2010 brought with it a renewed sense of expanding the business.  With that came plans to target the untapped demographic and reinvent the company to include them.

Now that you have set your new goal, that hard part is achieving it.  Below are three ways that can help you recruit new clients:

1. Go where the growth is:  Identify key industry segments that are growing and reach out to them with something as simple as attending their trade show.  “At Homestead Resort, in Midway, Utah, general manager Britt Mathwich says the hotel made a quick shift away from the corporate and training market to families, after seeing a slump in business travel.  The resort picked up more business by attending home-decorating and bridal shows, he says.”
2. Strategy of secondment: Partner with companies that provide similar or complementary services.  “Maclay, President of engineering-consulting firm Voler Systems, is now working on two projects that combine Voler’s electrical-engineering expertise with the other firm’s mechanical-engineering specialty.”
3. Online Tools: Maintain a blog or a social media profile which includes facebook.come, linkedin.com, and twitter.com.  Social-networking tools are also places to post promotions.  “Mr.Maclay says he gained new clients by posting the company’s resume on Craigslist.”

Take a few minutes to update your marketing plan and get your business off to a great start in 2010!

Editors and Journalist receive thousands of press release everyday; On average only 3 percent get published.  How can you make sure your press release is the one that gets published?  Below are a few steps in the right directions:

1. One-on-One Time:  The best public relations strategy is to b uild relationships with key members of the press.  You can easily identify a core group of media outlets that can deliver coverage vital to your business.  It takes a bit of homework to create your own short list of the media that influence your cutomers when they’re considering buying what you market.
2. Choose the Right Tool:  When sending a press release, make sure its headline contains a stat, fact, or compelling piece of information that’s new or revelatory, and that your first sentence has the power to sell your story.  Never send a stream of ho-hum pitches in the hope that over time you’ll capture attention.
3. Follow up to seal the deal:  Follow-up is essential for taking your new PR relationships to the next level.  You can make contact by phone, e-mail, or both.  The key is to determine that your pitch was received and whether there’s any interest in that particular item.  Most of all, you want to uncover what type of information you can provide that each media contact will find most compelling.

Maybe you’re press release will be the next big story on the home pages of CNN, MSNBC, and all the other major websites!

Online Directories are the perfect place for a small business to gain exposure to investors, partners and potential employees.  But as always there “risks that can hurt the company’s reputation.”

Many online directories such as crunchbase.com and wikipedia are great platform for small business to get their message out but small businesses should check monthly to ensure the information is accurate.

An easy way is to set up alerts from the directory and additional alerts such as Google Alerts.  Therefore every time something is added or removed from the listing the small business will receive an email.

Hurry and take advantage of all the free exposure and free advertising for your small business today!

Google AdWords makes it affordable for Small Business Owners to advertise their business. “No matter what your budget, you can display your ads on Google and our advertising network. But if you don’t do some careful planning, you can easily find yourself spending thousands of dollars with little to show for it.”

Before you start your own Google AdWords campaign, answer the below three questions:

Are you AdWords the right Keywords for your business?

“Brent Hollowell and Jesse Travis, co-founders of a travel accessory retailer in Baltimore called Zen Class, had high hopes when they began using AdWords to promote their Nirvana eat Back Organizer, which slips over an airplane’s seatback tray. While they knew they might get clicks if they paid for words like “travel accessories,” they feared the cost of close to $1.50 a click would be prohibitive because not every visitor would be looking for their product. They decided to be more specific and set up an AdWords campaign using the keywords “airline seat back organizer,” which cost about 5 cents a click.”

Is your budget realistic?

“About a year ago, Georgette Blau, who runs On Location Tours in New York City, set up an AdWords campaign to promote tours that were timed for the release of the “Sex in the City” movie. In doing so, she says she made a mistake: She ran the ad on the Google AdSense network but failed to understand how quickly she could run through the money she had budgeted for her campaign. An ad placed on the Google network can quickly appear on hundreds of Web sites and generate thousands of clicks. While this can be a good thing, it can also run up quite a tab.”

What markets do you want to focus on?

“When Apple irst introduced the iPhone, Matt McCormick, who runs a phone-repair business called Jet City Devices,  saw an opportunity. Knowing that the iPhone’s screen was prone to damage, Mr. McCormick began bidding on keywords like “iphone repairs” and waited for business to flood in. A problem soon became apparent: while his site was swamped with traffic, very few people were actually mailing in their phones to get them repaired. But, after changing his campaign to run only on searches initiated within 50 miles of Chicago and Seattle — cities where he had physical shops where customers could drop their phones off in person — Mr. McCormick says his conversion rate jumped to 10 percent: “If you’re in business in only one or two cities, then Google’s localization feature can save you a ton of money, reduce AdWords competition, and bring great traffic.”

Entrepreneur.com states, Along with print and TV, radio is one of the most popular forms of conventional, “offline” advertising. It can also be one of the most effective. This is partially because radio is oriented around formats, which gives business owners a big advantage in targeting audiences vs. print or TV.

What’s a format? Think “classic rock” on the FM band and “talk radio” on the AM stations. Odds are your target market is predominantly tuned into one or two specific stations in your metro area. If you can discover which stations those are, you may have found the sweet spot in your marketing.

