Attention Small Business Experts!  Here’s a New Way to Add Dollars to Your Bottom Line!

There is nothing that a marketing person loves more than finding new ways to add customers and profitable revenue to the bottom line.  So when the folks over at Mindflash approached me with their latest innovation, I got really excited because I just knew that you would be too.

A Little About Mindflash

I was originally approached by Mindflash when they launched their online training platform.  At that time, this product was aimed at larger organizations who had internal training needs and wanted to save money on expensive training software.  Since my audience consists of small businesses and consultants who could only dream of being big enough to HAVE a training department, it wasn’t a good fit.

But NOW – Mindflash has launched some new features that I think you will REALLY love.   The Mindflash Marketplace is an online platform where anyone can sell a course or presentation at absolutely no cost.

This new feature, which developed out of the requests of many previous Mindflash users, provides an exciting new way for experts, consultants, and small business experts and professional trainers to make money with their hard earned knowledge, as well as a way for those seeking new skills to avoid hiring programmers or dealing with merchant accounts. With over seven billion ‘How-to’ Google searches to date, Mindflash Marketplace fills the high demand for high-quality online instructional content.

How Does Mindflash Marketplace Work?

Anyone can use Marketplace to create professional courses from content they already have. Some example courses include ‘Negotiations’, ‘Social Media Business Basics’, ‘Closing the Deal’, and ‘Transit Systems’. It all starts with a blank course template. Here you can upload files (e.g. Powerpoint, video or Youtube formats, PDF’s, etc.), make Quizzes, Descriptions, and more. Users can setup reminder and course management details, Question Types, Handouts, and three different types of Certificates. Mindflash lets you preview your test before it goes live. It also provides a full suite of reporting programs to track how well your courses are selling, as well as a way to invite trainees yourself. There’s also a feature that allows customers to contact the instructor, which can be setup as well, and ways to link to your course through your blog or email. Once all this is done, you just decide the price. The minimum is $9.99. Once the course is live, customers can preview the first three slides then purchase your course with just a click.

Revenue Sharing With Mindflash Marketplace

There are no setup or subscription fees with Mindflash. The fees are commission-based, meaning Mindflash will take a small percentage of money made through the course (though even this fee is waived in the beta, which will go through the end of October). The commission is 15%. All transactions will be handled through credit card, though Mindflash handles all the necessary processing fees. Customers will use a PayPal account to get their payments to you. At the moment, funds are dispersed through Paypal every two weeks. There are additional plans in the works for commission discounts for high volume sellers (those making $10,000+/month). And once your courses start selling, Mindflash provides an platform to track your various earnings. Again, all this is totally free.

Why Choose Mindflash Marketplace?

There’s no question that the Mindflash Marketplace is the first service of its kind. Similar sites have a much different fee structure. Digital Chalk, for example, has a $299 start-up cost, as well as a per course listing cost and a transaction cost. With these types of programs users can lose hundreds of dollars before they even sell anything. Mindflash is a great platform for both experienced professionals and those just starting out looking for an easy, low-risk solution.

Additionally, though it has limited functionality at the moment, Mindflash plans to do a lot of the marketing work for you. If you have a blog, web page, or other established network anywhere in the world, Mindflash Marketplace will help you get the word out. Right now there’s a Public Course link that can be pasted around the web, and Mindflash hopes to integrate the marketplace with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter within the next month.

Mindflash Marketplace is the perfect way for industry experts to monetize that expertise, especially in an economy where supplemental income and marketable skills are increasingly important. It’s a simple, innovative way for millions of people to connect and share resources, and it’s all entirely free. There’s no reason not to give it a shot and make money sharing your knowledge with the world.

The following is a guest post from Daniel Frank is an online marketer and trade show expert with some great ideas on how to prepare for a trade show.

Trade shows can be a great way for an up and coming company to get their name out, attract clients and network. But they can also be a waste of time and money if you fail to prepare properly. Hopefully the following tips will help you avoid spending hard earned cash only to spend two days standing in a crowded hall.

1. Decide what you want from the show: This is a common point that everyone will tell you, but it cannot be emphasised enough. Are you going to the show to generate new sales leads? Research the competition and find useful contacts? Launch a product? There are a lot of reasons to go these shows so pick some and decide how you are going to achieve these objectives. For example let’s say you work for a small software company and you want to show off your new smartphone apps and get some press coverage. You also hope to get some leads for new commissions.
2. Choosing which shows to go to: Once you’ve decided why you’re going to a show you need decide which ones to go to. This might sound like an odd way round but there are thousands of shows out there and knowing what you want will help you pick the correct ones. So if take the software company above there are a range of shows that might be relevant.  The obvious ones would be shows for the software and telecoms industry. But it is also worth considering other options.

