Benchmark your way to success!

Posted on May 17, 2012 by fbaio

Business owners often wonder if they are successful on Facebook and for very legitimate reasons. Determining your success on social media can be difficult because there are so many businesses using social media in different ways. Coca-Cola has over 41 million likes, if your business doesn’t have that many, does that mean you’re unsuccessful? No!

So you may never reach 41 million likes on Facebook and that’s okay! That probably wasn’t a realistic goal for your business. But what is a realistic goal? This is something worth taking some time to think about. As a business owner, no one understands your business like you do. Think about what is a realistic goal for you to reach for a total like number on Facebook. When you have your goal, let’s think about the best ways to reach it.

Set benchmarks to achieve your goal

Benchmarks are the best way to measure if you are taking the right steps in reaching your goal. Furthermore, benchmarks allow you the time to try several different strategies and see which ones work best for your customer base. Allow yourself the appropriate amount of time to reach your goal.

See how you rate against the competition

Social media is so unique because it brings so many different kinds of businesses together in one place. As a business owner, you should use this as an opportunity. A strategy that worked for one business may also work for yours, or maybe something that didn’t work for another business might work really well for yours! Also, see how your competition is doing on Facebook. Use them as a tool when you are building your Facebook presence.

It’s okay to try a few different strategies on Facebook until you start to figure it out. If something doesn’t work, that’s okay! Give it some time and then try something new! The most important thing is that you are using benchmarks to work towards your goal.

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Instantly Upgrade Your Page’s SEO!

Posted on May 17, 2012 by jarbuckle

Want to increase the search visibility of your Facebook Page in less than two minutes? Follow this simple step for SEO of your business Facebook!  A common rule for search engine optimization is to place your most keyword-dense information closest to the top of your website. This SEO strategy works just as well for Facebook pages, but you are limited to where you can place text. Take advantage of the “About” box, which is a great place to put key information about your business.

If you haven’t already, click the “Write something about [Your Page]” in the box below your profile picture. You can enter custom text in this area, up to 250 characters. The first essential part of your about box must contain the URL to your official website. Secondly, add keyword descriptions about what your business does. Third, add where your business is located.

For example, “Visit us at http://pennysaveronline.com. We specialize in printing the best free newspaper in the country. Located in Norwich, we deliver Pennysavers all around central New York.” Anyone searching for free newspaper, central New York, or the Pennysaver will have a much better chance at finding our Facebook page with this “About” box.

Make sure to fully fill out your Company Description, Location, and Contact Us in your Basic Information section as well. These are all great ways to get your Facebook page noticed by search engines!

 

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A family that plays together, shops together!

Posted on May 17, 2012 by cbutcher

As Father’s Day is fast approaching, it would be silly to pass up the opportunity to get more traffic in your store. Any occasion to show your customers that you have a reason to celebrate a holiday with them, keeps them coming back for more.

Get Creative!

Creating workshops that are father and child based can be a great way to get customers in the store. Parents want to get their kids involved, and no matter what your business is, there are plenty of easy ways to occupy a child’s imagination. Even a pre-Father’s Day workshop, where mom and the kids come in to make a present for Dad!

Bring on the savings…

As always, Sales Events are a big hit, who doesn’t love to save money? Don’t forget to offer gift ideas within your store, suggesting what Dad might like to get this year! The power of suggestion goes a long way, and has proved successful time and time again.

Let them know that you’re listening…

Host a promotion of “Why I love my Dad”. When kids submit their written reason for loving dad, give them an opportunity to win a prize of some kind, and then display the winning entry in your store. Better yet, get a picture, some background information, and a blog can be posted on your website, making the whole experience come full circle.

With a little bit of imagination, any holiday can be made into an advantageous situation. It can also be a fun way to get in touch with your customers, creating an experience that makes them return to your store above any other.

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$5 Can Go a Long Way

Posted on May 16, 2012 by alidell

Building your email addresses at your register is simple as 1-2-3; all you need is a pen, paper and $5 off!

