Small Business Marketing Tips

To plan and execute a effective marketing strategy is a huge challenge for any small business. Here are my suggestions and a brief strategy for each.
1) FACEBOOK a low cost way to market your business, with over 300 million users, very powerful platform to build a presence for your business, If you dont have a facebook page get one immediately. Best thing to do is look at your competitors and see how they run their pages. Keep up with updates and ask your fans what they like to see. Ask them about what promos they would like to see engage with them.
2) Twitter another tremendous marketing platform just like facebook. Its a must for your business just tweet about your business and acknowledge good customers. Use tweetpic to send pictures of products from your phone. Some marketing personal prefer twitter to facebook doing both is a must.
3)Blog although most people focus on social media. Blogs continue to offer great value for small businesses. Decide on a focus for your blog and write great content for that focus. People will enjoy it and next thing you know you have a ton of followers and you become a guru. I recommend wordpress.
4) LinkedIn is a business oriented social network for professionals and its huge with over 500 million users all over the world.You can network with specialist in your field and meet new people in other fields of work. LinkedIn is one of my favorites everyone is very professional and friendly. Go to the groups page and join the groups that you know you can contribute good information to. I often connect with LinkedIn contacts thrue Skype.
5) Participate on other peoples blogs. I know it sounds time consuming but the payback is amazing. Remeber it takes time to build a reputation and establish credibility. This will get people to notice you and come to you for advice or job prospects. Good way to get going with participating is to leave a good comment on the blogs that connect to your business. No spamming your business or yourself, its time to give praise and a smart educative comment . Dont show the writer up. Send writer a email and ask them if they interested in guest writing for you or can you write for them.
6) Youtube is write up there with all the social networks. The great thing about youtube is you can do a power point presentation or use your webcam and record yourself giving useful information or showing of your products. The worlds the limit.

Depending on what your business identity is there are other things to look out for  Google Places, Foursquare, Yelp are a few left out. There is always a new one coming out to help build your business. Just follow the 6 listed and keep up with them everyday and within a year or two you will be amazed how much exposure your business and you have recieved, not to mention the comtacts you have. thxs again Phoenix Arcadia business specialist Jeff Killeen

The 5 Reasons Why Groupon Like Company's Are Bad For Your Restaurant

Anybody thats thinking of doing a groupon like coupon or feature for your restaurant. PLEASE READ THIS NOTE and understand the 5 problems you will encounter .
1) Deals are discounted 50% off retail price. Example $15 for $30 worth credit. Sounds great but we are giving 50% off of which groupon keeps half of the sale. Business owners are keeping 25% percent of what they normally make on any sale.
2) Attracts the wrong customers for your business. Most restaurants that have done these deals complain that the new customers are just out for the deal and will spend as little as possible to redeem the voucher. You will encounter lower tips and rarely will you turn them into good returning customers.
3)Too many customers to soon. The power of group buying can rally enormous numbers of people to your business. Its good to earn new sales, but the high traffic in a short period can be a recipe for disaster for a business thats not prepared. Man power issues, customers suffering with waiting times or food not coming out quickly. Results can effect your online ratings like yelp and word of mouth by unhappy customers is never good.
4) Lower profit margins, forget about making any profits from customers that buy the deal. Most businesses that feature these deals are lucky to break even. Remember your making 25% of what you normally take in.
5) No customer addresses gained. The single most important thing in the restaurant business is capturing your customers email address.
I agree with this article completely, as i have featured groupon with my restaurant and it was the worst marketing move i have ever done. Pleae understand the problems before you commit to these deals. I would like to point out that these deals are very helpful for companies (insurance, accountants etc) for gaining new clients.

thxs Jeff Killeen "phoenix arcadia business specialist"  Facebook link

Business Identity.. Who are you?

In many ways, your business is like a person. It has to have a personality, values and vision. You can dress a man or woman to look a certain part, however, it does not take long to find out that good looking person in the business attire knows what he or she is doing.The best part about dressing and playing the part. Eventually it becomes intergated into your personality.
I believe that having or building a solid brand is the key to longevity in any business. Based on my experience in the restaurant industry with many owners and operaters. A strong brand reflects the owners personality and vision. The most successful businesses i know or watch have long term vision and have a desire to produce something important and needed. The businesses that are out to make quick money come and go quickly. Businesses that love their vision and know there sense of purpose in their community are the successful survivors in these tough economic times.
Its often easy to lose our personality, vision and values in this fast paced world, when things are going fast and your working like a mad dog . Take time to sit back and answer these questions. Whats important to you? What kind of experience do you want your customers to have and take away with them? What are you known for? Whats your mark that you leave on your community around you?
In these tough times with upset americans and marches and economic woes, distrustful politicians. We can always ask these questions to ourselves and manifest them into our business and build something important , successful, rewarding to our community.
Thanks for following my page .
Jeff Killeen   Phoenix/Arcadia Business Specialist

Interenet Marketing Small Businesses

When doing internet marketing for small business, you have to run an even tighter and more planned campaign than if you were doing it for a large business. The smaller the business, it seems, the more tightly the plan should be. Large companies have a much larger advertising budget, so even if their online marketing strategies aren't very successful, traditional advertising can make a huge difference for them.

But smaller businesses typically don't have thousands of dollars to spend on the more common forms of advertising. Online marketing often becomes the main thrust of the marketing campaign, so it's necessary that it's done very well.

