Savvy Low-Cost Marketing Moves for Young Entrepreneurs

Two realities of today for young entrepreneurs:

ONE: You MUST keep marketing your business all of the time

TWO: Cash available for marketing is getting less and less

So what are the savvy marketing moves all young entrepreneurs should be making in their business, on little to no budget, for maximum results?

BLOG IT UP

If you don’t have a blog for you and your business, then start one. If you do, crank it up! Think about what your customers want to know about that you can help them with? What are the key words your customers search for? Combine those two and start creating content. And don’t forget to add an RSS feed for your blog so people can subscribe and be kept updated.

You can check ours at www.frankteam.com.au/blog

Get YOUR Content OUT-THERE

Take your blogging to the next level and create some great articles from your content, then get that content out there to the world to build reputation & focus on you and your business. How-to’s, tips, strategies, interviews, positive stories and lesson’s learnt just to name a few. Your articles can go onto your website, into your newsletters, and then submit them to various media & content websites (eg: PRweb.com, SmartCompany.com.au, FlyingSolo.com.au, WotNews.com.au, ezinearticles.com). Even send them to The Frank Team for upcoming IGNITE editions!

DATABASE Contact

If you don’t have your past customers & prospects already in a database, spend time doing that & then make it a habit to update it as new contacts are made. If you do already have databases, when was the last time you got in contact with those people? You need to talk to and “touch” your people at least every 6 weeks for them to remember you. Email them, call them, text them, just do something to be sure you are talking to them regularly. But make sure what you have got to say is interesting & helpful, otherwise you are just noise.

Reward REFERRALS

For those wonderful customers who tell others about your great business, make sure you reward them. Anything from a phone call, to movie tickets, to discounts on accounts go a long way to make them feel appreciated. All you have to do is weigh up the cost of acquiring a new customer from scratch vs the cost of the reward to ensure you stay ahead and create goodwill!

Speak UP

Search for the 2009 conferences that are happening in your industry, especially where your customers will be. Create a kick-arse speakers profile all about YOU and your expertise. Then submit your profile with some great ideas for speaking topics you can cover for each of the conferences and secure some face time for yourself in front of your peeps. You can also get help with this through PR consultants, if writing kick-arse speakers profiles is not really your thing!

WEB Wonders

Get clear on the key words that your customers use when searching for you (or possible you’s) and ensure you have those key words wherever possible on your website (or otherwise known as Search Engine Optimisation)

Create a Facebook group account for your business (if your customer audience is young) & then send it out through your networks for members to join. Make sure you keep it updated. Put “The Frank Team” into your search on Facebook, find us & ask to join!

Post videos on YouTube, GoogleVideo and other video sites to bring your content and business alive.

Get your site listed on StumbleUpon, del.icio.us.com, digg.com, Squidoo.com & Yelp.com and any other directories that your customers may use.

Create separate landing pages on your website for different segments of your customer base

Create a professional LinkedIn.com profile for yourself and connect with people you know through the network. Update your profile with recent projects.

Keep the world updated with your latest “what’s on” through updating your Facebook profile regularly OR by creating a Twitter account

Team Up

What other businesses can you team up with that will add value for your customers with complimentary services/products? Personal trainers & healthy catering company, Car wash & xmas present wrapping, GPS & travel companies. Think about who targets the same customers as you do & see how you can team up together.

Old Fashioned Snail...................................................Mail

Yep – consider going back to some personalised letters. All it costs is the paper, printing, envelopes & stamps (which are now 55c each – watch out for that one!) plus of course some creative juices to put together an interesting and engaging letter. Either send it out cold to a new list, or to your past customers to say “hi”. The Frank Team is giving this one a go this week, so we will let you know how it goes (right here - on our blog!). Or chuck it onto the fax & use a fax stream service. The key is to get the message right in the letter; a compelling message that urges action.

Don’t believe us when we say these marketing moves work?

What marketing are young entrepreneurs ACTUALLY doing in their business right now? And is it working?

We asked a bunch of young entrepreneurs for their recent successful & unsuccessful marketing moves!

Michael Lieu – DriveSmart GPS Hire Australia (www.gps-hire.com.au)

SUCCESS- People love a bargain. Posting coupons/vouchers on ozbargain.com.au and eBay created more leads and successful conversions.
SUCCESS - Networking! I treat them as an opportunity to pitch your product/service rather than just gaining new contacts & business cards.
SUCCESS: Blogs - Google loves it when you update your site often, so use a blog which is regularly updated using keywords used by your target market. Here is mine http://www.gps-hire.com.au/blog/
UNSUCCESSFUL: Not so low cost, but Google AdWords - poor conversion rates, very expensive mistake. Focus on SEO work instead.

Emma Isaacs - Business Chicks, Last Thursday Club, Studio Bodyfit (www.businesschicks.com.au)

SUCCESS: Leverage/referrals – leveraging off of our existing customers has always worked well. There’s a lot more power and influence in having someone else talk about you rather than talking about yourself. We run events and activities all around the country so we’ll often ask a company who has multiple offices to refer us to their state counterparts. Given their experience with Business Chicks, they’re always happy to and it works beautifully.

SUCCESS: PR – publicity builds credibility and interest in your brand and if the article is angled correctly, can position you as an expert in your field.

UNSUCCESSFUL: Direct mail – we’ve found that the Business Chicks brand is difficult to understand until you’ve experienced it firsthand. Going in cold with marketing activities such as direct mail pieces have never returned strong results for us.

