Friday's 5 - Short and Sweet Marketing Ideas

Good morning, all!

I haven't done a Friday's 5 in a while (bad on me!) but there is never any time like the present to make things right. That said, here are 5 short and sweet marketing tidbits to help you top off your week or get your weekend started:

[READ] 1. It's not just about getting customers, it's about keeping them, too.

business2community.com | Christina Pappas
If you ask a sales person if they would rather call upon a new lead that could potentially land them some commission in their pocket or spend their time checking in on customers they have already successfully converted, which do you think they would choose? It’s ultimately up to you and the organization as a whole to ensure a successful customer retention plan is in place and is properly being executed upon. Here are 6 things to consider when you start thinking about building yours.

[READ] 2. 7 Tips to creating content that will actually pull prospects in.

According to a recent Content Marketing Institute B2B study, marketers’ biggest content marketing challenge is creating a steady stream of must-read information at every step of the purchase process that stands out amidst the endless messages available on social media, tablets, smartphones, computers, and other devices. How do you consistently develop content that pulls prospects and customers in, meets their needs, and does so right when they’re ready to consume it? To help you in this mission, here are seven easy-to-follow tips:


[READ] 3. How to create a social media editorial (publishing) calendar.
searchenginewatch.com | Lisa Buyer
January is always a fresh time to fine tune online marketing habits. One good place to start is the social media editorial calendar.  Originally designed for books, magazines, and newspapers, editorial calendars have been around for centuries and are the lifeline to successful publishing. Today’s editorial calendar takes into account web content, company press releases, blogs, social media news network postings in the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and YouTube as well as email marketing plans and more; plus they should also wrap into traditional marketing campaigns.



[READ] 4. The Power of Praise in Business.
entrepreneur.com | Ross McCammon

Excerpt -- there's a lot more in the article link: 
1. Praise should not begin with the phrase "You da …."
2. Ending an expression of praise with "… and stuff" nullifies the praise.
3. Ending an expression of praise with "… now get back to work" also nullifies the praise.
4. In ascending order of forcefulness: e-mail, face-to-face conversation, handwritten note, bear hug.
5. No bear hugs.
6. A handwritten note is worth more than a $100 gift card.
7. But probably not more than a $200 gift card.
8. Easy on the superlatives: "hardest-working," "most glorious," "awesomest," "best-smelling," etc.
9. Praise followed by criticism is not praise.
10. Praise followed by praise is probably a little too much praise.
11. Praise followed by criticism followed by praise is a sandwich.

[GO] The 1% Windfall:  How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow

by Rafi Mohammed
Review, SmallBizTrends.com 2010 Editors Choice, Best Business Books of 2010:
A study by McKinsey and Company of the Global 1200 found that if they increased their prices by just 1%, and demand remained constant, on average each company’s operating profits would increase by 11%.” If you’ve been avoiding pricing, this sentence alone should get you interested. Need to sell more product to existing customers – there’s a pricing strategy for that. Mohammed makes pricing easy and engaging by grouping pricing strategies by marketing challenges.



Want more?  Today's Marketing Savvy Newsletter [ CLICK HERE ] contains these goodies:

• Characteristics of a Great Team (part 2 of 2)
• Why Everything is Marketing in Your Small Business
• 3 Reasons You're Not Playing to Win
• How to Hire Positive Employees
• 6 Steps to a Social Media Strategy
• The Beginner's Guide to SEO

Let me know if you enjoyed any of these in particular in comments below --
Have a great weekend!

Elizabeth

14 Characteristics of Great Teams (Part 2)

14 Characteristics of Great Teams: Part 2 of 2

Earlier this week I posted the 7 characteristics that great teams not only “do” but that they do better than the competition. Stating,"Whether you have a small business or not, cultivating these traits within your business and employee culture will give you a competitive advantage and put you in a position to gain ground when it comes to sales, customer loyalty and employee engagement. What’s more, it will make your business stronger – more successful not only in the short term but better prepared for the long haul."

