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When you are running a small business, your marketing can make all the difference between a successful year and one that falls short of your goals. Of course, every business does their best to develop and execute dynamic marketing plans to drive customer conversions, however they can often fall short of the mark.

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is failing to review their marketing strategy to see where exactly they are falling short. By performing regular reviews of your marketing plan, you can quickly identify when it is not working, leading to solutions that you implement right away.

Here are 5 tell-tale signs that your current marketing needs improvement, as well as the best fixes for each scenario. By objectively auditing your advertising performance, you can easily see the areas that need to be fixed, then come up with a new strategy to get your business back on track!

You aren’t getting qualified leads for your marketing campaigns

The goal of marketing is not to just get leads, but to get leads that will actually bring you new customers. If you recognize that a large number of your leads are people that are not actually interested in your products or services, then you are definitely doing something wrong. By analyzing the type of people that call, email or visit your website, you can tell whether or not you are targeting the right people through your current marketing scheme.

THE FIX: If your leads are not high qual­ity and are not resulting in cus­tomer conversions, then it’s time to revisit your content and target demographic. Make a list of your ideal customer, includ­ing key traits such as age, loca­tion, gender, and income level, then tailor your marketing plan to directly target those people.

You do not have a consistent marketing strategy

Have a look back through your recent content and advertisements to look for continuity. If you notice that your social media posts, email blasts or sales ma­terials do not all convey the same message, then you can be confusing clients. You want your business to be represented in a struc­tured manner that runs the gamut of the sales cycle: getting potential clients interested, cultivating leads, converting clients, then reselling. If you strategy doesn’t follow this pattern, then you may be missing out on vital elements of digital marketing.

THE FIX: Put yourself in the perspective of a potential client. Draw out a roadmap of how you want to captivate somebody to be interested in what you offer, how you can guide them to becoming a client, a persuasive manner to close the deal, then a follow-up strategy to resell to them.

You are not differentiating yourself from the competition

Regardless of your industry, there is likely to be a wide range of competition that is also marketing to the same clientele. One of the biggest mis­takes that businesses make is that they play it too safe, being afraid to truly draw attention to themselves by being unique. If your marketing strategy is too generic, then you will simply be lost amongst the hundreds, potentially thousands of competitors that are of­fering similar products or services. This will not help you increase sales or grow your clientbase, but rather be a waste of your marketing budget and your resources.

THE FIX: Pick a handful of businesses in your industry and have a look at their marketing campaigns. If you notice that yours are quite similar or see that most companies are doing the same thing, then make a list of ways that you can set yourself apart. From compelling organic content to the use of dy­namic media such as videos, start adding innovative aspects to your marketing plan that nobody else is doing.

Searching your business does not bring favorable (or any) results

The whole goal of mar­keting is drawing eyes to your brand in a pos­itive manner. By simple conducting some online searches for your busi­ness and relative terms, you are able to get a sense of how often po­tential customers see your company. If you aren’t on the first page of search results for your services or local search­es, then it becomes ex­ponentially harder to draw in new clients. When you do find your business online, you also want to see what existing clients are saying about you. Checking Facebook, Google, and any indus­try-specific review sites for feedback is extreme­ly important. Businesses that have a large number of positive reviews are far more likely to convert searchers into paying customers.

THE FIX: If you notice that your business doesn’t appear in searches, it’s time to ramp up your SEQ. From regular organic content to strengthening social media presence, you need to add new dimensions of marketing. If you are lacking reviews, reach out to your current customers by incentivizing them to add feedback on a variety of review sites.

You haven’t pre-sold to your customers

When you have clients contacting you or visiting your website, you want them to already know exactly what they want. They should be walk­ing into your door ready to take you up on your latest offer or buy your newest product without you having to convert them. If you find that potential customers are unaware of your products or need to be convinced to buy from you, then your marketing needs to ramped up. Marketing should not just begin the sales cy­cle, it should already have people in the mindset that they are ready to do business with you!

THE FIX: You may need to be more di­rect in your advertising efforts, focusing on both informing and persuading people within first glance. Integrating some sales videos that highlight the benefit of what you offer and intensely pushing current promotions will give the clients a sense of urgen­cy to act as fast as possible.

