing something new in social media. How about launching a video channel on YouTube?  Get a new headshot and work with a stylist to update your look.  When you feel and act differently people will treat you differently and your business will grow. People are drawn to people who look and act like they thought about what was going to happen before they left their office to attend a networking event.

Change Your Strategy – The most important step is to change your strategy. Create a new vision, mission, and goals for yourself and your business. Create a vision board of your end game. Get clear on “Why” you started your business, and “Why” you are staying in business. Take the time to think about the pain your customers have and how you can be the best solution. Look at what you have accomplished and keep things that worked and get rid of everything else. Success leaves clues everywhere. Study your competition and look for potential partnerships. Many times it’s better to partner than to compete.

How will you update and reinvent your business this Spring?

Butterfly courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti / www.freedigitalphotos.net

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