If we imagine your company’s app offers a tool for bankers letting them track interest rates across several markets. Banking trade shows then become a tempting option, first you’ll stand out as you’ll be something different and second you get direct access to your end users. There may well be other options; it is worth brainstorming which sectors are relevant to your company and where you could make an impact.

But this still leaves you with a huge range of shows to look at, so you’ll have to narrow them down further. Questions worth asking range from the practical such as what food is provided and how far away is it; to who is talking and presenting. In the end the decision will rest on several factors and it is worth making a checklist of what criteria you want the show to offer you and asking others in the industry which they recommend.

1. Equipment: If you’re exhibiting then you’ll need some exhibition stands both to create a memorable impression as well as providing a showcase and storage space for your products or services. Easily forgotten essentials are comfortable shoes, phone and laptop chargers as well as pens and paper. You’ll also need a lot of business cards and brochures as they will run out. A lot of what you bring depends on what you want to achieve. Our software company for example will want bring along a smartphone and display stand so they can demonstrate their apps.
2. Training: This is essential as exhibiting isn’t exactly the same as selling. Your likely to get a lot of causal enquires who will be turned off by an aggressive pitch. Similarly I often see staff on exhibition stands just repeating the same pitch to every-one who turns up. Practice engaging visitors in conversation rather than just talking over them.
3. Pre-Event marketing: Tell people you are going to be there! Everything from emailing potential attendees with and teasers about what you’re going to show to blogging and possibly even press releases. When visitors turn up to an exhibition with anywhere from tens to thousands of companies and stalls exhibiting they are going to need a good reason to seek you out, so if you have already engaged with them then this can give you a huge advantage. If get can get a mailing list of attendees so much the better. Just don’t spam them!
4. Follow up: How are you going to follow up leads? Another obvious point but essential to bear in mind. Set up a system to collect phone numbers and email addresses or risk watching them disappear.

I hope these tips will help your preparations for your next show. These opportunities can be too good to miss and it would be shame to waste time and money due to poor planning. As my science teacher also used to say, “You get out what you put in.”

About the Author: Daniel Frank is an online marketer working for Nimlok. They have been producing exhibition stands for over 40 years.

A big part of online promotion is creating content that can be shared.  This includes email newsletters, article submissions, press release distribution, and blog post writing.  Social media is a great place to share this high quality content once it has been created.  Social media is important for numerous reasons.  It helps to build a brand and improves SEO.  Businesses are realizing that it’s not just a fad and that it’s time to get involved, if they haven’t already.  One of the most important decisions that needs to be made is who will be the social media voice that represents the company and brand.

The first thing that needs to be decided is whether the voice should be a brand or a person.  Should the Twitter profile that’s promoted for business use be “CompanyX” or “JaneDoe” (President and Founder of Company X).  This usually depends on the company.  If it’s a product based company, it might be easier and more acceptable to use the brand name.  If it’s a service based company, it’s more about forming relationships and establishing trust with an actual person.  Certain situations, especially in the service industry, need that personality.  People like to put a face with the company name.

Once you’ve decided that the voice should be represented by a person at the company, the next step is to determine who that person should be.  Depending on the company, the right person differs, but it could be anyone including the owner, President, CEO, or VP of Marketing.  This decision is extremely important because the brand will be built in this person’s name.  You need to think about whether or not this person will still be working at the company in 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years.  If the brand is built in their name, and then they leave, they take all of that brand equity along with them and it’s like starting all over again.  The name needs to be consistent across all marketing channels including all business and social profiles.  One of the possible dangers of using a person is that the personal and professional sometimes blend together.  If an account is being used for business reasons, the content needs to remain professional at all times.

It’s also important to consider if more than one person should represent the brand.  For a small business, only one person should be the voice of the company.  If there are too many people it’s not consistent and could lead to confusion.  Seeing one name promotes brand recognition.  People see the name over and over and get who that person is representing.  The brand behind the name is less recognizable as more names are used.  For a large corporation that has numerous divisions, it is more appropriate to have multiple people representing the brand because they can represent the various divisions or products lines.  In this case, using only one name will cause too much clutter since the information isn’t relevant to everyone.

Determining the social media voice is the first step in establishing and building a presence in the social media space.  This is a decision that will affect major online marketing initiatives, so it needs to be made wisely.

This post is part of a “Blog Carnival” that’s being hosted by Tea Silvestre from The Word Chef Blog.  The theme of the carnival is “Building Business Relationships” it’s part of a series of posts on the subject from a variety of small business experts.

Building referrals is just as important now as if was in the past.  In fact, I think it’s much easier and more cost effective now to develop and build those relationships than it had been in the past.  What I think is more difficult is keeping those referral conversations alive and focused.

Social media tools make it infinitely easier to find and connect with people, but because so many social media tools use a “timeline” format you can see and start a conversation one minute and forget about it the next simply because the screen has been refreshed with new conversations and posts.  This makes it difficult to move referral and opportunity conversations forward.