 

Turning your marketing strategy around If you notice that one or more of these issues apply to your current situation, then there is no better time than the present to begin revamping your marketing plan. Working with a professional marketing team can drastically increase the efficiency of your campaigns by driving customer conversions, maximizing ROI and reducing costs. Contact Us today or  request your free marketing blueprint session to help fix any current issues and bring your company the business it deserves.

Meetings can go one of two ways. A meeting can be a productive forum where great ideas get shared and good decisions get made. Or it can be a long, drawn-out affair that achieves nothing at all.

What many people seem to forget is that meetings cost money. Everyone who is sitting around the table at a meeting is earning a salary. And, while employees are sitting there, they are not doing the job that they are getting paid to do. You can’t ditch meetings altogether. You can, though, make sure that meetings are effective.

Here are ten tips on how to manage meetings to make them more productive.

• Only Hold Meetings When it is Necessary

Always ask yourself if a meeting is the most efficient way to achieve your goal. Could you achieve the same goal with emails? Or would a quick, informal meeting at someone’s desk suffice? Formal meetings can take up an inordinate amount of time. Speakers will need time to prepare. Someone will have to arrange the meeting. And someone will need to take the minutes of the meeting. If an email will have the desired effect, it will much cheaper and less time consuming than a meeting.

• Only Invite Relevant Personnel

Only invite people to a meeting if they have something to contribute or something to learn. There is no point having twenty people at a meeting if the topic is only relevant to five of those people. Keeping the numbers down will make most types of meetings much more productive.

• Keep Meetings Short

Meetings that last for more than one hour will get less productive as more time goes by. In fact, people’s attention will wander after only fifteen minutes. If there are lots of topics to discuss, it would be better to schedule several short meetings. Short, very focused meetings will also allow you to invite only the relevant people.

• Have an Objective Focused Agenda

Write an agenda for every meeting you hold, and make sure that you stick to that agenda. If the meeting strays off-topic, it will waste time and you may not achieve your goals. The agenda should list all the items for discussion and have time allotted to each topic. Attendees should have a copy of the agenda in advance of the meeting. There should also be minutes taken at a meeting that include assigned action points. All those who attended the meeting should receive a copy of the minutes.

• Enforce a No Phones and No Laptops Rule

Attendees at a meeting should switch off their phones and leave their laptops at their desks. That rule should apply to the senior members of the team as well as the junior ones. If people are multi-tasking, then they are not paying attention. Phones and laptops are a distraction that will make meetings less efficient and more time-consuming.

• Hold the Refreshments

The only refreshments that anyone will ever need a short meeting is water. So, skip the coffee, muffins, and pastries. Refreshments cause delays and they distract people from the business at hand. In the time it takes for everyone to get their coffee and snacks, you could have ticked off an item on the meeting agenda.

• Don’t Allow Grandstanding

A meeting should be a collaborative event, not a one-person show. Some people are not as confident as others, but they may still have valuable points to make. Every meeting should have a chairperson who controls the proceedings. It is the chairperson’s responsibility to ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to contribute to the meeting.

• Do Not Disturb!

If a meeting is going to last only an hour or less, there should be no need for anyone to interrupt the proceedings. If a person gets called out of a meeting, it wastes everyone else’s time. So, make a rule that meetings are do not disturb events. Meetings should only get interrupted if there is a real emergency.

• Lead Meetings

Meetings need direction, so someone needs to lead the proceedings. The chairperson should keep the meeting running to the agenda and to time. If the meeting is not controlled, the discussion will wander off-topic. If that happens, the meeting will overrun, and important agenda items may get missed.

Meetings do have a part to play in the efficient running of a business. But meetings are not always the most efficient way of communicating with a team. So, you should ask yourself first if a meeting is necessary at all. If a meeting is the best option, then keep the meeting brief, controlled, and to the point. And keep the attendee list down to those who need to be there.

Small business is often referred to as the engine of economic growth in America. Unfortunately, small businesses are closing at a faster rate than they are being created – which is bad news when it comes to local jobs and communities. For example, when you shop at a big box retailer, very little of your money stays in your community. Luckily, there are some easy ways that you can show small businesses big love and support.

• Shop Local Online

Shopping local doesn’t mean that you have to visit a brick-and-mortar store in-person. That’s because many locally-owned also have websites to take online orders – just like big box retailers and e-commerce sites. For example, some smaller grocery chains let customers order groceries online and offer delivery services.

