Category Archives: Everything Else

Marketing and Promotional Ideas for 2012

Now is the time to start planning your promotional calendar for 2012.

Use these “Holidays” as special sales promotions in the upcoming year.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

January

New Years Day
College Football
New Year’s Resolutions
Martin Luther King
Super Bowl
Back to School – 2nd Semester
Bank Holiday (UK)

February

Ground Hog Day
Mardi Gras
President’s Day
Valentine’s Day
Daytona 500
February Sweeps for Television
Black History Month

March

St. Patrick’s Day
Passover
Easter
First Day of Spring
March Madness
Academy Awards
Spring Break with the Family!
End Q1

April

Baseball Opening Day
Good Friday
April Fool’s Day
Tax Day
Earth Day
Master’s (Golf)
Prom

May

Cinco de Mayo
Mother’s Day
Graduation
Victoria Day (Canada)
Memorial Day
Spring Bank Holiday (UK)
Kentucky Derby
Season Finales for Television
Teacher Appreciation Week
National Small Business Week

June

Father’s Day
NBA Playoffs
NHL Playoffs
Flag Day
Graduation / School’s Out
First Day of Summer
Time to Take a Vacation!
U.S. Open (Golf)
Wimbledon (Tennis)
End Q2

July

Independence Day
Canada Day
Summer Fun

August

Back to School
Tax-Free Sales Events
End of Summer
College Football

September

Labor Day
NFL Opens
First Day of Fall
End Q3

October

Columbus Day
World Series
Thanksgiving Day (Canada)
Red Ribbon Week
National Boss Day
National Book Month
Halloween

November

Election Day
Veteran’s Day
Thanksgiving Day
Black Friday (Busiest Shopping Day)
November Sweeps for Television
NBA
NHL
Global Entrepreneurship Week

December

First Day of Winter
Christmas
Boxing Day
Happy Holidays
College Football
New Year Resolutions
New Years Eve
End Q4
End of Year

If you need any help getting more ideas together, let me know!

Is Your Small Business Using Online Local Marketing?

By Allan Joseph

As a small business owner, if you do not take advantage of the Internet, then you are missing a huge opportunity to promoting your products and services. Using online local Internet marketing tactics can transform your small business marketing into BIG business marketing.

Nearly 50% of businesses have taken that first essential step to getting online: building a web site. That’s great but, unfortunately, just having that small piece of real estate on the web isn’t enough. It’s a start, so let’s build on that by reviewing some basic things to do with the web site first. The appearance and the content of your web site should be simple and valuable. Whoever visits your site should find it attractive and should be able to clearly understand your company’s benefits. Try having enough information on the site to answer the most frequent questions that your prospective customer might have. Even more, have information on the site that explains what they SHOULD know, but don’t know to ask about. Again, just putting up a site on the Internet isn’t going to be enough to bring more business, but make sure it is done right.

The key to using your web site to drive more traffic to your business, with phone calls, online purchases, or in-store visits, is capture the attention of people searching for your goods and services online. The number of people using search engines, such as Google, to find local businesses like yours is skyrocketing. Recent studies show that many more people are searching the web for local products and services than picking up the “handy” yellow page book. Google and its rivals have figured that out and they are investing heavily to designing their search engines to cater to that audience. Therefore, you need to do THREE THINGS right now to benefit from that trend.

1) First, construct your web site to conform with what the search engines want to show their users. Specifically, find out what the online searchers are typing into the search box and write your web site’s content to accommodate. That is often referred to in the Internet marketing community as on-page search engine optimization (or SEO).

2) Second, promote your web site in as many places as possible (online and offline). “As many places as possible” includes, but is not limited to, these activities: finding web pages online where a link to your web site can be placed; adding your business information to online local directories; adding your business information to social media sites; creating content in the form of articles, videos, images, reports, etc. and posting it on a variety of online content sharing web sites; and others! With a little creativity, you will find that there are more opportunities to reference your business and link back to your web site than you’ll ever be able to do.

3) Third, manage your reputation online. If you do nothing else, you should be monitoring what people online are saying about you, your business, your competitors, your suppliers, and even your customers (if you’re B2B). Many tools exist to monitor these conversations.

If you want to attract more customers, then take advantage of the Internet by making it easy for people to find your business when they are looking for it. Nowadays, people are using the Internet as their primary source for researching local businesses. If you understand that and implement these three steps, you will be in a great position to attract that audience. If not, your competitors will.

If you are a small business owner that understands the value of the Internet as described in this article, then you’re ready to take action.

Click this link to find out more about affordable local online marketing.

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Diverse Local Advertising Methods Reach Wider Audience

by Liz Jones

For small business, advertising is the key to drawing in customers. There are several different ways to go about it. Using only one form of advertising is not always effective. Using multiple types of advertising venues reaches a broader audience, and therefore, more potential customers.

Demographics

Knowing some demographics about clientele is helpful in discovering what types of advertising will reach the. There are several ways to find out preference and background on present customers.

Conduct surveys with cards at cashiers counter or send them out with the mail on delivery orders. There are several online programs that can calculate demographics of those visiting a business’ website. These statistics can be used to streamline marketing and advertising strategies.

A business can cater marketing strategies towards its clients. If most of them are married adults without children, for example, a buy-one-get- one free coupon online might be successful. A local radio spot might also be efficient. Radio stations know their demographics, so, statistics can be mated to certain stations and commercial air times.

Format

Where and how a customer conducts business is key to reaching them in marketing strategies. If they rarely go online, the best pay-per-click advertising campaign is not going to reach them. If they never read the newspaper, classified ads will not help. Using both methods of advertising, however, will reach both clientele.

Methods

The type of online advertising used affects how a potential customer discovers a business, especially a small local one. If a business does not have a website it will be difficult for people to find them online. These businesses must use advertising online though social media websites or piggyback off of other websites such as the local Chamber of Commerce or a review site. Small businesses that are offline may also need to cater to an audience that is offline. Strategies might include flyer distribution, newspaper advertising, radio and television campaigns, direct mail and outdoor billboards.

Cost

The least expensive advertising with the greatest return on investment is always the best strategy. Some forms of local advertising cost very little. For example, writing a company blog is one way to advertise online at a cost of paying a professional or doing it in-house. Running coupons and flyers costs little and the method of distribution could also be low. However, if no one pays attention the cost won’t matter. If spending $3,000 on advertising online or through a radio campaign brings in $6,000 in customer sales, it is probably worth the investment.

About the Author

Author writes about a variety of topics. If you would like to learn more about local advertising, visit http://www.local-advertising.com/.