In our small business, my family was always looking for new ways to use materials – either to stretch their value or to create a solution where a standard one was not available. In addition, my very handy father and brother created fixtures, storage and display solutions that other businesses like ours envied. The image right is a custom display designed to show the books exactly how we wanted to (without damaging them, which was a problem with manufactured solutions), and it was on casters so my mother and I could easily move it.
I applied the same approach to my work in marketing for our business. One of my favorite people for inspiration was Jay Conrad Levinson with his approach he calls “Guerilla Marketing”. Thinking outside the box is an important skill in small business, as is always looking for new ideas (and “stealing” them!). I read this blog post published earlier this year and found a lot of good tips. Keeping up with the latest in web-based marketing is not easy. I plan to go through this point by point and see which of their Must-Haves I really MUST HAVE in my business. There’s a lot in this blog, but their top five must-haves for getting online are:
- A mobile-responsive website
- An email marketing tool
- One primary social channel
- Up-to-date business listings and review sites
- Easy way to create content
These are good places to start if you’re already online and you just need a tune-up. I recommend you do this at least yearly!
I would add another item that MUST come first – and that is your PLAN/VISION for your business and how your marketing plan fits it. But that’s a topic for another day.
Take the content of the video below (and link to this blog with more videos) and apply it in a way that fits YOUR business (and your PLAN/VISION) the best. There’s a lot of good content here but it may not all be for you.