marketing

Ask the experts: Local marketing gurus offer their best advice to businesses

How can I get more exposure for my small business with very little money?

Drew Janes: Business owners looking to stretch their marketing dollars with big money results should look to one of two things: social networking and blogging. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are tremendous at providing your business exposure. As great as those sites are at getting you traffic, in the right hands, your results can be enormous. PR and marketing professionals are regularly using Twitter and Facebook in exciting ways to engage with a dynamic clientele that is ever-evolving. In addition to exposure, both services are wonderful for customer service and developing live-stream marketing campaigns. Read more...

Holiday-hungry retailers go in for Socialized selling

When the retail going gets tough, the tough tweet.

Retailers have waded deeper and deeper into social media in recent years, going viral to reveal a bit of personality or simply pump promotions.

Yet this year's holiday season, retailers are taking more chances in a medium both tantalizing -- it's free and instantaneously reaches thousands -- and terrifying as companies' once highly controlled voices can be twisted, taken out of context or taunted in a fickle online community with extreme distaste for flagrant self-promotion. Read more...

Marketing Main Street for the holidays

Snow squalls are in the forecast for Collingswood's business district through Christmas Eve, creating a winter wonderland for shoppers and diners.

"It's very Bedford Falls," borough spokeswoman Cassandra Duffey said.

Facing tough competition from malls and chain stores, Main Streets from Collingswood to Doylestown are working hard this year to market themselves to shoppers on limited budgets. Merchants are working together on discounts, sponsoring giveaways, and revamping traditions. A free parking meter doesn't cut it anymore. Read more...

'Shop local' efforts kicking off this weekend

Residents can prepare to be slammed with an onslaught of "shop local" messages starting this weekend.

Yuba City is launching its Think Yuba-Sutter First campaign Friday with print advertisements, a Web site, radio spots, video and rack cards on Appeal-Democrat newspaper boxes. In partnership with the city's effort, the Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce is kicking off a holiday shop local campaign. Read more...

Looking for ways to promote business

Glimmers of escaping the recession hasn't stopped some Kingsburg downtown business owners from finding ways to streamline their businesses -- even if the recession hasn't affected their business. There has consistently been businesses setting up and closing down shop along Draper Street in Kingsburg over the past year since the recession really hit.

Some stores are doing just fine, but others are feeling the effects of the recession. Betty Sommerville, owner of The 50's Place on Draper Street said her store is doing "fabulous." Sommerville sells all things '50s, from Elvis cutouts to retro neon-lined clocks. "I didn't feel the recession at all, I really didn't," she said. Read more...

Lagniappe... Give a Little Something Extra!

Recently, I stopped at my favorite candy store for some of its special vanilla fudge. Little did I know that I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me in my shopping bag. When I reached in for my fudge, there was a beautiful little gold-mesh bag of colorful candies placed there as a “lagniappe” by the shop owner. What a nice surprise!

“Lagniappe,” a commonly used word in the South, was discovered by Mark Twain on a visit to New Orleans in the mid-nineteenth Century. A wordsmith, he quickly placed it in his personal vocabulary and gave it a mention in his Life on the Mississippi (1883), referring to it as “a word worth travelling (sic) to New Orleans to get.” Read more...

Research Reveals the Impact of In-Store Sampling

A new independent study proves for the first time in-store sampling not only has dramatic sales impact on the day of the sampling event, but also increases sales of established products and line extensions, as well as new products, for many weeks following. The study also found in-store sampling lifts sales of the entire brand franchise in addition to the sampled brand, among other things never thought possible. As a result of the study, for the first time in-store sampling can now be considered measured media, and its cost effectiveness, when applied to all of the sampling's benefits over time, is significantly greater than previously believed. Read more...

Managing an Online Reputation

Your customers are talking about you — and the whole world is listening.

Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.

How do you manage your reputation when everybody is a critic? Read more...

Marketing 101: Direct Marketing vs. Personal Marketing

Effective marketing is leagues away from how it was thirty years ago.[i] This is primarily due to the increase of “mainstream knowledge”. While effective marketing still needs to be targeted, relevant, measurable and accountable, the literature suggest that for a business to get its message read, watched, listened to, etc., it must be targeted towards a segment of the market, whether that segment is based on demographics, usage, etc. Although marketing is more strategic today because of “mainstream knowledge”, many of those factors contributing to such knowledge can be accessed by the small business owner himself (i.e. the Internet). Read more...

5 social media tips for small business

A few years ago, using the Internet to market a small business simply meant to create a presence online with a simple, informational Web site.

Then came the demands of search engine optimization to ensure Google and Yahoo searches yielded top-ranked results for your company. Was your business's Web site chock full of the key search terms that would bring it to the attention of customers? Read more...