Have you listed your business on Yelp yet? No! What the hell are you waiting for?

But all seriousness aside, Yelp is great for the small business. Yelp is what the Yellowpages should have become had they been on their game. Yelp will help you if you don’t have a website acting as a de facto website, and it will give you a powerful backlink if you do have a website. Plus it will drive hundreds of visitors to you.

Here is a great article giving 4 reasons why Yelp is perfect for your business:

Yelp for Business: 4 Steps for Success
Samuel Axon

For local small businesses, Yelp isn’t just an option — it’s a necessity. People in urban centers use it to choose where to go to dinner, where to buy clothes, and where to be entertained. Users decide where and how to spend their money using Yelp, so if your business is local, you need to curate your Yelp page.

If your business has been around long, you probably already have a page; you’re just not holding the reins yet. You’ll want to step in and take control of it as soon as possible, because using it correctly can bring you new business and prevent any negative word of mouth from hindering your growth and success.

Claiming or creating your Yelp business page is easy; just fill out a couple of online forms and answer a quick, automated phone call. It takes less than five minutes. Once you’re signed up, you’ll have access to tools that will help you engage your customers and spread the word about what you’re offering to the community. Here are a few basic tips for successfully leveraging the tools Yelp offers you for the benefit of your local business.

1. Fill Out Your Business Info Completely

Customers refer to Yelp business pages to learn about a business before going out to visit in person. If the information on the Yelp page is incomplete, they’re likely to move on to a competitor that provides more details simply because they’ll better know what to expect and are less likely to be surprised, be disappointed or have their time wasted.

The administration page for business owners offers a slew of fields and choices for sharing information to make it easy for users to know exactly what to expect. If you provide the information they’re looking for, they’re more likely to become reliable, paying customers. So fill out as much information as you can, and keep it up to date.

2. Respond Constructively to Customer Reviews

Last Spring, Yelp gave business owners the ability to respond to negative reviews, either to privately make apologies to reviewers or publicly correct misinformation. Don’t skimp on using this feature because you’re afraid of making things worse; it can turn a bad situation around. Dissatisfied customers will often give you a second look if you communicate to them that you value their input and are making changes to improve your business.

Yelp published an easy-to-use guide to constructive user review responses on its website. It includes examples of how not to respond to user reviews and how best to. Some of the tips are obvious, but some of them aren’t. They’re worth a look, as is my colleague Josh Catone’s recent post, “How to Deal with Negative Feedback.”

3. Make Offers and Announcements Regularly

Yelp allows you to share special offers and announcements not just with the people who visit your page, but with members of the larger community who might not even know about your business. When you create an offer or announcement on Yelp, it appears in the offers and announcements directory for your city. People who have never heard of your business will see them there. They’ll even find you in search results.

The more of these offers and announcements you make, the more likely it will be that Yelp users will discover your business, so come up with creative ways to draw people in, then share the news.

4. Display Yelp Badges on Your Website or Blog

Yelp provides badges that you can embed on your business’s website or blog that show that you’re on Yelp and engaged with your community. They’ll even tell visitors how many positive reviews you’ve had.

These badges give potential customers the impression that you have existing satisfied customers vouching for you, so they’ll be more likely to trust you with their business. The badges also act as links between your Yelp page and your other online outreach efforts. People can click a badge to read reviews or get more information. If a satisfied customer visits your site or blog, the badge might lead that person to leave his or her own positive review.

Is Advertising on Yelp Worth it?

You may also choose to advertise on Yelp. It costs between $300 and $1,000 per month — it’s kind of like a premium account — but there’s a chance that you’ll increase your exposure if you opt in, because you’ll appear at the top of the list when users perform a search related to your business.

There are a few other benefits as well. For example, you’ll be able to feature one good review of your choosing at the top of the list on your business page. You still can’t edit, move or delete other reviews, though.

It’s difficult to measure exactly how much these premium benefits will help you; it depends on a number of factors unique to your business and your city.

Bookmark to

How to Get Massive Signups to your Website!

This is something that I have been personally struggling with forever. How do I get people to sign up for my mailing list? I follow all the pundits advice; or so I believe. Yet I get no sign ups.

Of course maybe you just don’t want to hear what I have to say; or I don’t give you everything you want…I just don’t know, because you never talk to me. Never leave me comments or advice. I just feel unloved…

(Reminds me of high school.)

But seriously, it is imperative that you get a large list of names and email addresses so that you can regularly mail them something. However you get this list does not matter, you just need to get the list.