In addition to shopping for goods, you can also order takeout or delivery food online from some of your locally-owned restaurants. The next time you consider buying something online from a large retailer, try to find a local small business in your community with an e-commerce site to shop from instead.

• Promote Your Favorite Small Businesses to Others

Many small business owners say that word-of-mouth advertising is still one of the best ways to promote their products or services to others. In fact, many small restaurants and stores survive off customer referrals – especially in the beginning. Therefore, you can help support your favorite small businesses by telling friends and family about your happy shopping experiences. For example, if someone asks you about a certain product/service category, you could recommend a small business that serves that particular niche. You could also tell others about your favorite locally-owned businesses on social media – especially Facebook.

• Gift Small Business Gift Cards to Friends and Family

Gift cards have become a very popular gift in recent years. However, you don’t have to just give gift cards for big retailers. Instead, you can likely find a small business in your community that sells their own gift cards. For example, you can probably find a gift card for locally-owned restaurants, gift shops, flea markets, and even some grocery stores. Of course, you will want to try to find a small business that you think the recipient would enjoy shopping at.

• Buy from Small Amazon Sellers

Lastly, there are actually two ways that you can support small businesses when you shop on Amazon. First, when you buy from a small seller – instead of purchasing something sold by Amazon or another large retailer – you are supporting a small business. Secondly, if you read product descriptions, you can also learn about where products were made – including the companies that make them. Therefore, with a little research, you could buy products made by small businesses.

In short, since small business is the backbone of the American economy, consumers should do their part to support them to promote stronger communities and more local job opportunities. Remember, when you spend money at a locally-owned retailer, more of your money stays in your community. You can help support small businesses by telling others about them. For example, when a new store or restaurant opens in your community, encourage others to give it a try.

While email remains one of the most effective marketing channels, the competition is greater than ever before. Consumers are also spending less time scanning their inboxes and have less patience when reading emails from businesses. To maximize engagement and boost conversions, it’s therefore crucial to avoid any email marketing bad habits. If you’ve noticed less engagement or more unsubscribes, here are 10 habits you should quit to improve your email marketing results in the coming year and beyond.

• Overlong Emails

Are your emails longer than they really need to be? Reducing the length of an email and writing more succinctly is sometimes all it takes to increase engagement.

According to a Boomerang study, emails with 75 to 100 words had the highest response rate at 51 percent. If you need to give more detailed information, include a call-to-action (CTA) button that readers can click to find out more.

Tip: Ruthlessly edit every email. Cut down sentence and paragraph lengths and choose more punchy words and phrases to give your messages more impact.

• Bland CTA Button Text

Every CTA button is an opportunity to encourage subscribers to take action, so you need to make the button text as engaging as possible.

Conventional, ordinary, and formal language won’t inspire readers to act.

• Sounding Like Other Businesses

It’s easy to fall into the trap of writing in a

vague and formal way. Many businesses do it. While coming across as professional is important, if every email you send sounds stiff and just like every other business, it’s boring for subscribers.

Tip: Work on your tone of voice. Unless your business is more formal or traditional, write in a more conversational way, like you’re talking to a friend.

• Sticking to the Same Routine

When you have to produce email content week after week, it’s not always easy to come up with something new to say. However, if you do the same thing again and again, you’re unlikely to make progress. Going forward, you need to experiment.

Tip: A/B test your emails, changing one factor at a time. Start with the subject lines. Then vary the CTAs. And finally, test delivery times. Combine the best aspects of each test email to optimize future email campaigns.

• Planning Too Far in Advance

The Covid-19 global pandemic demonstrated how unforeseen events can force businesses to reassess their priorities. Planning too far ahead can damage your email marketing return on investment (ROI), because if you spend time planning and creating content that later has to be reworked or even scrapped, you’re wasting valuable time and resources. What’s more, your business goals may change from one month to the next.

Tip: Plan your email content for about two to three months in advance but leave spaces in your editorial calendar so that you can adapt to changing circumstances.

• Not Listening

Many businesses slip into the habit of sending out promotional messages and company updates, but consumers get tired of companies that only talk about themselves. It’s important to ask your subscribers what they think about your company, products, and email content. If your audience feels like they’re being listened to, they’ll give your messages more attention in return.