Here’s my killer time-saving and stress-reducing recipe for cooking up new business using a social media based referral strategy.

Total Time: About 2 hours to create social media accounts and generate list and about an hour per day managing your system

Yield: Profitable New Opportunities and Customers

Difficulty: Easy Peasy if you stay with it

Ingredients:

• No more than 3 specific marketing goals
• Twitter account – in your name, brand name or company name
• Facebook account
• LinkedIn account
• Try Nimble.com as a tool to integrate your social media conversations and create action items from those conversations
• A list of about 200 names, you can create a list or just go down your email address book and pull the people you think can help you get referrals

Directions:

1. Set your marketing goals and objectives. These goals should look like something like this: “Launch a webinar series targeting pet shop owners in March” or “Find 5 market research contacts at big box stores who want to use our online survey tool”.  Setting clearly defined marketing goals will guide your social media networking strategies.
2. Create a list of 200 referral contacts.  Use your email database to create a list of 200 people with whom you want to have referral relationships.  Go through that list and label people “friends and family” then “partners” and finally “influencers”.   As you are labeling and grouping your contacts, you might get ideas about the ways in which they might be able to help you achieve your goals i.e. “Introduce me to the CEO of company X”.  I’d recommend that you write that next to their name while you are thinking about it, it will save you time later.
3. Work your LinkedIn Contacts.  Go through your list of 200 and find everyone on LinkedIn.  If you are not connected to them, connect with them.  If they do not have a LinkedIn account, then you will have to manage that relationship via email and face-to-face methods only.  As you are doing that, you can send them an email message touching base and asking to schedule a catch-up call to discuss what they’ve been up to and how you can help each other.  You can also share what you’ve been up to and what you are looking for – they might respond with a connection or introduction on the spot.    Another great idea is to leave an endorsement for people as you check their presence on LinkedIn.  Leaving an endorsement for them will prompt them to leave one for you and to get in touch with you to catch up.  It’s a wonderful surprise and great “gift” to receive.
4. Search Twitter for conversations around your goals.  Notice what the conversations are and who is having the conversations.  Create a Twitter list of the people labeled “Networking” or maybe even around your goals such as “market research” (to use our previous example).  Take 15 minutes a day to monitor the conversations on that Twitter list and engage in conversations with those people.  Follow their links, re-tweet their content, comment on their links and articles.  Of course, don’t forget to search for your list of 200 on Twitter and add them to your Twitter list.  This way you are tracking their conversations as well.
5. Use Facebook to Network with Friends and Family.  Many businesses are hip to creating Facebook Fan pages, but your personal page may be more powerful as a networking tool.  I recommend posting pictures of what you are up to around your business and sharing with friends and family.  A friend of mine is in the promotional items business and often takes pictures of creative T-shirts and other items at trade shows that he things are very effective.  It tells us where he is that day and it gives us ideas that we can use for our promotional projects.  If you own a restaurant, take a picture of the daily special, if you are making a sales call or want to connect with someone, just ask your friends and family.  But don’t oversell on Facebook, it will be perceived as spamming and can backfire.
6. Check out Nimble.com.   My new favorite social media and sales management tool is Nimble.com.  It was developed by Jon Ferrera, the CEO of the successful sales CRM tool Goldmine in response to his peeve of having referral and opportunity conversations fall through the cracks.  Nimble will integrate your email, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts and show all the conversations in one stream or separate streams.  What I love about it is that it allows you to see all these conversations in one place and then you can also create an action item for yourself around that conversation.  Nimble is basically a social CRM tool that increases the value and ROI of your social media conversations.

Now, you might think all this will take an entire day’s worth of work.  Well, I won’t lie to you – the set-up probably will.  In reality, you can spend a day planning and strategizing your referral system – but once it’s done and you’ve focused your efforts, all it will take is about 15 to 30 minutes a day of working your system to keep those relationships and sales opportunities flowing your way.

This post is part of the  The Word Chef Blog  Blog Carnival hosted by Tea Silvestre.   Join us for a fun and informative  1-hour Tweet Chat about Business Relationships, how to build them and nurture them on Thursday, September at 1 pm Eastern / 4 pm Pacific.  Your participation in the Tweet Chat enters you into a drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card.

This is a guest post from Sander Daniels, Co-Founder of Thumbtack.com a new outsourcing service for small business.  At some point, even DIYMarketers have to outsource in order to get it all done and grow their business.  In this article, Sander gives some fantastic advice on how to outsource painlessly and get the results you’re looking for.

So you’ve heard about all this ‘outsourcing stuff.’ You’ve run across a few sites that say they can help you find people for work you need done. You think it might be a good thing to look into one day. But you just don’t know where to start or whether it’s really worth the trouble.

