Susan Hamilton is the owner of OffBeat Business Media, editor and talk show host of The OffBeat Business Show on OBBM Radio and OffBeat Business TV, a business FOR business media company spotlighting what’s working right in American business today. To learn how audio, video, digital magazine articles and ads can help you build a strong, influential brand, contact Susan@OffBeatBusiness.com or call 214-714-0495.
Most companies that want to update their website have many ideas about what they want it to look like. I want people to understand that while a business website appearance is crucial to brand positioning, making it functional is equally important.
Your website isn’t just an address. If that’s all you use it for, you’re missing out! [Read more…] about How to Use Your Website as a Marketing Tool
Start a business, set up shop, and they will come, right? It would be nice if it all worked that way. If time has passed and you find yourself ‘drinking the economy kool-aid’, I have a little research project for you.
Ever heard the phrase, “Birds of a feather flock together?” While I’m a firm believer in philanthropy and helping out another, the business and scriptural principle we should be standing on is, “Iron sharpens iron,” not “The sky is falling.”
Successful people do what they see other successful people do. In business, you have to adopt the same kind of successful thinking – aggressively.
You will adopt the ideals of the company you keep, of the people you hang around. If you’re surrounding yourself with people who just don’t see success being possible, you’re in trouble deep.
Here’s an Analogy: [Read more…] about Don’t Do What They’re Doing
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Contact data is extremely important for so many reasons, from billing to house calls to marketing – you need to be able to reach both prospects and customers. Lists are compiled many ways:
When I’m consulting with business owners, I get asked all sorts of questions about list purchase. Well thought out list purchases are a great way to drill down on some core information about people. You can essentially target household incomes, how many generations live in the home, educational background, and even health-related information.
Depending on the level of specialization, the costs can actually be quite reasonable if you’re willing to do some of the mailing grunt work yourself.
You can keep it real simple when you use bulk coupon mailers that target zip codes, but the more a list can be defined, the better the results. Whenever you purchase a list, you need to think about the costs associated with running your campaign more than once, and preferably getting on a regularly scheduled routine.
This is where great targeting comes into play.
A great list has been refined. What do I mean by that? [Read more…] about How Do You Know if You Have a Useable ‘List’?
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So many choices! In an attempt to do everything, we end up doing nothing at all. Too many times we bargain our time, talents and money for less than we ought because it’s easier to do. Thinking through your strategies is a serious investment of time, it might cost some money, and it’s entirely possible that you may not have the talent to do what needs to get done in the best interest of your company.
Growing business isn’t for the weak at heart. It’s hard work, and keeping the costs of marketing within a moderate price range requires you do even more. You’ll hear many people tell you, “You can do it all yourself – here’s what you do.”
Friends, unless you have nothing else to do, that’s bad advice. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, and when you do, you won’t do anything. It’s human nature.
It’s never good to be a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none. Your marketing money is best spent when you manage to do what you need to do to make money, while the professional tasks are outsourced to a company you trust to propel your brand recognition and reputation.
The thing is, in business and in life, we need to learn that stretching is good. If a decision is between life staying easy and stretching for that next step, you need to make the step – it’s the only way you can grow. [Read more…] about Is Indecision Making You Settle For Less?
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The ability to blog for your business is such a gift! Your parent’s company didn’t have opportunities like you do today. You can literally control the content that goes out through your company website with only a few paragraphs a day.
That’s a tremendous advantage, because your audience learns to trust you way before they purchase or donate. That makes them a much warmer contact than if they just searched for you out of the phone book or online.
How do you decide if you trust a company’s services online? Is it just Russian Roulette, a gamble to see if they can back up their offer? Or do you take the time to go to reviews and look through a website to see if you learn anything about them that sets them apart from their competitors? [Read more…] about Can a Blog Build Your Business?
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Learning social media is a lot harder without something to share. If you want to grow your online reputation, simply posting pictures of your dinner or your cat might not be as effective as if you also had some blog posts written that would get a visitor to your website. NOW social media won’t be so hard, right? You’re not just filling space when you have something important about your organization to share.
When you’re just starting to blog, the whole thing is a little overwhelming. My advice is always to stay at it, because it does get easier. Get in the habit of writing down your thoughts, whether you use a notebook or Google docs, until you have about five posts. That way, you can take some of the pressure off yourself as you develop a routine that allows you to post more frequently.
Here are a few more tips to get you posting:
[Read more…] about How To Write An Easy Blog So You Can Share It
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