Here are 7 more characteristics shared by great teams: 

8. Great teams work their channels of public communication effectively.

Great teams don’t just release news, updates and other information to the public, they do so strategically. They have people assigned to address requests from the press and to communicate with the general public via web, social media and other online avenues. They don’t release information that would give competitors an edge; they play things close to the vest when it’s important to do so. On the other hand, great teams also know how to share information of human interest to garner fan affection and sympathy. How many times have you watched a game on television and heard one or more stories about a player’s rise from poverty or how they overcame an illness or faced a personal tragedy? And great teams make not only their coaches but their star players available to the public – and they also prep and train them to help them better present themselves in a positive light in the public eye.

• Develop a communications schedule to support short and long term goals and objectives (which, of course, assumes that you have some type of written plan and specific sales, customer acquisition and retention and other goals). Once you have a basic schedule, use it strategically to develop customer engagement, provide education about your products and services and support current and future initiatives.
  
• Part of communicating strategically is staying on point. This doesn’t mean that you only talk about your company, it means that even when sharing outside ideas and resources in order to build your reputation as an expert resource for your audience, everything that you share in outbound communications (email, social media, etc.) is on a topic that your audience would logically connect you or your business with. Make sense?
  
• Invest in communications training for yourself and your staff. You can’t assume that all of your staff possess an intrinsic ability to communicate both effectively and appropriately. You may not even feel that these are strong points for you as a leader, personally. Write scripts. Train staff. Practice. Have a second pair of eyes review updates that will be posted to social media as well as blog posts, press releases, outbound correspondence, memos that will be added to invoices and other customer forms and even to internal memos (which could negatively impact your staff, and in turn, the morale of your workplace).
  
  Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? Great teams take the time to do it right, the first time. Think about that NFL team, where mistakes could be not only costly but devastating, resulting in team losses, season destruction or even firings. Isn’t the extra effort and training worth it?
  
• Share the story of your business and human interest stories about your team members. Get involved in your community and talk about that, too. Champion local schools and charitable causes. Lead ‘buy local’ campaigns that keep dollars in your community. Give people reasons to connect with you and your business emotionally and to identify themselves with your business and your brand. Give people reasons to believe that when they align themselves with your business through loyalty and referrals, they are part of something good, part of something truly special.

9. Great teams cultivate adoration – nay rabid enthusiasm – from among their fans.

They position themselves to appeal to the types of fans they most desire. They know who their most important and influential fans are. They establish emotional connections and develop loyalty that does just last for a season, but a lifetime; loyalty that is even passed on to the next generation. Their fans are not only willing to spend money to attend a game or order up a season’s worth via cable or satellite TV, but who are willing to purchase all kinds of extra merchandise for apparel or their homes in order to show that they are “part” of the team.

• If you’re struggling just to get people in the door to begin with or with finding ways to get them to return a second time, thinking about how you could develop this type of loyalty might seem light years away from where you are right now. But here’s what I say: If they can do it, you can do it – because it can be done.
  
• The way to begin is to focus on engagement and use customer relationship management techniques to move prospects to customer status and move customers through the customer lifecycle to the next level of relationship. For an overview, visit my recent post on engagement [click here].

10. The owners of great teams invest in the future and in adding the best players and coaches to their rosters. 

And it’s not just that they go after “the best” players or coaches; in fact, there are many great players and coaches they would not want on their team. But they do spend the money necessary to attract top players to their team who are not only experts or highly skilled at certain things, but they go after great players who also represent a good fit for their company, other team members and for the long term as well as short term. The owners of great teams are always investing toward the future.

• What about you? Do you hire strategically? Do you wait for the right person or fill positions with ‘warm bodies?’ Do you consider the impact to other team members? Do you consider personality type? Do you prepare team members to welcome a new player that might be a superstar (and therefore represent a threat to existing team members or become the basis for jealousy and insecurity on the part of team members)?
  
• Remember that long range plan – how are you investing for the future? Train and mentor team members to prepare for growth as well as enable it. Keep your team in the know when it comes to your vision for the future and the route you’ll take to get there. Ensure that people understand that they are important to you and that you value them, but that you’re also interested in helping them to develop personally and professionally. Build an employee culture that is safe and welcoming for all team members and help those prone to jealousy or insecurity (or help them to realize that they might be happier somewhere else). And ultimately, remember that your responsibility is not only to the individuals who work for you, but that you are responsible to your customers and your business, and what is best for all.
  