I have found this wonderful article about how to build up a huge mailing list. It is short but to the point. I hope that you enjoy it:

Attracting Prospects to Your Sign-Up Page
March 13th, 2010

Once you have a great sign-up page and an irresistible offer, it’s time to create some traffic. A steady flow of traffic to your sign-up page is essential to your success. Here are several strategies that can help you quickly build traffic to your sign-up page.

Visualize, Focus Your Efforts and Act. To create new traffic, you must first visualize yourself as having a large client list. This is important, because seeing yourself as successful helps focus your efforts. Set a target size for your list and give yourself a time limit for achieving it. Picturing that success can get a process going that will build your list.

Next, learn which forums your target audience frequents and hang out there. Read their questions and comments. It’s a good way to find out exactly what they want. Post comments and respond to questions, but be careful not to say blatantly, “Sign up for my free report!” Useful comments with your email address, photo and the URL of your sign-up page in your profile can be very effective in attracting traffic.

You can also borrow traffic from someone else’s client list by connecting with people who sell related products. Decide which related products will truly benefit your clients. Look for websites your target audience is likely to frequent.

Consider ways you can benefit those companies by featuring their products, and ask them to do the same for you. Ask for testimonials or links to your products, and return the favor. Doing so can expand your impact significantly. Use this strategy carefully, however. Handing out testimonials indiscriminately weakens your own reputation.

There’s another idea you might not have considered for quickly building traffic to your sign-up page. Run competitions with your existing clients. Reward them for referring others to your sign-up page. If you have a well-written newsletter filled with useful content, your clients will be glad to share it with other professionals.

Award a free copy of one of your digital products to the 1,000th subscriber and also to the person who referred them. Offer a free copy of that product to the existing client who generates the most traffic. It won’t cost you very much and you can gain loads of new prospects on your list. If you’re hesitant to give away a product you normally sell, consider the long-term benefit. Gaining new traffic for the cost of one product is a good trade-off.

Steady Traffic Equals a Strong List. Building a strong list requires a steady stream of new traffic to your sign-up page. Start by visualizing yourself with a great client list, and then focus your efforts on increasing traffic. Experiment with forum comments, product testimonials and client contests to encourage prospects to visit your sign-up page.

Traffic-building techniques such as these, combined with a well-written sign-up page and an irresistible offer, can put you on the path to a solid client list that sustains your business.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Bookmark to

The internet is growing exponentially. And with stats like these how can you justify not being on the internet in today’s world? The answer is simple…You can’t.

There was a wonderful article from Mashable today which I think beautifully lays out what I trying to say. You can also check out the video first.

Individual stats like Facebook passing the 400 million user mark, Twitter hitting 50 million tweets per day, and YouTube viewers watching 1 billion videos per day are impressive on their own, but what if we looked at Internet-related stats collectively? Jesse Thomas did just that in his video State of the Internet.

The video — created and animated by Thomas with data from multiple sources — highlights some remarkable figures and visually depicts the Internet as we know it today. It’s a must-watch video for anyone trying to wrap their minds around just how immersed web technologies have become in our everyday lives.

You can watch the video below, but we’ve also included some of the most intriguing figures shared in the video:

- There are 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide as of September 2009.

- There are 1.4 billion e-mail users worldwide, and on average we collectively send 247 billion e-mails per day. Unfortunately 200 billion of those are spam e-mails.

- As of December 2009, there are 234 million websites.

- Facebook gets 260 billion pageviews per month, which equals 6 million page views per minute and 37.4 trillion pageviews in a year.

So if your business is still in the internet darkages then now is your time to get out of it. TheSuccessfulBiz.Com team and I can help you with that. From inexpensive SEO rich websites to a top-notch social media presence that drives in hordes of new and potential customers everyday. Just go to the “contact us” page and fill out the form and we’ll get right back to you.

Bookmark to

September 16, 2009

Last week, I was asked for ideas on ways brands can participate in social media circles despite the fact that they don’t have frequent new product announcements and company news.

It’s a good question that I think keeps some brands away from social media. They realize that ongoing, consistent participation in social media gives their brands the best shot at standing out and connecting with customers, but they don’t feel like they have enough new things to share.

Since social media is not best used solely as another way to distribute news releases, I highly recommend that you outline the types of content you’ll share in your social media efforts as you develop your strategy and identify the places where your brand will participate.

Here are a few ideas to jump start the discussion. Please share your ideas in the comments.