I hear you. We were skeptical about the whole phenomenon. Would the quality of hires be good – or not so good? Would it be impossible to manage someone remotely? And what tasks do we have that we can outsource anyway?

Since we put out our first job ad for remote help two years ago, we’ve become huge converts. In fact, we’re such huge converts that we now have a team of 125 remote assistants helping our company run.

Here is a 5-step plan for how to outsource successfully.

1. Brainstorm things you could outsource

This is the most important step – once you complete this step, you’re on your way to a bigger and better business.

Be creative here. Think hard about this and write down your answers on a sheet of paper: What am I spending time on that I could be outsourcing?

You’ll have a brain block at first – “Surely someone working remotely can’t do the same quality of work I do.” “It’s going to be really hard to manage and coordinate this – ugh.”

Here’s how to get over the brain block: Think of the smallest, most repetitive tasks you do every day or week. Here are some possibilities of things you might do:

• Gathering phone numbers of potential clients you’ve been wanting to reach out to.
• Browsing blogs to find articles that keep you up-to-date on your industry.
• Finding open-source photographs to brighten your marketing materials, your email newsletter, or your website.
• Stuffing envelopes with letters to customers.
• Shopping around on Craigslist for deals on office supplies.

And keep this in mind – outsourcing doesn’t necessarily mean ‘overseas.’ Outsourcing can just mean ‘temporary help from a hard-working person who lives near me.’

For example, here are some people nearby that could help improve your life:

• A professional organizer who comes into your home or office, builds some shelves or buys some boxes from the Container Store, and makes a joy of your workspace.
• An accountant who comes in once a week and organizes your sales, your receipts, and your tax write-offs.
• A college student to deliver carry-out to your office for Friday lunches.
• A high-end graphic designer to develop a new logo for your team.
• A handyman to repair the leaking faucet, remove the coffee stains from the carpet, and install the refrigerator lightbulb – all of which you’ve been meaning to get to for 6 months.

Remember: be creative. You are probably doing a lot of things now that you could outsource.

Step 2: Choose a site to use

Can your job be done completely remotely – or do you need someone local to help you out? Are you looking for general help on a bunch of different tasks – or are you interested in a person with a very particular skill set?

We love and use Odesk.com for jobs that don’t need to be done in person. They have a huge number of people all over the world – they say more than 1.3 million people, both inside and outside of the U.S. – who can help you with almost any remote job imaginable. We manage our team of 125 through Odesk, many of the people on their site are extraordinary talented, and most are thrilled to get work and motivated to help you out.

For local jobs, we’re partial to Thumbtack.com (our site!). More than 180,000 local professionals – likehousecleaners,interiordesigners, andgraphicdesigners – have listed themselves on our site. Like Odesk, you can post a free ‘request’ on our site telling us what you need done, and we’ll do our best to send you 3-5 bids from qualified service professionals to your email inbox within 24 hours.

Odesk has been phenomenal for our needs. Thumbtack is more geared towards jobs that need to be done in-person or locally. There are also ‘in-between’ companies that specialize in certain types of work, like 99designs for graphic designers. And Ivana wrote here about a couple other sites you can try out as well.

Step 3: Post a job ad

The next step is to post a job ad on your chosen site.

This should be a pretty easy step – these websites try to make it as simple as possible for you to advertise what you need done.

The only two things you need to do are create an account on the site and fill out the form.

For example, here’s Odesk’s form:

As you can see – this step shouldn’t take you more than 3 minutes.

Step 4: Review your applicants

Most sites have a page where you can easily review and compare your applicants according to their credentials.

You’ll want to compare your applicants on a number of metrics:

• Experience – is this their first job through the site, or their 100th?
• Professionalism – was their response to you a ‘canned’ response filled with typos? Or was it a personalized response written in proper English?
• Enthusiasm – do they sound excited to work with you? Does your job fit their skill set?
• Affordability – how does their hourly price compare to that of other applicants?

Here’s an example of how our comparison page looks on Thumbtack:

This may seem complicated – but you’ll find that you’ll be able to tell pretty quickly which are the ones you might want to move forward with, and which aren’t.

Step 5: Hire and delegate!

Now you’re on the last step – hiring the person and delegating the project!

The act of hiring someone is pretty simple – most sites have a simple button that notifies the person you want to hire them. Or it will just be clear in your correspondence with the person that you want to work with them.

Delegating the project should be pretty easy – the person already has a description of the job that needs to get done. Usually at this point you’ll need to give them a few more details or some additional materials at this point – this is typically done either through the website’s internal messaging system or just by email.

If it’s a relatively small project, you can let the person run with it, and the next time you’ll hear from them is when the project is finished.

If it’s a larger project, I’d recommend having the person check in with you early on in the project so you can make sure everyone’s clear on how the project needs to get done.

And voila – that’s it.