• Part of thinking about the future and investing in it may require that you have difficult conversations with team members who may no longer be as invested in their role, who may not believe in or be supportive of where you want to grow your company, or who regularly negatively impact your employee culture in some way. Employer loyalty is a laudable virtue, especially today when so much of our economy is transient. But it is not a valid excuse for retaining employees who negatively impact your business, customers or their co-workers. Remember, the choice to support the initiatives, goals and objectives of your business, the choice to live out the mission and vision of the company belongs to each individual employee. If they can’t or won’t align themselves with the mission and vision of your organization – should they be there?

11. Great coaches know how to motivate and inspire players to perform even better than they believed they could. And great coaches know which players to put in, when, and how to call the right plays. Great coaches inspire confidence and trust in their players and other coaches and support staff. And on great teams, players have trust and faith in one another.

• While we often think that emotion has no place in the workplace, have you ever watched what goes on on the field and on the sidelines during a game? Coaches and players get fired up, get excited, celebrate big plays, turnovers and scores. They raise their arms to fire up the crowd. Thousands or even more than a hundred thousand people, all excited about the same thing in the same place at the same time. This occurs because of emotional connection, not logic -- and certainly not discounting!
• Cultivate an employee culture of trust. Do what you say you will do and insist that all staff members do so, as well. Hold people accountable. Leave no room in your company for backbiting, gossip or individuals who choose to undermine the efforts of others or even corporate initiatives.
• Don’t throw people under the bus publically. Part of being a great leader means that you will, occasionally, be the one who takes a hit because one of your employees makes a mistake. Taking that hit for someone else may be one of the most powerful signals you can send to your whole team that you have their backs, always.

12. Great teams play to win, and keep on playing to win. Great teams don’t get complacent and never seem to tire. They play every minute of every game until the final buzzer sounds. They don’t assume that any lead is safe. They don’t abandon the strategies and tactics that put them in the lead. Great teams keep on keeping on!

• What about you? Have you relaxed your vigilance when it comes to competitors? Have you let programs lapse or failed to measure or follow up on initiatives? Here are 3 reasons you’re not playing to win.
  
• Continue to execute the strategies and tactics which are bringing your small business desired results, a measure of stability and maybe even competitive advantage. Analyze the competition for weaknesses which might mean places you can gain ground for your small business. Maintain a mindset where you constantly scanning the field, thinking strategically and taking calculated risks in order to gain ground. Play to your strengths and bring great players to your team who can help 'carry the ball' even further.

13. Great teams reward and acknowledge great performances and loyalty.

Great performances are rewarded with game balls, sideline celebrations, most valuable player awards for games and seasons. Great players who prove themselves loyal have jerseys retired, get streets named after them and are inducted to team and even industry halls of fame. Not a game passes by – not a week when it comes to football and not even 2 days when it comes to sports like basketball – not a game passes by where performance is not recognized, acknowledged and rewarded.

• What a model! Who have you acknowledged or thanked today? For that matter, when was the last time someone put in an acknowledgement-worthy performance in your business? If you can’t think of one, you’re either not paying attention or it’s (past) time to seriously evaluate and improve your employee culture.

14. Great teams are known for something.

No two teams are alike in specialty, mix of players, strategy or playbooks. No two teams look alike; in fact, teams go to great lengths to differentiate their visual brand identity.

• Great companies are known for something. They are known for their specialties. Their founders. Their stories. Their charitable and public contributions. What is your business known for?
  
• The path to success is not to be a copycat. The path to greatness is about identifying and choosing those traits, skills and specialties that will make your company different from the competition. It’s about identifying niche markets and finding where opportunity exists – you’re looking for the gaps and providing solutions there. You’re thinking about the future and developing products and services that will meet emerging customer needs and wants. You’re cultivating and educating prospects and customers. Set yourself apart!

14 Characteristics of Great Teams. Easy to write, not so easy to live up to – but start, today. Try today and try again tomorrow. Get your team on board; but remember, you have to believe in these things yourself, and endeavor to model them with authenticity to your team, before they will be willing to reciprocate – especially if there is a history where these traits were not part of your value system.

It’s going to be a great year!


***

Elizabeth Kraus is the author of 365 Days of Marketing.