An advantage that small businesses can have over large corporations when it comes to marketing online is that they're more likely to have a very focused niche. While large companies have niches, too, sometimes larger companies market a variety of products and services over a very broad customer base. Then marketing each individual niche has to be a separate campaign.

When internet marketing for small business, you'll probably only have to worry about one very specific niche. You'll know exactly what your customers are looking for, and can focus on filling that need with every aspect of your marketing plan, instead of having to spread the campaign over several different groups of consumers.

Internet marketing for small business, because of the smaller budgets, often doesn't involve heavy pay-per-click advertising. The cost involved with PPC ads can end up being quite high with not necessarily a very big return. If you have a specific budget set up for PPC marketing, then by all mean use it, but monitor the returns very carefully so you can abandon keywords that aren't working and focus on those that bring in the customers.

Search engine optimization is an excellent method of internet marketing for small business. There can be expense involved if you pay a marketing expert or an SEO service to handle this branch of your marketing efforts, but the money spent will probably be well worth it. This is also where many small businesses fail.

They don't make sure their content is optimized for the search engines, so it's very difficult for someone to find them unless they're searching on the company name. People search for what they want, though, not the company that might have what they're looking for. So internet marketing for small business should always include a plan to get your website higher in the search engine rankings on the best keywords for your company.

Part of the search engine efforts should involve getting other websites to link to yours. Search engines don't just take keywords into account, but they also pay attention to a website's popularity with other sites. The more sites that link to yours, the more valuable your information is according to most search engines. These methods of internet marketing for small business can get a small company's website ranked well ahead of a corporation's, all while spending much less money on advertising.

How to get customers easier than you think

by "Phoenix arcadia business specialist" on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 12:41pm

We all know what a pain it is these days trying to get customers to spend money. But there are some pretty easy methods that work that give you that "why didnt i think of that " thought. One thing i noticed running the Tee Pee restaurant is what is my image in the community or where do i fit in the community. These methods can help your business get mass amounts of customers.
First thing to do is take a drive around your business a half mile circle and see who's established or what kind of business is there around you. Do you have younger people , is there older people that live your area.. Are there doctors offices , commercial businesses and schools etc.. What im trying to say is what can you do to cater to these peoples needs get some money out of them.
Working with schools and teachers has been one method that really gets things going when you feel like your slowing down. Go to the districts and say i want to make my name a presence with the schools in the district. Offer them a discount item, vip card etc. Remember they are teachers unfortunately they dont make a killing with there salary but as a group they can bring some good profits in to your business. Team fundraisers these can be a royal pain in the butt with parents and school officials. My official stance on fundraisers is you have to come to me and give me sales then i will give you a percentage of the sales. I usually make a coupon up and send it to the district and then to the school they have a weekend or special day to use this. I save the coupon and record the subtotal sale they still pay the tax and at the end add up the sales and give 15-20% back to school and district. I use district because they have all the schools more people, more exposure to your deal.
There is so much more i can go on with that really does not cost you and arm and a leg. I just dont want this article to turn into a book. thanks so much i can go on and on with secrets.. jeff killeen killeen12@gmail.com       Facebook page link check us out

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Boost Your Clientele's Orders

For most in the restaurant business, the bar plays a disproportionately large role in overall profitability. Beverage sales in casual and tablecloth restaurants nationally average about 25% of gross revenue and account for more than 50% of average net profits. While developing a beverage program that consistently operates at that profitability level is challenging, it becomes much less daunting when you have a better idea of what makes your clientele order certain products and pass on others. Get a handle on that and you’re well on your way to success.
With that in mind, Nightclub & Bar magazine and the VIBE Conference earlier this year commissioned Mike Ginley, co-founder of Connecticut-based Next Level Marketing, to conduct a consumer-research project. Ginley interviewed more than 500 people who frequent casual restaurants and had ordered beverage alcohol on-premise within the past 30 days. What he uncovered in the study about drinking preferences has direct bearing on this subject.
It may come as a surprise, but only 29 percent of the consumers surveyed said they typically know what they’re going to drink before arriving at a bar or restaurant. That means 71 percent of consumers make up their minds after they arrive at a venue. For consumer over 40 years old, 85% reported deciding what to drink just prior to placing their order.
According to Ginley’s research, 90 percent of consumers read drink menus in a bar or restaurant and, 28 percent of them — including a third of survey participants under the age of 40 — use drink menus to decide what to order. More than 80 percent of consumers said drink prices should be listed on menus, followed closely by descriptions (68%), pictures (50%) and listings of the brand-name products used in making the drinks (40%).
On average, 27 percent of consumers said they typically order whatever drink is being featured with special promotions, while 21 percent said they’re influenced by what other people in their group are drinking.
Another significant order influencer is drink promotion within a restaurant’s food menu. Roughly 25% of consumers reported they decided to purchase a specialty drink they saw while pursuing a food menu, which dovetails perfectly with the growing trend of pairing food items with cocktails, wines and beer.
The research also looked at attitudes toward premium brands. Just less than 90 percent of those surveyed strongly agreed that cocktails made with premium brands taste better than those prepared with house brands. When asked how much more they expected to pay for premium products, the consumers said on average $2.42 more for premium beer, $3.19 more for premium wine and an additional $3.20 for a branded cocktail.
Finally, according to the research, the best way to prompt guests to order new drinks is by offering small samples of them. More than half of the respondents said sampling a drink beforehand was most persuasive.
Dynamic in-house marketing is a proven means of driving incremental beverage sales. Why leave money on the table? Promote what you want guests to order and reap the rewards.

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