Marketing
No, the 4Ps are not price, product, place and promotion. Those 4Ps are considered useless without having a marketing directive of building trust with a customer. The new 4Ps: passion,purpose, positioning and personality, according to John Jantsch, is about how a business is experienced not just what it sells. Passion: Leading with passion is how [...]
Author: Biz Tips, Marketing, Motivational | No Comments »
This is old news in the techie blogosphere/twitterverse, but you may have noticed these little barcode-type images popping up. What are they? They are QR codes or Quick Response codes, and you’ll find them in advertisements and magazines, on tickets and boarding passes, and even on business cards and t-shirts.
So what do they do? Well, they allow immediate access to relevant information with the use of a smartphone.
Similar to traditional commercial barcodes, a QR code is a two-dimensional image made up of black and white pixels that, with the right app, can be scanned by a smartphone to reveal all sorts of digital content: a string of text, a website URL, an email, a phone number, a location on google maps, or even a youtube video.
This is a great way to expand your social media outreach.
Try posting codes on the front or back of your business card, on print advertisements, on brochures, signage, and other marketing materials, on product packaging, event materials and nametags, restaurant menus, ticket stubs, or receipts.
Link to your own website or online content, your Facebook page or LinkedIn, directions to your business, a free download, coupon codes and special offers… the possibilities are limitless!
How to generate a QR code?
It’s so easy! Simply use a generator site, like qrstuff.com or qrcode.kaywa.com. Save the image, and put it on whatever you’d like!
This is a great way to make yourself and your business more visible and accessible. And it’s free, so why not try it?
We also found these tips to be helpful: 5 QR Code Failures to Learn From (via @BuffaloNiagara)
This is a particularly good idea for the vendors (and even attendees) at our upcoming conference. Integrate a QR code into your table signage so that conference attendees can instantly access your website, connect with you on social media, or learn more about your products or services.
The 2011 Women’s Leadership Conference will be held on June 14th at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. Find out more or register online.
What is your experience with using QR codes? Any advice? Leave a comment below.
Author: Biz Tips, Events, Marketing, Media, Women's Leadership Conference | 2 Comments »
Just a quick post today.. In case you don’t already follow the ever-popular blogger and marketing guru Seth Godin, I’d like to share with you his recent post, “How can you do it?!”
Recounting a conversation with an incredulous someone, he quotes:
JK asks,
“It’s like, how does anyone start their own business? How is it even possible? How do they deal with the crippling fear and harsh economic realities?”
But Godin counters, “How can you not do it?” He says:
The people who successfully start independent businesses (franchises, I think are a different thing) do it because we have no real choice in the matter. The voice in our heads won’t shut up until we discover if we’re right, if we can do it, if we can make something happen. This is an art, our art, and to leave it bottled up is a crime.
I think his point is meant to be motivational. But this is something we see at the Women’s Business Center every day, and perhaps even more so now that the nation and the Buffalo area has become entrenched in economic hardship. People are taking this opportunity – because of a lost job, or whatever it might be – to pursue a dream, to start the business they’ve always wanted to start, to explore the possibilities of entrepreneurship, to create their own job. And we’re here to encourage dreaming, and to support this personal and economic growth.
Tell me, how can you do it? Leave a comment.
Author: Marketing, Media, Motivational, Start-Up | No Comments »
If you’ve been following the blog the last couple of weeks, you know that we’ve been investigating the concept of applying social media to your marketing efforts as a small business owner or entrepreneur. We’ve focused on the “what” and the “how” of social media, but what’s more interesting is the “why”: what are the effects of using social media that would lead you to create this kind of presence?
Well, we recently came across a study from Mashable that tracks the effects of companies and brands using Facebook and Twitter. They report that “consumers are 67% more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter, and 51% more likely to buy from a brand they follow on Facebook. Moreover, they’re 79% more likely to recommend their Twitter follows to a friend, and 60% more likely to do the same on Facebook.”
The study also indicates thats consumers may have a “negative perception” of a brand that hasn’t tapped in to social media.
See the original post here.
What do you think about these statistics? Leave a comment.
Author: Marketing, Media, Stats | No Comments »
(This post comes from WBC board member Tom Grifasi, of Enterprise Holdings System Corporation, as a follow-up to this introductory post about the business application of social media.)
The major social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn) have become household names and major marketing tools for business. However, two factors are often overlooked when a business decides to jump into the social media marketing:
First, there are dozens of social media sites (loosely defined) which can push your marketing message. Once you determine which sites seem to be popular with your target market, you can begin to focus your efforts and even create orchestrated campaigns to “cross market” your messages (aka “advertise your advertising”). Here’s a short list to get you started:
http://www.squidoo.com
http://www.tagfoot.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com (also, http://www.articlemarketer.com)
http://www.digg.com
http://www.stumbleupon.com
http://www.zimbio.com
http://www.mixx.com
http://www.friendfeed.com
http://www.big-boards.com
http://www.craigslist.com
Second, after Google acquired YouTube, their search algorithms changed and now give YouTube postings an advantage in Google search results. Therefore, video clips on YouTube will generate a better click-through rate to your website and your message than most other efforts at SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
And finally, what most marketers miss—even those who successfully use online marketing such as Social Media sites—is the Conversion Rate. That’s the ability to capture visitors to your site, turning click through visitors into bona fide leads, newsletter subscribers, etc.
Author: Biz Tips, Guest Blogger, Marketing, Media | 4 Comments »
In this day of constantly-refreshed status updates, tweets, texts, and feeds, we’d like to know:
How connected is your business?
We’ve recently joined Twitter and YouTube and have been maintaining a Facebook page for a while now, even syncing our feeds with a new platform, TweetDeck. This is all in an effort to make ourselves more available to you.
But we’re interested to see how many of you are tapping into social media. If you are connected in this multitude of ways, what benefits are you seeing from it?
A recent survey of our clients cited that the biggest concern in 2010 was marketing their business. And we are a firm believer in this kind of media’s marketing potential. We’d like to investigate this further, so stayed tuned for more content about how you can use social media and information sharing to your advantage.
Tell us what you think… Leave a comment!
Author: Biz Tips, Marketing, Media | 4 Comments »