If you want to build a business which provides the maximum when it comes to customer and employee satisfaction and loyalty as well as profitability, change the way that you  understand and use marketing.  365 Days of Marketing is available on amazon.com or save $5 off the list price when you use the Code USH9VPJG and purchase on my site at 12monthsofmarketing.net.

14 Characteristics of Great Teams for Small Business Success

14 Characteristics of Great Teams: Part 1 of 2 

If you read my recent post titled, “Playing to Win” then you know that I’m an avid football fan. And while my favorite team was knocked out of the playoffs, I’m still watching the remaining games with great interest, including the two divisional championship games that were played yesterday. In just under two weeks, this season’s NFL champion will be anointed after winning the Super Bowl.

This got me thinking: what is it that sets great teams apart?
What do the great teams do differently and better than the others?

Whether you have a small business or not, cultivating these traits within your business and employee culture will give you a competitive advantage and put you in a position to gain ground when it comes to sales, customer loyalty and employee engagement. What’s more, it will make your business stronger – more successful not only in the short term but better prepared for the long haul.

So here are my 14 characteristics of great teams for small business success:  

1. Great teams study the competition. They scout the players and analyze the play of other teams. They discover the strengths and exceptional players of the other team and they look for weaknesses they can exploit for competitive advantage.

• Do you know who your competitors are? Do you know what they are best at? Do you know what their ‘fans’ love most about them? Do you know where their weaknesses are?
  
  
• The answers to these questions can help you develop tactics to improve your own performance to better compete against them. And by analyzing their weaknesses, you can gain not only competitive advantage but you may also be able to identify portions of your shared target markets which they are not serving well. In other words, rather than competing against the competition at their points of strength, become good in areas where they are weak or may overlook completely.

2. Great teams strategize and plan. They spend hours and hours and hours “off the field” creating detailed game plans and even contingency plans for the team to follow on the field.

• Do you have a plan? Do you have a mission and vision statement? Do you have a customer bill of rights? Do all of your employees know the plan, understand your mission and vision, support the promises you make to customers and – most importantly – understand how their role helps to fulfill each? When was the last time you conducted a SWOT analysis?
  (SWOT=Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats)
  
  
• Do you have a marketing plan, or are you winging it? Do you have specific goals for sales, new customer acquisition, retention, referrals, customer life cycle management and strategies to achieve them?
  
  
• Do you have contingency plans for when things go awry, competitors emerge, the market changes or emergencies occur?

3. Great teams work as a team. While players who carry, catch or throw the ball might get more time in the spotlight, they represent only a small fraction of the players on the team, most of whom rarely touch the ball at all. On great teams, those in the spotlight understand that they can only do what they do because of the efforts of their teammates who perform other roles. On great teams, every team member understands their own role and how it contributes to the success of the team as a whole. They know the importance of what they do and they strive, continually, to improve.

• Few businesses of any size can say that all or most of their team members perform at this level; it’s likely that there are few businesses where even a significant portion of their employees perform at this level.
  
  To develop this type of employee culture:
  
• Make sure that all employees know the game plan: the mission and vision of your company, the promises you make to customers, your business goals and long term objectives.
  
  
• Make sure that all employees study the play book: the strategies and tactics that will be employed in order to fulfill the mission and vision of the organization fulfill customer promises and reach goals.
  
  
• Every employee must understand how their job works to fulfill the mission and vision of the organization, how it enhances and impacts the customer experience and how what they do impacts the ability of others in the organization to succeed.
  
  
• Create a culture where each employee feels equally valuable and needed by the organization. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about money; what I mean is that in many organizations, one or more departments or individuals is made to feel that they are more important than others. Some are driven by the sales department. Some by operations. Some by singularly charismatic, dominant individuals. But for a team to feel and perform like a team, it’s vital to develop a culture where people understand why ‘what they do’ is vital to the organization and one in which no one department or team consciously or subconsciously believes that they are more important than the others.
  
  
• Don’t pit people against one another or create power silos. Nip negative behaviors such as hoarding power, information or contacts in the bud. And conversely, make it absolutely safe for people to share information, power, contacts and even customers by behaving with integrity and insisting that all employees do the same.