In the best case scenario, you’ve saved yourself time, increased your productivity, and found a reliable partner to help you out with those things you no longer have time to do. And in the worst case scenario? You’ve spent a relatively small amount of money and time to find someone that didn’t end up working out. You can try again – maybe you’ll have better luck next time – or decide that outsourcing’s just not for you.

If you’re anything like us, you’ll be reluctant to outsource at first and wonder if it’s really worth the effort. But once you give it a try, you’ll never go back.

About the Author:   Sander Daniels is a Co-Founder and Director of User Happiness at Thumbtack.com, an online marketplace for local services. Thumbtack is a small business of 12 employees based in San Francisco.

With everything going digital, there’s nothing like the human touch to liven up your marketing materials.  Cartoons are a fantastic way to add a human touch to your marketing materials, especially if your business is technical, industrial or B2B.

Why Use Cartoons

Cartoons, by definition are drawn by hand.  That alone makes them interesting and different, because they are hand drawn, each one is unique by definition and it’s that irregularity and uniqueness that draws us in.

Another wonderful reason to use cartoons is to convey those subtle emotions and conversations that we all know exist in the stratosphere, but that we don’t have the actual words to communicate.  Cartoons evoke unsaid emotions that make them an extremely powerful and effective way to say things that are either difficult to say or talk about.

Cartoons are very sharable.  People just love sharing cartoons that resonate with them or make them smile.  It builds a sort of bond from the sharer of the cartoon with the receiver and creates this nudge, nudge, wink, wink moment that creates a subtle understanding

Humor sells.  Cartoons almost always have some level of humor in them and humor sells.  When you combine the human element with the emotional communications that only a picture can provide, you evoke a smile and smiles sell.

Creative Ways to Use Cartoons

So, now that you’re sold on using cartoons, here are a few ways that you can use cartoons in your marketing materials:

1. Business Cards.  Here is a picture of MY business card with cartoons on them.  These are custom cartoons created by Mark Anderson of Andertoons (@Andertoons) .  We spent about 30 minutes on the phone where we talked about a few concepts and then he created these variations.  These cards really stand out from others and it’s not uncommon to have people take more than one and share them with other people.  My challenge was communicating the value I offer to my clients – the cartoons did a perfect job depicting common circumstances or trigger events that often prompt people to call me in to help them with their marketing.
2. Note Cards & Letter head.  The obvious extension from business cards is to create notecards and letterhead.  Don’t stop with one cartoon. Create a handful of cartoons that describe a common circumstance your customers can relate to.
3. Web site/blog.  Using a custom cartoon on your web site is a great way to grab a reader’s attention and get them engaged in your content.  Think about creating cartoons around the top frustrations or pains that your customers encounter – when your customers see themselves in your cartoon, they will assume that you really understand them and won’t be able to resist the content.
4. Newsletter. Whether you print a newsletter and send it to your customers or just send one via email, give your customers something to look forward to by inserting a custom cartoon.  People will often go straight to the cartoon section of the paper just because they look forward to seeing what the characters are up to.  The same will be true for your newsletter.  Create custom cartoons to illustrate a recent technology breakthrough or solution to a customer problem.  You’ll not only entertain your customers, you’ll show be promoting your products, services and solutions as well.
5. Calendar of Tips.  Create 12 custom cartoons featuring tips that make sense for that month and use them as holiday and new year gifts.
6. Promotional items like T-shirts, Mugs and Luggage Tags.  Create a series of custom cartoons that feature your theme for a trade show and put them on your promotional materials.  Embroider shirts or caps for trade shows, create a funny scene using your company name, logo and address and use it as a luggage tag or create mugs your customers won’t want to be without.
7. Book.  I’m always telling technical and manufacturing companies to create a book using cartoons.  They usually freak out because it’s too HUMAN – but that’s exactly what’s missing from their products and services; a human approachability.  Well-designed custom cartoons sprinkled throughout a technical book lend perspective and context to products that can appear cold and lifeless.
8. Contest – for the caption.  Contests are a really fun way to engage customers and build traffic to your web site.  Why not create custom cartoons and then get your audience to submit their ideas for captions.  You can select as many winning captions as you like and then get multiple uses out of the same cartoon.
9. Customer service.  Create a series of custom cartoons to match your most common customer service situations.  Here are a few ideas; Ooops –  we goofed, I hate when that happens, thank you for choosing us, checking in to see how you’re doing.  When customers receive these notes with a personal handwritten message inside, you’ll be sure to create smiles and repeat business.
10. Advertising.  If you’re going to do advertising, why look like everyone else?  Make a real statement by creating a custom cartoon that illustrates the features and benefits of your product and service and the experience it creates for your customer.
11. Direct mail.  Direct mail is most effective when your target audience receives a series.  Custom cartoons are an ideal way to create a story that your audience will love to receive.  Create a story that mirrors your ideal customer’s buying situation and the people who relate most to this circumstance will respond.
12. Presentations. Spice up your presentations by using custom cartoons instead of clip art.  Create a series of characters or scenes that you can use and reuse in a concept presentation that you give over and over.
13. Training Materials.  This is a really fun way to engage your audience inside a training session.  You can use cartoons to start discussions or debrief a training session.
14. Product Packaging.  When you print boxes or envelopes why not print something that will set you apart from the rest?
15. Product Demonstration.  People remember visual messages longer than written ones.  Why not incorporate a custom cartoon within your next product demonstration documentation or video.  A cartoon illustration the proper use (or the incorrect use) of a product will stick in the mind of a customer.