Loosely-related Valuable Stuff

What is the big picture, end benefit that your brand or product delivers that adds value to the lives of your customers? Relief? Joy? Knowledge? Confidence? Health? Bringing people together? Once you’ve identified your end benefit, share anything in your social spaces that also delivers that to the people you’re connected with, even if it’s momentarily.

For example, SunTrust Bank gives you tools and tips to make solid, confident financial decisions. The company is kicking off its social media participation and one thing it’s doing purposefully is starting discussions around everyday ways to Live Solid. If I worked with a baby products brand, I’d spend a little time every day scouring YouTube and other places to find short baby videos and stories that remind parents why they love being parents.

Industry News

Don’t just share your news. Share news related to your overall industry that your customers might find interesting. It’s a way to keep them informed without it being all about your company.

For example, if you’re in a regulated industry, share updates on proposed, pending and new regulations. If something is proposed that would have a negative impact on the ability of you and your competitors to run profitable businesses, share your concerns with your social media connections. If appropriate, try to inspire and mobilize them to share their thoughts with regulators.

Your Personal Side

People want to do business with people. Actually, they want to do business with people they like. Empower your social media community managers to be human and share tidbits about their daily lives. Ask questions and acknowledge and implement the answers from people who take the time to respond. This helps humanize your brand and create personal connections with current and potential customers.

What would you add? What other types of things can brands share in social media spaces to add value to the conversations?

Here is a link to the original article: http://www.davidwmullen.com/2009/09/16/3-things-to-tweet-that-arent-about-your-brand/

Bookmark to

One of the most important things a company can do is build a good reputation and making sure that reputation is spread like wildfire on a grass roots level. One the best tools for this is testimonials.

But lets be honest, how many local businesses actually collect testimonials let alone promote them? Very few. Yet you see all the major corporations getting and using testimonials from their customers. Why? Because it is effective marketing.

Internet marketers, especially the rich ones, thrive on getting and splashing success stories all over their sales pages. Books have endorsements from leaders in the world on the back cover. But so few business, and the majority of local businesses even refuse to collect them.

No joke. I went to Dible Builders here in my hometown to let them know of good techniques which may help them overcome this housing crisis. I was told by their 80yr old marketing director pointblank that they were NOT going to get or use testimonials, because this gentlemen stated “No one is going to want to have their name associated with us!”. Speaks volumes doesn’t it.

Well if you have a shitty product, then of course no one wants to put their name in association with yours, but if you have a great product and service and you do an awesome job, then why wouldn’t they be a reference for you.

If you belong to charities or groups and they say you are the greatest thing since sliced bread, why wouldn’t you want to scream that from the rooftops? Only an insane person wouldn’t want to promote that. It is only good for business.

The thing about social media is that now you can, to a degree, control what gets said about you and your business. You can influence other to spread your message far and wide.

I had another businessman, Ken Sudall from “Go Green Glass” express to me that there is no use for Facebook or Twitter in his business. What? Are you nuts? Of course there is. Facebook and Twitter is not about driving business to your business, it is about relationships. Driving business to your business is secondary.

However, you can get a lot of your Facebook and Twitter friends to spread tons of good news about you. And that, my friends, is effective marketing.

Good news made well known is the definition of good PR. Getting that message is object of marketing. Good marketing then is spreading good PR out to the big wide world.

Success stories, testimonials, or whatever you call it are good news, thus it is good PR. You must get that passed out by the boat loads. Social media is a tool to help with that.

But don’t forget the importance of testimonials. People believe what other people say about you more than what you say about you. Get tons of people saying good things about you and the battle is over, get them to say it a lot and the war is over.

Good News Made Well Known is your best strategy. Use it, and use it often.

Bookmark to

2 Reasons You Don’t Promote Your Business On The Internet And Why That Keeps You From Booming.

I just couldn’t figure it out. I keep going to businesses and telling them all about my marketing strategies and how I can help them harness the power of the internet to double, Triple or even QUADRUPLE their business and they seem just not to care…

Okay; that is not exactly true…they do care, and are even interested in utilizing my services. But they don’t. Why?

Why are you so afraid of using the internet to expand your business? Is it because you think you know better than me? Are just too busy? Don’t have the money? What is the reason?

Well I know why you don’t use the internet. And it isn’t because you don’t have the time or the money…those are just excuses you say to me just to get me out of your office.

No, the reason you don’t use my services, or the internet to market your business is because:

1. You don’t understand the internet really, and it overwhelms you, and
2. You are just plain scared.

And you know what? You are absolutely right. The internet is scary and overwhelming. It isn’t that it is hard to learn, it is that there is just so much too learn. It is hard to find the place to start.