4. Great teams recruit strategically. They go after the best players for each position; people who are not only great at what they do, but people whose strengths, personality (on and off the field) and abilities complement their style of play, work to fulfill their game plan, enhance and complement the strengths of other players and ultimately will help to generate immediate “wins” but will also help to build the team for the future.

• When hiring, remember that you’re not just looking for superstars, you’re looking for individuals who will fit in well with the employee culture that you have (or the one you want to develop).
  
  
• If you want to have a positive workplace, you must hire people who are positively charged. If you want to grow your business, you must hire people who can embrace change, welcome the suggestions and ideas of others and understand the concept of continuous improvement. If you want to deliver exceptional customer experiences, you must hire people who are positive, patient, knowledgeable, good at problem solving, can think on their feet, who don’t take criticism personally and who absolutely live to make the lives of others better.
  
  
• Hire for personality and attitude as well as abilities and experience. Make sure that not only your screening and interview processes but also your reference checks include questions which will help you determine whether the individual will be a good fit relative to other employees, whether they will add skills and abilities that you strategically desire, and whether they are individuals who can help you achieve not only short term “wins” but also build for the long term.

5. Great teams are committed to continuous improvement which they achieve by running drills, training, education and good old practice, practice, practice. Never satisfied with “good enough” or how good they were last season or during the last game, great teams constantly analyze their own performance to identify areas where they can improve, and then set out to do so. They work out to stay in shape and to get stronger and faster. They study the game plan. They learn every play in the playbook so that, if called upon, they can do their job to the absolute best of their ability.

• For many businesses, especially small businesses, this is an area which is often shelved for some time in the future when you believe that you will “have time” to develop a plan for improvement. In many businesses, employees are putting in a “good enough” performance because there is no reason or incentive for them to go above and beyond the call of duty. They don’t see a career path and opportunities for strategic development and advancement are not put in front of them. Mentoring and cross-training – practicing new skills -- is non-existent.
  
  
• Have you created a climate of continuous improvement, or is “good enough” good enough at your business? Do you incentivize, reward or acknowledge ideas for improving sales, reducing costs, increasing efficiencies and other process improvements? Do you make it safe for people to make suggestions and share ideas relative to their own jobs and to those of others?
  
  
• Do you encourage or support continuing education and training? Do you even have a training plan? How about a job mentoring or employee development program?
  
  
• How often do you even analyze the ‘play’ of your team to look for areas which can be improved? Do you conduct employee and customer surveys? Do you encourage and facilitate customer or employee feedback in any way? Do you act on ideas and complaints? Do you report results?

6. Great teams take time to reassess and adjust their game plan mid-season or even mid-game, and they do so for many reasons. They may have lost key players due to injury or trades. They may have lost one or more coaches, or even fired them for poor performance. Or what they are doing may simply not be working.

• Part of your planning process should include incremental measurements; points in time when you will step back and analyze whether the tactics you’re employing are working. You (and all the members of your team) must be able willing to make needed adjustments to your game plan. You must be open to change.
  
  
• You have to create a culture where managers and employees feel safe; safe to make suggestions and where criticisms are given and taken constructively (rather than personally). It’s not easy to develop this type of climate, and it starts at the top and is a climate to which all of the leaders in your organization should be held accountable.
  
  
• This is not a culture you’ll develop by accident; ‘fight or flight’ is human nature when it comes to confrontation and criticism. Creating a culture where it is safe for the people within it to operate, make and receive suggestions and implement needed change is something you’ll only achieve when it’s an authentic part of who you are as the leader of your business and the steps you take strategically to nurture it.

7. Great teams listen to experts on and off the field. Great teams don’t just have one great coach, or even a great coach plus a great offensive and defensive coordinator. Great teams have experts on and off the field and in the booth, people who have a different perspective of things because of where they’re sitting, who can be tapped for advice and insight.

• This may be scary, because top down, dictatorial leadership can seem easier. It gives you the illusion of having control – but it’s not the way to build a great team. To build a great team, all of the leaders and influencers within your business need to feel (and should be) valued and heard.
  
  
• To build a great team, you need to tap the advice and insights of people who are watching your game from a different perspective. No man is an island, and great leaders seek out mentors, peers and consultants who can provide them with real time feedback on their own performance as well as that of their team.