1. Your target market: Don’t simply choose a station because it’s the one you listen to. Choose the one your customers prefer.

2. Costs: There are two costs you’ll incur when you advertise on the radio. The first is airtime–the time unit(s) your commercials are on air, typically broken down into 30-second, 60-second or 120-second segments (or spots), depending on the station.

3. Schedule: One is “run of station,” or ROS. This means the station will decide when your commercials air as well as the specific time of the day that each commercial will be played. The best way to target is to find out which are the highest quarter-hour listening shares for your target demographic. That way, you are paying for your commercials when the chances are good your target audience is actually listening.

4. The economy of words: s a general rule, 65 to 85 words is the limit for a 30-second commercial. However, be aware that this can vary depending on how many sound effects you use. Also keep in mind that your copy block for a 60-second spot will generally only be 30 to 45 seconds, as you will want at least 10 to 15 seconds at the end to include a call to action, phone number, Yellow Pages mention or web address.

5. Choosing the right sounds. If your want your commercial to stand out from the rest, you need to consider some additional factors regarding voice-overs and sound effects. You may be tempted to voice the commercial, but think again–unless you have a really good voice for radio.

Generally speaking, radio’s ability to target an audience and offer repetition makes it a very effective advertising medium. In fact, some of the most effective campaigns in business history have been “radio-only” ad campaigns.

Google is the number one search engine in the US with a market share of 65.0%. Yahoo has 19.6% and Microsoft has 8.4% of the market share. Since Yahoo and Microsoft don’t have even 25% of the market share, many advertisers were not willing to work with them. The solution, Microhoo! CNN states, “This deal is really about scale,” said Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz on a conference call. “By combining the … technology of both companies, we can create a real, viable alternative for advertisers.”

What does this mean to small business owners? Additional medium to effectivey advertiser and reach your customers.

More than half the advertising most businesses are participating in do not register with the end consumer. Below are seven reasons why Steve McKee, from BusinessWeek believes this is true:
1. It’s boring. Yep, boring. Why do we watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, or go online? Three reasons: information, entertainment, and engagement.Ads that fail to offer at least two of these three benefits flop.

2. It’s boorish. You shouldn’t think of your advertising as being about your brand, you should think of it as an extension of your brand (see “A Practical Guide to Branding”). If it’s loud, annoying, insulting, offensive, or self-centered, people will think the same of your products or services (see “The Cocktail Party Test for Advertising”). Remember the first sentence in the best-selling hardback book in U.S. history, The Purpose Driven Life: “It’s not about you.”

3. It’s safe. The first time I saw a Ford Taurus (F), I took note, and I suspect you did as well. So did a lot of other people, and the Taurus went on to become the best-selling car in America.

4. It’s trying to do too much. As the poll results above demonstrated, most people don’t engage with most ads. And even when they do, for how long do they pay attention? Thirty seconds? Ten? Five? The best an ad can do is communicate one single, compelling idea, and in the age of the Internet—when people know they can go online to get all the additional information they need—it’s crazy to ask an ad to do more than that. Just because you have a lot to say doesn’t mean your audience will sit still and pay attention.

5. It hasn’t been given time. You can’t rush bread out of the oven. You can’t hurry a seedling out of the ground. All you can do is prepare the ingredients properly, tend the garden with care, and wait for the loaf to rise and sprouts to appear. The same is true of advertising.

6. You like it. O.K., this one may sting a bit, but you are not the best judge of your own advertising. You can’t be, because you simply know too much about your brand and have too much affection for it to remain objective.

7. It’s not an advertising problem. A common mistake many companies make is trying to use advertising to fix another problem. It may be faulty or outdated product design, an uncompetitive cost structure, customer service letdowns, or any number of other things. It’s not as if they do so intentionally; it’s just that it’s a whole lot easier to put on a new coat of paint than it is to fix the foundation that’s causing the drywall to crack. No company executes flawlessly, but until you can maintain a solid track record of excellence, spend your money on internal improvements rather than advertising. Paint may mask the problem for a short time, but soon new cracks will begin to appear.

Why not take a few minutes today and evaluate your advertising campaign and see where there is room for improvement.

Have you been hearing how social media is the new face of marketing, but you don’t know how to make it work for your small business? Or have your heard there is a great way to get press at almost no cost? Why not view one of the many FREE webinars that are offered almost everyday but almost everyone! Startup nation is hosting “Strategies to Save Time, Save Money, Win More Customers”. PR Web, the press distribution website is hosting a webinar on a weekly basis related to press releases.

Next time you are at a professional website, search to see if they are offering a webinar. And the best part, you can view and listen to it from the comfort of your own office!

One of the easiest and cost effective ways to market a small business is to use the internet. This is easier said than done, since this can be a bit overwhelming.

To start out with Steve Strauss from USA Today states “there are two essential things you must do”:

1. Create content: commit to creating content regularly and putting it online

2. Market that content: blog, distribute Press Releases, post pictures on your website, ect.

If you follow these two simple rules, you will not only start to understand the complex world of online marketing but you will also start to enjoy it.