There are so many different graphics that are available for any of these applications, but using custom cartoons in the ways I’ve described will not only set you apart, but will further engage your customers with your product, service or information that you are trying to communicate.

There’s beauty in the immediacy of social media marketing — instantly you get feedback from customers on your products, service, brands, and campaigns. But the downside of that immediate exposure is its short shelf-life. What’s relevant one day is moot and forgotten the next. Even old-school networking has its drawbacks. A great first impression may be made but there’s not always time for the kind of personalized follow-up you’d like to initiate. Read on for ways to make sure that your marketing message goes beyond the lifespan of a tweet or the fleeting moment of a handshake to make a lasting and recurring impression.

1. Make Your Online Content Last

If you had especially good customer feedback via facebook or twitter, consider including those comments on your website as testimonials. This way, a good day of good news can be used again and offer recurring returns as opposed to disappearing into cyberspace.

If you write guest posts for blogs or contribute articles to online industry publications, instead of writing, posting, and forgetting, include your blog posts on your website under a tab called “resources” or “articles” so visitors to your site can continue to use your good material. With informational content added to your site, your company becomes a resource for potential customers to revisit. If you keep a company blog on your site, be sure to organize it so that even older material can be highlighted in menus titled “Most Popular Posts,” “Signature Posts,” or “And More.”

2. Make Your Promotional Product Part of Your Signature

What if instead of buying a wide-range of promotional products and handing them out here and there, people actually paid you for the privilege of wearing your logo? There’s a fishing shop I know of that started off as one small store and has since grown to over six locations. They make the bulk of their profits from expensive gear and guided fishing charters, but in each location they have a whole wall of plain old hats with the shop’s logo on it. Stickers of the logo are on cars and trucks all over town. Their promotional products have taken on a life of their own. Plenty of people who can’t afford a fancy rod and reel buy hats from this place. The shop can hardly keep them stocked.

To get this phenomenon going for your business, be sure your logo is well-done — something people would want on a hat. Create a brand people want to be a part of, give them a simple way to be involved (like a hat), and you’ll be the first place customers come calling when they do have the money for that rod and reel.

3. Make Your Promotional Product Come in Handy

There used to be a time when funeral homes handed out fans during hot-weather funerals. Give potential customers what they need when they need it, and you get their attention. I’ve seen floating key chains passed out by a boat-towing service and reusable grocery bags given out at a farmer’s market by a bank with an ATM across the street from the market.

When it comes to promotional products, an item with practical use is appreciated — especially with consumers being more interested in sustainable practices and cutting clutter. The key to promotional products is knowing your ideal customers and knowing what products they would be most likely to need, use, and appreciate.

4. Make Your Free Information Pay Off

When you attend networking events, trade shows, or conferences, give away some helpful information on a brochure or info sheet of some sort. Then at the bottom, of course, include your company name and website. Make the information something valuable. For example, I know a copywriter who has actually had someone call to order some of the information sheets she’s passed out for free on Business Writing Tips. She also has sheets on topics such as Proper Email Etiquette and How to Write a Good Blog Post.

Give free talks. A friend of mine who is a dentist gives free talks to schools about keeping teeth and gums healthy and gives away toothbrushes with his name, web address, and contact info on them. He gets his business out there while doing a little good at the same time. If you have good information you’re willing to share, be sure to not only hand it out with your business’s web address and contact info, but also to post it on your website so it becomes a lasting resource for clients and potential clients.

5. Make Your Last Deal Count

You always want to be marketing to potential clients for the future, but don’t neglect the marketing power of your current clients and sales successes. There is plenty of opportunity there to develop more business or garner referrals from a happy client. Capitalize on that already-established relationship by keeping your impression fresh. A great way to stay in touch is to send a monthly or quarterly e-newsletter via MailChimp or Constant Contact.

Make sure again that you anticipate the needs of your customers and provide the information they will find handy. Sharing good news about your company is great, but a newsletter that is going to be read instead of deleted is one in which you offer something helpful to your recipient. Maybe it’s a special coupon or promotion or maybe it’s helpful tax information or energy-saving tips related to your industry. Don’t think of your newsletter as a way to tout your products or services — let a newsletter be another way you make a lasting impression on your clients that your business is all about them.