The next 7 characteristics of a great team will be published on Thursday, January 26th -it's going to be a great year!  

***

Elizabeth Kraus is the author of 365 Days of Marketing.

If you want to build a business which provides the maximum when it comes to customer and employee satisfaction and loyalty as well as profitability, change the way that you  understand and use marketing.  365 Days of Marketing is available on amazon.com or save $5 off the list price when you use the Code USH9VPJG and purchase on my site at 12monthsofmarketing.net.

Is Pinterest Right for Your Business, or Should You 'Put a Pin' in It?

The phase, “let’s put a pin in this” means that something may be a good idea or suggestion, but that you are going to pin it to a bulletin board (really or symbolically) for further study. But since early adopters generally get the most ROI from being among the first to really understand and utilize new communications, you might not want to “stick a pin” in Pinterest, which landed among the top 10 social media sites with nearly as much traffic as Google+ according to dreamgrow.com.

Instead, you might want to start pinning on Pinterest on behalf of your business sooner, rather than later. Now that I’ve spent a few weeks sleuthing through the site pinning interests of my own at http://www.pinterest.com/beinpulse; here are my current suggestions for Pinterest as far as business use goes:

Is Pinterest even for business?

Strictly speaking, no. No one who has set up an account and taken time to check the site out for any length of time would think that Pinterest is a social media site meant for business. And since it is still in Beta mode, and open to users by invitation only (to get an invitation, check with your friends or contacts on Facebook, it’s likely that someone will be able to send you an invitation), it will be interesting to see where its developers take the site.

That said, you can use it to build brand awareness and even to feature products and services, but my advice would be to use it sparingly and judiciously for those purposes, and participate on it as an individual if it is something that interests you, first and foremost.

To know whether Pinterest is right for you or your business, you need to know what it’s being used for and who is using it. 

Who is using Pinterest?

Again, a short foray into Pinterest itself will quickly reveal to you that it’s users are mainly (overwhelmingly) female. The site is used by individuals who share their own or other people’s handcrafted decorations and décor, home decorating styles, personal fashion styles, wedding ideas, party ideas, recipes and food presentation, kids crafts and rooms, quotes, graphics, DIY (do-it-yourself) how-to and other inspirations.

If you don’t see your business’s target markets or your own interests represented in those categories, then it’s unlikely that Pinterest is right for you, at least not right now.

If you do find members of your ideal client types represented by those types of interests, though, here are some guidelines to help you get started with this social media site: 

1. Get your own account (as a person) first. Put in at least 10-12 hours of personal research (believe me, this will happen more quickly than you might think). Learn how to find and follow other users. See if you can identify some of the influential ‘pinners’ relative to your business type.
   
2. Begin using your account to highlight a few aspects of your business that you believe would be of greatest interest to other individuals on Pinterest. Don’t post pictures of products or copies of your advertisements. Do post how-to tutorials for achieving looks, style, fashion, décor or decorating that would interest the individuals participating most on Pinterest.
   
3. Revisit Pinterest at least three times per week. Make your activity a combination of pinning your own interests, your own how-to or tutorials and re-pinning things others have pinned that you also appreciate.
   
4. Create one or two boards committed to your business. These might be boards which feature your work, how-to, tutorials, etc., blogs or books which inspire you (personally as well as professionally), a board which features quality head shots of your key staff along with interesting personal information or quotes about each – in other words; go light on business content and heavy on human interest content.
   
5. Pinterest allows you to cross-post pins simultaneously to Facebook and Twitter; do so, but be aware that every time you cross post you are putting another post from your Facebook page onto the stream of your friends and fans. One, they will see what you are posting so the same rules that govern your Facebook posting should apply (no profanity, no religious or political controversy, etc.) as well as frequency of posting. If you pin or repin 20+ items to Facebook, you could quickly lose followers there, so be judicious and cross post only those items which would be of interest or inspiration to your Facebook or Twitter fans and followers. 
6. To use Pinterest for business, you need original content and images by way of your own website, blog, or multimedia sites. Particularly when it comes to featuring your own work or how-to tutorials in pictures, utilize your own blog or website to post your text and images, then 'pin' to Pinterest. Sorry -- Pinterest doesn't allow you to post from Facebook (another reminder that Facebook is not a replacement for having your own website or blog!)
   