I got it! Really. I understand.

The first thing that you should do is just pick one internet tool; like Twitter and learn the ins and outs of it. Master it. Learn how to make it yours and “work the system” so to speak.

Once you have done that, then pick another aspect of the internet like YouTube. Master that.

And while you are doing that. Search the internet and learn everything that you can. Go as slow or fast as need to you so that you understand what it is that I am trying to do for you.

It is all very simple really. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll be alright:

1. Pick on thing to learn on the internet.
2. Study it.
3. Practice it.
4. Master it.
5. Search the internet and study something else.

It really is just that simple. Read it, practice it, do it. A very simple formula to mastering the internet and marketing.

Don’t let the silly excuses like time or money get in your way.

Remember: Read it, practice it and do it! Bada bing, bada boom.

Bookmark to

I believe, unless you have been living in a cave, you have heard of Facebook or Myspace or Twitter. These are social media sites that have garnered a lot of attention lately. And if you are not using these sites to market your small local business then you are missing out.

You must understand what the internet is all about if you are to use it effectively. It is a tool to educate and entertain people. And you must be INVOLVED or you will not be successful.

Social Media sites like those above or bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon, Digg or Reddit are sites that allow you to interact with others that share your similar tastes. And all marketing is is interaction with potential clients.

So, using this logic, if you are not using services like Facebook or Twitter or Stumbleupon then you should not even be in business as the idea of being in business is interaction with you and your clients by definition.

The internet is quickly becoming the Yellowpages of our age. We are going to Google and Yahoo before we even open the yellowpages these days. So if you have no presence on line then you will no presence really at all except for a small contingent that may drive by your business everyday or so.

BY having your customers interact with you daily, weekly or monthly through social media sites like the above, and regularly using blogs and newsletter to further inform your client list you are creating a huge advantage over your competitors.

Here is an example: Whom would you rather do business with? A friend that you speak to often, or a complete stranger? That is the power of social media marketing.

With social media marketing you are becoming a friend. And people like to do business with friends.

So here is what you need to do:

1. Sign up with Facebook
2. Sign up with Stumbleupon
3. Sign up with twitter
4. Interact and make friends
5. Build a large list of friends and suggest your services to them.

While it is a bit more complex than this to use social media marketing effectively, these steps are the basic foundation from which to start. I suggest that you just sign up and becomes friends with as many poeple as you can without having the intention of selling your services or products, then after a short time when you have built up some trust then slowly start to market yourself.

By using these techniques, if you don’t see a huge jump in sales then you are doing something very wrong.

The moral of this article is simple, get out there on the internet and start interacting with people on a friendly note and the business will come to you.

Make sure that you share this article and website with all your friends by subscribing to my RSS feed or clicking the share bitton at the bottom of this article.

Bookmark to

How You Can Use Relationship Marketing To Create A Massive Interest In Your Small Business And Explode Your Profits In 2 Simple Steps!

I have done something that, for me is very uncharacteristic, and that was to watch a little TV. And I was struck by the thought how much our favorite TV shows are much alike to our businesses and how we could use “relationship marketing” to create a massive interest in our businesses.

I know it was a bit of a stretch but sitting there and watching one of my favorite shows – Heros – I saw how we could use the formula of successful TV shows in our businesses.

The popular TV shows that we all like have something in common. Depending on our likes and dislikes all the shows we like are well acted and produced, and they have a continuing plot line that leaves us looking for more after each episode.

Unlike our favorite TV shows of the past where each show was done and over with in an hour, our shows are now drag us along through the entire season, miss one episode and you are left behind.

So the formula is this:

1. Give great content. And,
2. Hook us to keep coming back for more.

How this applies to our small business is quite simple. No matter the type of business you have you can apply this simple formula. And here is how you do it:

1. Give great service and products. And,
2. have them keep coming back for more.

Let me give and example. Let us say you have a “paint your own pottery” shop. First and foremost you would have a great space for which to provide this service, something that is safe and fun to be in, then you would give the best customer service that you could. Now for step two; have them wanting to come back for more…

This is where relationship marketing comes into play.

By having an email newsletter you could develop a friendly relationship with each of your customers. In your newsletters you would create a continuing saga about the shop and/or you, or even the town you are in. By keeping your customers updated in regular intervals you would keep customer interest on you and your pottery shop.