About the Author: James Lee is a marketing analyst for Amsterdam Printing, a leading company in the promotional pens and personalized calendars business. James has owned small businesses himself and at Amsterdam concentrates on marketing ideas that utilize personalized pens, mugs, and other promotional items such as keychains, magnets and apparel.

The holy grail of “marketing automation” continues to be the reining “shiny object” within the marketing industry.  First reserved for B2C, then for large enterprise B2B, marketing automation has now expanded into the small business market.  But too often companies think they need marketing automation and implement a full system right off the bat. Before you buy, creating a detailed plan of your goals, resources and expectations can save you thousands of dollars in the long run.  It is important to evaluate the problem you’re trying to solve and set clear goals for what you are trying to achieve before shopping for a system.

Here are four steps for building your Marketing Automation plan:

Step 1: Determine your goals/objectives.

This will help you stay focused on your particular needs and not get caught up in extra features and functionality that may not prove useful to your business now or in the near term. In a recent study of businesses that have implemented marketing automation, nearly 50% use fewer than half of the features for the first year of ownership. It is common for companies to over-buy, based on the assumption that they will eventually grow into the system.  Truth is most companies’ move from email marketing platforms to marketing automation platforms because they simply want to be better at email marketing. This makes sense in theory, but if all you want to be able to do, is better target prospects, based on behavior and hand off interested leads to your sales team, based on prospect interest, you don’t need the full feature set that most marketing automation systems offer. The key is to find a system that can meet your needs today, but grow with you as your needs increase. So ask yourself these questions before jumping in:

-      Do you want to be better at email marketing?

-      Do you want to be able to behaviorally target customers?

-      Do you need to get more qualified leads to your sales team?

-      Do you have a complex product and are your sales cycles are too long?

-      Have heard that marketing automation is great, so you must need one?

Step 2: What functions do you expect to get out of the system?

The capabilities vary from vendor to vendor. Some solutions tout themselves as being the jack of all trades (master of none), while others pride them on being very good at a core set of features. For instance, some systems will run all of your sales and marketing processes in one place, including CRM, e-commerce, email marketing and drip marketing. While others are more focused on B2B businesses, where they have very robust marketing automation and email marketing capabilities, but integrate with your existing CRM and other systems, instead of providing them. Most small businesses would opt for the former, but would be upset as rapidly discovered the limitations of the system. Others might go for the latter, but would get overwhelmed by the richness of the features set. Evaluate your current systems, what and how you will need to integrate and how advanced you want your systems to operate.

Step 3: Determine your capabilities and limitations:  This will give you a guideline for which solutions meet your needs.  If you don’t have the staff to manage a complex system then all of the added benefits it might provide will be for naught.

-      How many people can you commit to managing a system?

-      A full automation implementation requires a significant amount of unique content for drip campains and lead form pages.  Do you have the resources to create the content to make full marketing automation successful?

-      How much IT expertise or support do you have in house?

-      What is your budget?

-      Is this B2B, B2C, person-to-person or web-based?

-      Do you have a CRM system? Does it need to integrate with your marketing system?

Step 4: Identify your organization’s marketing needs to understand the level of automation you require.

-      How many segments will you be addressing?

-      How long and complex is your buying process?

-      Do you intend for salespeople to use it?

-      Are you looking to track marketing revenue?

-      Do you need predictive analytics?

-      What kinds of programs are you looking to run?

-      Do you need automated nurturing, or will you be running manual drip campaigns?

-      Do you need to include social media in your content marketing programs?

-      Will you be using lead scoring?

Step 5: Invest in training from the on-set! Most failed implementations are due to a lack of investment in training and resource allocation. Engage those that will be using the product, make sure it is easy to use and intuitive because if no one is using the product then the investment was a waste.

At the end of the day, a successful marketing automation system can intelligently message to and nurture your prospects, reduce sales times and focus your sales efforts on only the most promising and interested prospects. Taking the time upfront to qualify these questions, determine your marketing objectives and find the solution that really meets your unique needs can make your marketing automation implementation a triumph.

About the Author: As CEO of Genius.com, Sam Weber is responsible for creating and executing on the company’s overall vision, overseeing all business operations and working closely with customers to grow the business. Weber brings over 15 years of extensive experience in enterprise software sales, pre-sales, support and professional services having worked with companies including: KnowNow; E.piphany; Clarify; Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Do it yourself marketing has seen several evolutions in the past several years. With the advancement of internet technology and then the social media revolution, DIY marketing has had to make several adjustments. In many ways, marketing has become intrinsically married to the internet and social media culture. For many DIY marketers, this can be a struggle. While it’s impossible to market something without it being seen or heard by the public, it is also a challenge to manage new technologies and multiple social media accounts. These three tools can help you manage your various social media accounts for simpler and more successful marketing.