7. Watch as this social media site evolves for more opportunities. 

Want more? Likeable.com's article on how to curate your brand on Pinterest [here] suggests that you 'pin' contests and giveaways (great idea!), create an online catalog by way of its pin boards and pin relevant how-to and special interest content. 

***

Elizabeth Kraus, author of 365 Days of Marketing and the 2012 Small Business Marketing Calendar: Little White Marketing Lies.

Dispel all the little white marketing lies that might be holding your business back - check out the 2012 Small Business Marketing Calendar: Little White Marketing Lies on amazon.com.  With hundreds of marketing ideas laid out for 2012, you'll get into a marketing groove and build a bigger role for your business in the lives of your clients!

Show Customers You Care - 10 Valentines Day Marketing Ideas for Small Business

Now that you’ve taken down the snowflakes, lights and tinsel, you’re probably looking for Valentine’s Day decorating and marketing ideas for your small business. These Valentine’s Day marketing ideas are more than window dressing, and that’s the point, because people won't care about your business until they know how much you care about them!

Here are 10 marketing ideas for Valentine’s Day to help you build business, show customers you care and cultivate customer love and loyalty:

1. Use Facebook and Twitter to send 29 messages of affection to your customers.
Every day in February (and it’s a Leap Year, so there will be 29 days in the month) put blog and Facebook posts and Tweets out into the social media universe that conveys some measure of your affection for customers, a customer service promise or another customer care oriented message. And create a special Valentine’s Day email to send to your contacts on February 14th. That's 30 ways to say "I love you" to your customers!

2. Create your own Valentine’s Day love themed set of coupons.
You know how couples often create Valentines Day IOUs for back rubs and date nights? Create your own Valentine's Day IOUs in the form of bounce back offers distributed at the point of sale, via email and social media redeemable for a gift with purchase, discount or add on the next time they buy from your business.

3. Hold a 14 Days of Valentines contest or give away.
Every day from February 1-14, hold a contest or drawing to give away an inexpensive but desirable product, service, add on or even a branded coffee, water or travel mug, t-shirt or another branded tchotchke. Put together a grand prize for the February 14th drawing (such as a gift basket, collection with one of each of the items given away previously, larger ticket item, etc.)

4. Don’t forget the singles!
Obviously, everyone doesn’t have a significant other. The singles among your client base may well be sick of all the talk of love and romance. Cater to them by way of a romance-free shopping event or go the other direction and hold singles shopping hour mixers. Include a few love-cynical quotes on Facebook and Twitter. Or celebrate with special offers on February 15th, which is “Call in Single Day.”

5. Take time for introspection and show some love to your employees.
Study after study (not to mention common sense) tells us that engaged employees – employees who see themselves as aligned and connected with the brand and culture of the business where they work – are happier, more likely to deliver exceptional customer service and more likely to proactively resolve customer’s problems (or even go out of their way to prevent them). Your customers are much more likely to feel ‘loved’ by your business when your employees do, too! During February, send Valentines or notes of appreciation to your staff noting personal traits and talents you appreciate. Post customer raves on social media and in employee break and lunch areas. Hold a Valentine’s Day luncheon or send chocolates or flowers to each at home.

6. Put Cupid to work in your business.
Literally, put Cupid to work in your business. Solicit a staff volunteer to dress as Cupid and stand inside or outside of your business, distributing business cards, special offers, branded pens or promotional items, etc. Or hold a Cupid-hosted Valentine’s Day open house, extended shopping hours for VIP or loyalty club customers or another special event.

7. Send Valentines to people who need and deserve them.
Collect or create Valentines to be given to soldiers, seniors, cancer patients or another deserving group. Ask customers to bring signed Valentines or hold a DIY Valentine craft workshop for kids (of all ages). Feature the project in a press release and in stories on your website, social media, email newsletter and blog.

8. Live out the spirit of Valentine’s Day.
Donate a portion of proceeds or proceeds from the sales of specific products or services to a local deserving charity, or hold an a-thon type of event with proceeds and solicited donations going to charity. And don’t forget to tell people about the good works that you do for charity or in your community in communications via your website, blog, in email newsletters and on social media.

