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Social media only work if you have a plan

social

For some entrepreneurs, getting involved on social media like facebook or twitter is second nature. If you’re the kind of person for whom sharing across platforms and engaging others in conversations on social media is one of the most fun parts of running your business, then here’s some homework for you: come up with a plan. How can you leverage your connections and your natural talents to meet your business goals? It’s all too easy to get into a pattern where you’re spending a lot of time engaging in social media, and you’re making a lot of what seem like good connections, but it’s not doing anything for your sales. What are you doing wrong?

Start to focus on process

Often, the sales process is a complex one. There aren’t just the two steps of “someone finds you, then they purchase your product.” (If only it were that simple.) You need to think through what the sales process is for your particular product, and how your marketing and social media endeavors are feeding in to that process. Unfortunately, you may find that the two aren’t at all related, in which case you’re going to need to make some serious adjustments, in order to make your social media interactions worthwhile.

Be realistic - use numbers!

If your social media interactions aren’t leading directly to sales, that’s not necessarily a reason to switch things up, but you have to know what you’re actually doing. From an SEO standpoint, your conversations could be driving traffic, which could in turn lead to increased visibility on search engines, but you need to either have the expertise to track these connections, or hire someone who does. At Find it Local 411, our SEO services help to track what is considered a “conversion” or a successful interaction, and to distinguish that from a social media profile which just generates noise, and develop strategies to optimize your processes.

The difference between a useful conversation and noise is all the difference in the world.

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Posted on March 7th, 2012 at 10:00 am
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Internet Marketing, Small Business

Staying focused on your strengths

As an entrepreneur, you have to fulfill several different roles, just in the course of a “normal” workday. From making sure your accounting and taxes are up-to-date to ordering your supplies to keeping your customers abreast of how their project is progressing, it’s easy to lose track of the basic essence of who you are and what you do. That’s where we, as marketing consultants can provide some of our most valuable services. When we construct a campaign to market your business, we always keep in mind the value proposition we’re making to the end customer: who you are, and what you can do to make their lives better. This is what makes a good brand stand out, whether you’re dealing with a local or an international market. Think of your favorite brands, that you use every day or week. Maybe they’re your car’s manufacturer, or your favorite downtown café. What do they have in common?

Chances are, it’s the ability to stand out. This isn’t an accident. Of course, everyone wants to stand out, but for those who truly do, it’s intentional, and well thought-out. Unfortunately, making great products is seldom sufficient for this. You need to tell people why and how your product is great, and you have to do so almost without them even realizing it. Not that you’re trying to fool anyone: you really are trying to let them know that your products are great. However, people don’t want to sit and listen to a sales pitch just to make a preliminary decision. They don’t want every advertisement they see to take them 2 minutes to peruse, and if it does, they’ll ignore them.

At Find It Local 411, we want to help you focus your marketing efforts around the things that make you special. Part of the process is to discuss with you a clear vision of how to present yourself, what you’ve done well for your current customers, and how you can do the same for new customers. We use this information to determine everything about our tailor-made marketing campaigns, from logo and identity design to web design and print advertising. Let us help you put on your best face.

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Posted on February 14th, 2012 at 10:00 am
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General, Small Business

The importance of calls to action in advertisement messaging

Crafting a successful marketing campaign is never easy, and in an ideal case involves a close interaction between the marketing team, the designers, and the client. Every part of the campaign has to be part of a unified whole, while still serving its intended purpose. The visual style has to reflect the brand and the products that it’s representing, and the messaging has to convey what makes the product special and useful. Then the ads have to get in front of the right audience, at the right time. In the midst of all this complexity, it’s important to keep in the mind of everyone involved the following question: “what are you asking the viewer to do?”

This may seem like a simple, straightforward question, but it’s still critically important. If someone views your company’s facebook page or website and they enjoy how it looks, but don’t go from there to learning more about your company, or take a step closer to making a purchase, are you happy with that result? It takes a lot of effort to get marketing in front of anyone, and careful planning to get it in front of your target audience. What do you want their attention for?