Nothing is more attractive and appealing to a customer than a dollar amount off on their next purchase by just giving you their email address. Not only will they be thinking what a no-brainer that is, they will also have extensive benefits with the newsletters you blast out to them.   They surely will be talking about it with their friends and neighbors. The more customers spread the word about your business, the more you grow!

You’re thinking, $5 per customer could add up over an extended amount of time.  But you will be receiving so much more in return!  Those customers will be coming back to the store to make purchases to redeem that $5.  So in return, you will be gaining more customers, boosting customer communication, a better opportunity to get more referrals easily, and more traffic coming through your doors. Sales! Sales! Sales! They will be coming through your doors, with the intent to buy, and you will gain so much more in revenue and exposure!

Building your email addresses is an easy way to reach a wide network of customers. Talk with your customers about the benefits of adding their email address to your list.  Giving them $5 off their next purchase and you will receive so much more in return. It’s as simple as 1-2-3!

 

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Utilizing Your Most Important In-Store Asset

Posted on May 16, 2012 by mabbott

There are many strategic ways to promote your website in your store. Some marketing ideas include customer signage kits, printing your website address on your receipts, and bag stuffers. All of these promotional campaigns are effective ways to broaden the awareness of your site. But what many small businesses fail to realize is that their best promotional tool is their own employees!

Each employee should be familiar with your website. If they haven’t even been to your website yet, how do you expect them to be able to promote it to your customers? At the beginning of each month, inform your employees of all the discounted products, featured items, events, coupons and special offers that are present on your site for the current month. This will enable your employees to talk to customers when they come into the store about the content of your website.

When your customers check-out have your employees ask “Have you been to our website lately? We have regularly updated special offers as well as a growing product catalog!” Any traffic driven to your website is good traffic. Utilize the most important asset to your store to help drive more customers onto the web, your employees.

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Increase your online presence through receipt marketing

Posted on May 9, 2012 by jthomas

If you are looking for an affordable way to promote your website and encourage repeat business, look no further than your paper sales receipt. Many cash registers offer the capability to print custom messages on every receipt.This is a low cost tool you can use to market to your customers.

Two areas you can use to print your website address on your receipt are the header and the footer. The header is a great place to print your URL, while the footer offers more room to get a message out to your customers. If you are not doing this already, you are missing out on a great opportunity to do some effective marketing at little cost to you.

Training your employees to circle or highlight your website address on the receipt is a great way to increase visitors to your site. Not only should your goal be to increase traffic to your site, but to increase returned visitors as well. Specials are a great way to increase visitor frequency to your website. Adding a message on the footer of your receipt is a simple way to accomplish this. Your message could say something like “Don’t miss out on our special offers! Visit us on the web for monthly savings and more.”

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Have you had a signage kit lately?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by fbaio

Phew! You’re done building your website, it looks great, you’ve been hearing good feedback from some customers… but you still want more. Do you find yourself wondering, how can I let all of my customers know about our website in one easy, eye-catching place?

Update the look of your check-out area with a signage kit! A signage kit is a great way to promote your website for a few reasons. First, it lets customers know that you have a website, which may be a news flash for them! Second, it allows you an opportunity to highlight the content that’s on your website. As an added bonus, if you’re on Facebook and Twitter, you can add those as well – the more the merrier, right?

Allow a signage kit to act as a salesperson for your business. It’s the perfect blend of creating awareness for those customers who don’t know you have a website and serves as a reminder to those who already do. The most important thing, of course, is that a signage kit helps drive traffic to your website!

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How to Get More Likes on Facebook

Posted on April 26, 2012 by fbaio

We hear people talking about the benefits of Facebook for a business owner every day. There are countless success stories, from small business owners to some of the biggest companies imaginable. It’s all great to hear…. But where did these companies start? There are a few key promotional tools you may want to consider to help boost your page and get more ‘Likes’ on Facebook.

1. Tell customers that you’re on Facebook
Now this may seem like a no brainer, but it’s something that can so easily be overlooked. Most of your customers are on Facebook and may not even know that you are! Put the fact that your on Facebook every place that your business name appears. This can start with something as small as your email signature and go all the way to your delivery van. It doesn’t matter where you put it as long as it’s there. Trust me, customers won’t get sick of seeing it!