9. Get closer to your customers and prospects.
Do a customer service survey. Solicit customer comments, raves, reviews and other feedback. Form a focus group from among your most loyal customers to discuss one or more aspects of the customer experience which could be improved. Use customer or child-created Valentine arts and crafts to decorate within your business and feature them in photos on your website, email newsletter, social media and your blog.

10. Reward your best customers.
Double loyalty points or rewards for all purchases, your most loyal customers, club members or double up rewards or points when customers purchase specific products or services in February. Extend a special offer such as a free or reduced-price add on, gift with purchase or another incentive to your best customers or loyalty reward members. Send a Valentine to your most loyal customers by mail or email.

11. BONUS:  Looking for Valentine’s Day decorating ideas for your business?
Last month I found Pinterest and became immediately immersed (or, more accurately, addicted) as it appeals to my own A.D.D. approach to the internet. It’s an especially great resource for finding holiday craft and decorating ideas, including ideas for how to decorate your business for Valentine’s Day. You'll find some of my favorites here, but I highly recommend that you visit www.pinterest.com and take a look around, yourself. My next email newsletter will include this article about using Pinterest for business.

Merely decorating the windows, walls and displays in your business for Valentine’s Day is not enough. For customers to believe you care, your efforts must come out of authenticity. Remember the Law of Reflection? The principle included in my Top 10 Small Business Marketing Ideas at position #5 was this: No one— not your customers, employees, vendors or investors— no one is going to put more into the relationship they have with your business than you do. Your investment (the extent to which you go to show customers that you really care about them) will be reflected in their ‘love’ for and loyalty to your business. The return is never going to be more than your investment!

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Elizabeth Kraus is the author of 365 Days of Marketing.

If you want to build a business which provides the maximum when it comes to customer and employee satisfaction and loyalty as well as profitability, change the way that you  understand and use marketing.  365 Days of Marketing is available on amazon.com or save $5 off the list price when you use the Code USH9VPJG and purchase on my site at 12monthsofmarketing.net.

To Succeed in 2012, Get Engaged: #7 in the Top 10 Small Business Marketing Ideas for 2012

#7 in my top 10 marketing ideas for small business in 2012 is this: 

To succeed in 2012, you're going to have to get engaged. And as in any good love story, unless you’re part of an arranged marriage, you’ll never get engaged if you don’t ever meet so you need to ‘be’ where your customers ‘are.’

 Once you’ve found them, you need to engage them.To do that, you need to know how to engage them.To engage them, you need to understand what it means:

en-gage: v.

1. To involve oneself or become occupied; participate: engage in conversation.
2. To assume an obligation; agree.
3. To enter into conflict or battle: The armies engaged at dawn.
4. To become meshed or interlocked: The gears engaged.

Look at the definition,
it’s almost a picture of the customer life cycle.

• One, become involved (prospect finds you, or you find them, and an interaction occurs).
• Two, assume an obligation (they agree to pay, you agree to provide services and/or products in return).
• Three, to enter into conflict or battle (sure, it’s a stretch, but I’m going to liken this to the customer, becoming involved in your battle – to grow your business – by telling others about you or choosing to purchase from you again).
• And four, to become meshed or interlocked: based on 1-3, you now have developed customer loyalty and even brand advocacy.

To do any of that, you need to know them (both your current and desired/ideal customers).

You need to have an idea of the shared interests, values and passions of your current customers, and you need to have an idea of those of your ideal client types (those you most want to attract, or want to be able to attract in the future) as well.

Engagement – and the potential to move someone through to the next level of engagement – occurs any time you come into contact with a prospect or customer. That means that opportunities for engagement will occur both within your business and without.

The interactions that will engage people – get them to want to do business with you, to want to do business with you again, to want to tell others about you, and to want to do business only with you (when it comes to the products and services you provide) – these types of interactions will be those where alignment of emotional connection and relevance (what you have is actually something they need) occurs.

Make 2012 the year that you truly connect with your customers. Find out where they live, what they truly want and need, what stirs their passions, what things they believe in, what they value in and about your community, and so on. Make 2012 the year that you truly engage with people on behalf of your business. Get engaged – it’s going to be a great year!