For instance, the saga you could create would be to renovate your store. By sending out regular emails to your customers you could keep them abreast of all the nitty-gritty details of each step of the renovation. Or, another example might be, that you have an employ talented in singing that you are helping to get onto “American Idol”. You could write about her adventure to get discovered on that show. The examples are endless.

Of course you would throw into these emails promotions, discount coupons; whatever to get your customers keep coming back.

If you liked this article and it was helpful to you, please share this with your friends by hitting the share button below, and make sure that you subscribed to my RSS feed to get further issues of my blog.

Bookmark to

Why Marketing For Small Businesses Is More Important Than Building A Pretty Website And Imperative To Survive A Recession!

Marketing for small businesses like yours and mine seems to be this huge complicated thing that only larger companies can do because you have to have a huge budget to run. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Factually, if you don’t have any cash to pay someone to run a marketing campaign for you and you don’t mind putting in some hours then you can do it completely free.

Because this website is for online solutions for the small business we are only to concentrate on how you can run a successful and effective marketing campaign.

Marketing for small businesses does require a time investment, not necessarily a monetary one. I am going to explain briefly in this report and we’ll expound on these subjects and tactics in other issues; so make sure you sign up for my RSS feed (you can sign up at the upper right hand corner of this website.)

No matter what your business is you can market very effectively for no cash, just some time. I will be using how this done using the example of a moving business, as I know a little something about that. You may have to adapt these strategies to your business.

You need to know as well, that during hard economic times you have to INCREASE your marketing efforts if you wish to survive. Many business, whether large or small, tend to cut back on marketing during lean times. There is no faster way to kill your company then to back off on marketing. And the lean times do not have to be just during a recession.

When I first started my moving company and I needed to get the word out the first thing that I did was put a free classified ad on marketing. Literally ten minutes later I had my first paying move job. You need to be putting ads on all the free classified ad websites. Besides Craigslist, there is Backpage.com, Kijiji.com, Google Base and Yelp.

Craigslist is great for immediate exposure, the downside being that you have to post often if you are in a large city. Backpage and Kijiji don’t get the traffic that Craigslist does but they tend to get very high search engine rankings. Backpage and Kijiji also lend favorably towards a long sales page or article type of marketing because of their long shelf life. Craigslist you need to be short and sweet much like a traditional classifieds in a news paper.

Yellowpages advertising is crucial for a small business. I am not talking of their over-priced, under-effective book listings. I am talking about their free internet listings. The Yellowpages allows you to have a free listing with them for the internet. Simply fill out a profile of your business and you are off a running. What I like about this profile is that it acts much like a mini-website. Yelp is very similar to the Yellowpages in this regard. The difference is that Yelp tends to higher organic search engine rankings. Google Maps is vital marketing for small businesses. Like the Yellowpages and Yelp, Google Maps provides a profile page that acts like a mini-website. Remember to add pictures and video to your profiles for greater effectiveness.

Writing articles and submitting them to article directories is very smart. Though article marketing for small businesses is a more long term marketing solution. I suggest that you write an informative or interesting article of about 400-600 words and submit them to the article directories. Below I have listed some great sources for you to submit your articles:

• Google Knol
• Google Base
• Squidoo.com
• Hubpages.com
• Associated Content
• Ezinearticles.com
• Goarticles.com

Additionally, Squidoo, Hubpages and Associated Content will also pay you to write articles for their sites. I will not go into that here with this article, but know that you can actually generate a small a cash flow from those three sources while driving people into your website or business.

Blogging is imperative for a small business. Despite it being a great way to get a tremendous amount of traffic organically through the search engines, but it build a relationship between you and your clients. Use your articles that you have written as blog posts. Blog about your day, the weather, or your community in general. Blog like you would be talking to a friend. Marketing for small businesses is almost dependent on blogging.

I used my blog as my primary website. I have over 200 different articles on the website. I put my testimonials of my business. I can’t tell you how many times that people hired me just because of the articles and tips that I put on blog. I got moving jobs just because of my blog. Blogging is that important if used correctly.

Here are just a few tools you need to be using in marketing for a small business:

• Blogging
• Article Marketing
• Free Classified Ads
• Free Business Listings
• SEO
• Email and Newsletter Marketing.

I know that many of you don’t know how to do marketing for small businesses, or if you do know how don’t have the time. The good news is that I do. If you would like to speak to me on how you can implement these things to market your small business, then either email me at jae@thesuccessfulbiz.com.

If you found the information useful please share with your friends by hitting the share button below. And make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed so that you can get further issues on marketing for small businesses.

Bookmark to