Here are some common icons that are used to promote your Facebook page to help get you started:

Facebook Facebook Facebook

(The 3rd option is a QR code. You can make a custom one for your page for free at several different websites. Smartphone users simply scan this and it will take them directly to your Facebook page.)

2. Promote your Facebook Page
As a business owner, if you’re going to promote something, you might as well do it where it counts. Where do you interact with your customers the most? Is it in an aisle, at the register, or near the front door? If any of these were a “Yes!” then that’s where you should start promoting your Facebook page. Many Facebook pages hold value for customers; do you post coupons that will save your customers money? Then share that with your customers! Do you post about upcoming events? Your customers will want to hear about that too! Consider putting a sign at the register that encourages your customers to like you on Facebook and highlight the types of content they will have access to by doing so.

3. Create Compelling Content
Think of social media as a meet-and-greet with a customer, or even a friend. You want to talk to them about a topic that’s going to excite them. Especially when it comes to your business, you WANT customers to turn around and repeat the same thing you told them to at least 5 other people, right? Then do the same thing on Facebook! Post things that customers will WANT to share with their friends. It’s the easiest form of word-of-mouth marketing available. Instead of just relying on one customer to go tell 5 people, you now have the opportunity for many customers to tell ALL of their friends, with just one simple click.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you are on Facebook for a reason. You want to connect with your customers and provide them with valuable information that will make them appreciate your business even more. Starting out with some basic promotional tools will help you boost your platform and get more ‘Likes!’

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Email Address Builder

Posted on April 26, 2012 by alidell

With the increasing popularity of social media, building your email addresses through these social network avenues can help you reach a larger audience.  Email and social media go hand-in-hand.  They both can be effective on their own, however, when combined, their capabilities can exceed your marketing goals.

By adding an email sign-up app to your Facebook, you can provide another platform to connect to your audience.  You will be able to give your email subscribers more options and allow you to expand the reach of your message.   Facebook fans that are not on your mailing list will be missing out on your exciting newsletter content.   Featuring an email sign up on your Facebook gives you a great way to communicate and share relevant information to your readers.  This, in turn, will create conversations, interaction between customers and you, and drive traffic between your web site and social media platforms.

Adding an email sign-up app directly to your Facebook page is more effective than linking to an outside form.   By signing up directly, Facebook users will experience the convenience and feel more comfortable staying within Facebook rather than be directed to an unknown site.

Email sign up on your social media platforms is a no-brainer.  You will reach a wide variety of clientele, start conversations, and create several avenues to drive traffic to your business.

 

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Creating a Simple, Yet Effective Incentive Plan

Posted on April 23, 2012 by mabbott

Are you looking for new ways to keep your regular customers coming back as well as trying to broaden your customer base? Excellent customer service and everyday low prices are always a great selling point, but why not offer a little extra incentive to make sure that your customers are returning and new ones will want to start coming in more often?

Creating an incentive plan can be easy and fun to do. You may be wondering what an incentive plan actually is. It is quite a simple idea. Find out what your customers are purchasing the most. If you know your customers, this shouldn’t be difficult. Many regular customers often come in to the store to purchase the same, or a couple of the same products each visit.

Start a program where if you accumulate, say 6, 8, or 10 purchases of one item, then they get the next item for free. You can track this in a few different ways. Here are two ideas. The first is to have your customers hold on to their receipts. When they have purchased the amount needed to get their free item, they can show you the proof on the receipts and you can give them their free item.

Another way to track customer purchases would be to have a little card made up that you can hole punch with a unique hole puncher or certain color marker. It will be the responsibility of the customer to hold on to their card and present it to be marked at each purchase. Many stores already use promotional coupons very similar to this.

This is a simple, yet rewarding incentive plan that can easily be executed at your store. It ensures that customers will keep coming back for more and it also tells them thank you for shopping with us and lets them know that they are valued. Use this promotional venture to boost your in-store support today!

 

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