Mike Jarocki - Credit Card Finder (http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au)

SUCCESS - Article Marketing

Article marketing consists of submitting an article in your business expertise for publication in an internet article directory. It is mutually beneficial - the page where your article will be featured has advertisements where the article directory can gain revenue, and in return, you gain a 'free' link back to your websites, which can bring traffic and a quality link back to your site.

The largest and most successful article marketing campaign to date revolved around building the search engine rankings for the terms 'best credit card' and 'best credit cards'. First, an overseas freelance writer was contacted to write 20 articles on credit cards. Next, these articles were published among various article directories (namely ezinearticles.com and buzzle.com). Each article was specifically modified to promote the phrase 'best credit card(s)', which in turn raised our search engine rankings for the term in Google.

The total cost for this particular campaign was $200.As a result we are currently first for both of those search terms!

SUCCESS - Split-Testing

When visitors come to websites, the slightest phrase or graphic can have the largest influence whether they will click through to your product, or leave the site. Split-testing involves creating two copies of the same page, with slight variations (for example color, positioning and sentence restructuring). After about 200 visitors have visited your page, you will begin to get an idea of which layout is most successful for sale conversion.

For Credit Card Finder, it was found that the color red for application buttons yielded the highest click through rate, by about 13% over green. The total cost for split-testing is $0. It simply involves a free split testing program (we used Google Website Optimizer) and the time dedicated to creating different copy on your webpage.

UNSUCCESSFUL - Press Releases

While press releases in online marketing history have been known to result in a wave of free and quality coverage, it wasn't the case for Credit Card Finder. A press release was written about our new 'credit card calculator' - but press release coverage was non-existent once sent out. The total cost was about $150.

Faye Maramara – Paro Paru Jewellery - www.paroparu-shells.com.au

Two successful low-cost marketing strategies are:

SUCCESS: Direct marketing- this involves cold calling and making appointments with buyers to view my ranges of jewellery. No cost involved, 80% successful.

SUCCESS: Editorial- This involves meeting stylists and making appointments with glossy magazines when my new ranges of jewellery come out. No cost involved, 90% successful.

UNSUCCESSFUL: Not doing anything. Seriously. 0% successful

Lara Soloman, LaRoo P/L & MOCKS www.MyMocks.com

SUCCESS: We made a Mocks page (Mocki) on facebook then invited everyone from our online newsletter to be friends with us. This doubled the number of friends we had in a week, which has given us more opportunity to reach our target audience with more news and offers and strengthen the brand, and brand awareness.

SUCCESS: Added a link to my email signature to take people straight to the web page to buy my book! One sale so far that I know of.

UNSUCCESSFUL: Putting out flyers on cars promoting my product. We got busted by the local council and threatened with a fine and had to collect them all in again!

Jessica Kiely – The Frank Team (www.frankteam.com.au)

SUCCESS: November IGNITE edition with promo about new Frank Team Break it Down cards resulted in an instant sale!

SUCCESS: Personalised email out to specific database about upcoming program they would be interested in resulted in 3 sign-ups straight away.

SUCCESS: Event that featured past participants of a program & invited new possible participants to learn about that program. This resulted in 2 sign-ups within a week.

UNSUCCESSFUL: Fax stream to cold list with a letter that offered a free Planner for response. We got 8 responses out of about 200 faxes sent, but none of those responses have converted yet. (We are working on it!)

So what savvy marketing moves are you going to make today to move your business forward?

By - Jessica Kiely

The Frank Team – www.frankteam.com.au

Inspiring Young Entrepreneurs

Marketing Tip - Know Your Customers

Sounds basic, I know. But how many of us actually take the time to sit down, look at our different target markets (if you're like The FRANK Team you have more than one, which makes it a little more complicated at times) and REALLY THINK about their characteristics?

Think about their demographics - where they're located, their age, sex, etc.

Then think about what affects their psychographics - what do they do for a job? What sort of experiences are they interested in participating in? What do they do in their spare time? Why do they use your product/service - what need does it meet? What is the one problem they are overcoming by using your business's product/service?

Really hone in on the problem you're helping them to overcome. And remember - it's you HELPING them! Make it easy for them to understand that you know where they're coming from; what they're feeling; and you understand how to help them to overcome that problem.

Marketing Tip - What Makes You Different?

Do you know what it is that makes YOU and YOUR BUSINESS different to everyone else out there?

This is called your Uniquite Selling Proposition - USP. If you don't know what it is, how can you expect anyone else to? And if they don't know what makes you different, remind me again why they keep using your product/service?

Take the time to really look at your business - what is it that makes your business's product/service different? Is it a particualr type of technology? Your level of service?

Once you've figured it out, use it! Communicate it to your customers, on your website, in your promotional material, educate your sales staff, your receptionist, all of your other staff members - say it loud and say it proud!

Marketing Tip - Small Steps...

Grow your business by gradually making each transaction larger, and focusing on increasing the number of transactions your customers have with your business.

Small, simple - but effective!

Marketing Tip - Know Your Competition...

Again, I know it sounds basic. But it is SO important, and it can take a lot of time to really do the research into this area!

So, firstly there's your direct competitors - those who provide the same product/service that you do. Who are they and what makes them different to you? What is their core value proposition, their unique selling proposition?

But what about those who provide products that could replace yours - substitute products? If you sell breakfast cereal, bread is a competitor too! As are those shake up pancake mixes. And yoghurt. What are you doing about them?

And have you thought about those who provide products that compliment yours? Sticking with the breakfast cereal example, what about milk providers? Are you sure they aren't working with other breakfast cereal providers to get new products out onto the market? What would that do you to if it did happen? And why aren't you working with them?