When working with our clients, we stress the importance of good design and carefully chosen messaging, and the single most important part of that is the next step: where does the viewer go from there? It can be difficult or counterproductive to try to get into the head of your audience, so it’s best to turn the question around and ask yourself:

What is the call to action?

Again, this sounds simple. But it’s not. Try to put your messaging in front of someone who doesn’t know anything about your product. What do they think you’re asking them to do. If what you’re asking your viewer to do doesn’t help you meet your end goals, it’s time to adjust your messaging.

Don’t think the answer is obvious, just because it is to you. Try to put yourself in your viewer’s shoes.

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Posted on February 7th, 2012 at 10:00 am
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Internet Marketing

How (and why) to take the plunge and start selling online


Selling your products online can be a daunting task, especially if you’ve never done it before. It can seem like an unwelcome distraction when you’re working hard to keep things moving smoothly off the web, and if you’re not the tech-savvy type, it can seem like an impossible hurdle to overcome. But at Find It Local 411, we’re all about helping our clients overcome seemingly impossible hurdles, and build their business in ways they didn’t even know they could.

Where to start

Depending on your needs and products, the easiest place to start could be putting your products (or even just the most popular ones) on the Find It Local 411 Marketplace. It’s a great introduction for those who want to get their feet wet selling online, and it’s easy to scale it up to sell your whole line of products there! Best of all, it’s completely free to set up an account. Check it out! When you’re ready to take it to the next level, we’re there for you again, with our complete suite of web design and development, plus a wide variety of marketing services to get your products and your brand out there.

Why you need to do it

We love helping businesses thrive locally, but that doesn’t mean that people everywhere shouldn’t be able to use and enjoy your great products. Also, we don’t have to tell you that sales in certain products and regions can fluctuate from time to time; wouldn’t it be nice to have sales someplace else pick up when your local sales take a dip? Better still, there could be entire markets for your product that you haven’t tapped yet, because they have no way to find you—until now, that is.

Whether you’re just starting out marketing your products online, thinking of re-vamping your store’s functionality, or marketing your products to a new audience, our online shopping, design, and marketing team can help you get your business to where you want it to be.

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Posted on January 19th, 2012 at 10:00 am
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Economy Marketing, Small Business

The top 5 marketing mistakes to avoid in 2012

It’s a new year for you and your business, full of challenges and opportunities and surprises. As a new year begins, it’s a good time to sit back and reflect on the successes and failures of the past year, and chart the course for the year to come. Since at Find It Local 411 our expertise is in internet marketing, here are some common marketing mistakes to avoid making in 2012:

1. Ignoring your marketing needs. Because marketing is usually a separate activity from the rest of your business, it’s easy to drop it by the wayside when other concerns come up. Remember: if you’re too busy to keep up with your marketing needs, you can always ignore them. Just don’t expect to stay busy if you do.

2. Shooting in the dark. Ok, so you’ve got a healthy marketing budget put together, but you’re not seeing any results a few months in. How can this happen? Quite simply, there’s a lot of different ways to put your advertisements out there, and if you use the wrong one, you could be reaching the wrong audience, or no audience at all. Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to develop an intelligent marketing strategy, if you know where to begin.

3. Assuming that what you’re doing now is as good as it gets. You may be doing well already, but it’s still a good idea to evaluate where you are, and what you could be doing better. Your customers are constantly changing the way they live, and the best ways to reach them and appeal to them are also changing.

4. Not trying to expand your horizons. There could be whole segments of business that you’re not reaching, because you’re not even trying to reach them, and it hasn’t even occurred to you that they’re out there. Think outside the box!

5. Sticking to what you know. (This can often go hand in hand with the other mistakes written above.) As an entrepreneur you’ve had to wear many hats on a daily basis, and probably do a lot of your own marketing work; but you could be ignoring some of the best opportunities, simply because they’re outside of your areas of expertise.

Whatever your marketing needs, Find It Local 411 is here to help. We’re determined to make sure that you know how effective your marketing efforts are, and how to find and reach the audience you need. With years of experience crafting and implementing marketing strategies for clients in a wide variety of industries, we’re confident that 2012 will be the year your marketing really takes flight.

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Posted on January 4th, 2012 at 10:13 am
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Economy Marketing, Internet Marketing, Small Business
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