Tip: Cut back on promotional emails and deliver more meaningful content. Ask subscribers what they would like to hear from you and act on the feedback.

• Delivering Emails to Everyone

Most businesses understand the importance of list segmentation, but some continue to use poorly segmented lists or don’t segment their lists at all. Unfortunately, this leads to low conversion rates and increases unsubscribes.

Tip: Segment your list into different groups, based on origin of capture, purchase behavior, location, or other factors that are relevant to your business and current marketing goals. You can then deliver more personalized messages to boost engagement.

• Using Old Newsletter Templates

If you’ve been using the same email templates for a few years, they might look outdated and could be difficult to read on smartphones. According to a 2019 Aedestra report, 62 percent of email opens occurred on mobile devices even then, so it’s crucial to optimize emails for mobile.

Tip: Some email clients won’t display your entire subject line text. Keep your subject lines to 40 characters or less to make sure smartphone users see more of your message. Also, use a larger font size of 13 or 14 pixels to make it more readable on a small screen.

• Not Regularly Cleaning Your List

Continuing to email outdated or inactive contacts increases spam reports and unsubscribes and reduces email open rates and click-through rates.

Tip: Remove email addresses that are inactive for a certain period of time or move them to a “re-engagement “ list for future emails. Ultimately, this will increase your ROI per email sent.

• Overlooking Analytics

Most email marketing platforms provide analytics data, but many businesses still fail to track these important metrics. Regularly monitor your email click-through rates and other metrics to understand which emails perform best.

Tip: Email open rates can be a misleading metric. If the reader’s email client isn’t capable of displaying HTML with images, or users have enabled image blocking, it won’t be recorded as an open. You can use open rates to compare successive emails you send but try focusing on improving click-through rates.

It’s essential to regularly review your email marketing strategies and try to avoid bad habits that may be contributing to poor results. Are there any damaging habits featured in this article that you recognize? If you can stop making these errors from now on, you’ll strengthen your reputation, improve email engagement rates, and achieve more of your marketing goals in the months and years ahead.

Nobody likes being faced with problems. But sometimes, running a business can seem to be nothing but a series of challenges. So, business owners must develop problem-solving strategies to help them resolve issues fast.

Some say that problems are an opportunity to learn and grow. However, holding onto that positive philosophy can be hard to do when faced with a mounting heap of challenges. If you try to tackle all the issues you meet simultaneously, you will invariably make some bad decisions.

So, the first strategy to adopt is to tackle your problems one at a time. Here are ten more strategies to help you become a highly effective business problem-solver.

• Define the True Problem

Merely knowing that one of your most important customers is dissatisfied is not enough. You will also need to understand why they are unhappy, what caused their dissatisfaction, and how the immediate problem will be resolved. And you will need to decide what steps will need to be taken to ensure the same situation never arises again. It would be best, then, to clearly define what a problem is before you attempt to resolve the issue. Gather all the facts, analyze the figures if appropriate, and try to look at the problem you face from a detached, objective perspective.

• Summarize Problems

Once you have gathered all the relevant information about a problem, you will need to get to the crux of the issue at hand. The data you collect will help you understand the magnitude of the challenge and help you find a solution. However, too much data can be overwhelming. So, distill the problem you face into a summary and bullet-point what action is needed to rectify the issue.

• Decide if You Are looking at the Problem or a Symptom

Fixing a symptom will only provide a short-term fix if there is a more significant underlying issue. So, consider if the challenge you face is merely the result of a far deeper problem. Suppose the unhappy customer mentioned above was dissatisfied with one of your products, for example. If that were the case, a refund and an apology might placate the disgruntled customer. But, in due course, you will likely face further complaints from other customers about the same product if the root cause of the complaint is not fixed.

• Consider all The Ramifications

When faced with a problem, try to avoid making hasty decisions that could make the situation worse or lead to other issues. Faced with a shortage of cash, you might make the knee-jerk decision to withhold all payments to vendors, for example. But, while paying suppliers late will ease the immediate cash flow issue, it will probably cause further problems later. It is best to take your time resolving business problems whenever you can. Even the most pressing business challenges don’t usually need an instant solution.