1. TweetDeck: This application is by far one of the most popular social media managers available. Allowing users to view their Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, and Twitter accounts all from one interface, TweetDeck simplifies social media for the mega user. Use TweetDeck to stay up to date on local events and marketing opportunities, while also, easily managing your correspondence with customers and business associates on your various platforms. Tweetdeck enables you to divide your contacts into columns, so that you can separate specific groups of people into different areas. This allows you to manage your marketing schemes more quickly and easily.

2. Gist: This tool allows users to collect all of their contacts from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, and more in one centralized location. This organizational help can be invaluable for marketers trying to manage their network. Gist provides you with the latest news, blog posts, and tweets from anyone in your professional network when you want to receive it and where you want to receive it. Because Gist is so customizable, it can be extremely useful for nearly any user. By gathering the essential information from your inboxes and social networks, Gist provides the perfect way to speed up your marketing potential. Use Gist to become more productive with marketing and connecting to professional contacts.

3. Ping.fm: While Gist is more focused toward organizing your many social media contacts to simplify managing networks and new updates, Ping.fm focuses on making posting to various platforms simpler. This tool allows users to ping a message or data to multiple social media accounts from one location. This can be especially useful for DIY marketers, hoping to get their company or product seen through social media outlets. Ping allows you to select which accounts you want to post to and really speeds up the process of getting your voice out there.

With all of these tools and services free to download and use there is really no reason DIY marketers looking for some aid with managing their busy social media accounts shouldn’t try all of them. Check them out and decide which services would be most valuable for you and your marketing efforts. Social media is a great way to get your ideas out to the public and to develop a strong professional network. As social media expands and evolves, tools and applications for managing these accounts will become ever more useful.

About the Author:  This guest post is contributed by Patricia Garza, who writes about gadget, technology, design, social media, e-learning related articles at online university rankings.

Sure, we know effective branding is crucial for a company’s viable success, but that doesn’t get us any closer to knowing how to implement a realistic branding strategy. Branding can be even more challenging for small business owners who might not have the funds needed for extensive marketing platforms. Fortunately, small businesses owners still have a number of inexpensive avenues they can explore when looking to brand a new enterprise — they might just have to think outside the box a bit.

When branding a new business, you should really take the time to explore all of the options thoroughly because the decisions you make now will define your company’s image for years to come. The following are five questions you should ask yourself before you begin developing potential branding elements.

1. What are you trying to say?
   Your first priority should be to develop a communicable message that accurately represents your business and what it offers consumers, whether it be a product or service. Take the time to think about every aspect of your business. Writing a mission statement for your enterprise is a great way to solidify what your company is all about.
   You need to have a well-thought-out message from the get-go so your branding practices can be implemented consistently in the future.  The overall design concept, individual logo and expressive colors should flow seamlessly to deliver one comprehensive message about your business.
2. How much money can you afford to spend?
   Some small businesses might have the start-up capital necessary to hire a freelance designer or marketing specialist to help them brand their company. Others might not have funds to allocate toward developing a marketing strategy, which makes the initial branding process that much more important. If the latter is true for your business, contact the marketing or graphic design departments of colleges/universities in your area. Higher education programs often offer opportunities for their students to get real-world experience by working with local businesses. You’ll get free marketing and branding development, and they’ll get college credit and professional clips for their portfolios.
3. How do you want customers to perceive your business?
   The first branding component potential customers will see and remember is your company logo. People should be able to recognize your business by its logo, and color choice plays a big role in your decision. Choose something that will draw attention but still look professional. Get feedback from as many people as you can before you settle on a logo. Ask your friends, family members and professional colleagues what their opinions are, because, as consumers, their opinions are all relevant.
4. What should your online presence be?
   Today’s consumers expect to find the companies they do business with online. As such, every business should have some sort of online presence. The extent to which you promote your brand online will depend on your staff and its financial capacity, but there’s certainly no reason you can’t establish a profile on social media sites for free. If you choose to set up a unique website, make it easy to navigate with contact information that’s readily available. Websites should always be eye-catching yet informative to best meet the needs of potential customers.
5. How will you maintain your brand?
   Once you’ve established what you want your brand to be, consider the various marketing strategies that will help you promote it in the future. Carefully consider who your potential clients are and how to best reach them. Take advantage of every viable opportunity to get your brand out into the public. The more familiar the public is with your brand, the more likely they will be to work with you in the future.

Considering these questions from the get-go will put you on the right track to building a brand that will give you positive results. When developing a brand for your new small business, the takeaway point is to keep it simple and keep it consistent.

This article was written by Kristen Bradley SuretyBonds.com, a nationwide surety bond producer. SuretyBonds.com helps new small business owners meet licensing requirements every day. The agency provides professional advice to entrepreneurs to help them open for business as soon as possible.