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Small businesses must be extra imaginative with their marketing efforts in order to attract customers and get them to open their wallets. Even more challenging is that most entrepreneurs have shallow pockets and shoppers are being more selective as a result of the sluggish economy and volatile stock market. The following are six proven low-cost marketing ideas that help small businesses increase sales and generate referrals, ultimately helping you build your cash cow, while spending very little.

Get Out and Walk

Next time you walk down a street with high foot-traffic, pay attention to storefront windows underutilized. Approach the store owner and offer to pay a small fee to advertise your business in their window. Imagine, you pay $50 per month for a location that costs someone else $2500 a month in rent. This idea also works in reverse. If you’re the store owner with great window visibility, approach other entrepreneurs and offer them an affordable advertising opportunity.

Special Deal Today Only

The next time business is slow, try sending out an email to your prospect list that reads, “Please call me. I have a special deal I can offer you if you call me today. You’ll be glad you did! (978) 000-0000. Thanks, Sharron.”

This method really works. Prospects call because of the urgency you create using such a short deadline and to make sure they don’t miss out on a worthy opportunity. Be careful. You’ll lose credibility with your prospects if your offer isn’t aggressive enough, i.e., 10% off won’t cut it!

Under Your Nose

Are your vendors doing business with you? Why not? Here’s a short list of the prospects you should contact within 48 hours of reading this article, your: accountant, attorney, plumber, electrician, daycare provider, housekeeper, greens keeper, mechanic, Realtor, friends, family, minister/priest/rabbi, etc., dentist, physician, gynecologist, nail technician, hairdresser, Mary Kay Consultant, marriage counselor, coach, personal trainer, financial adviser, etc. If you and your vendor are not a match, he or she probably knows someone who should be doing business with you. All you have to do is ask your vendor to provide some word-of-mouth about you. At minimum, ask to display your business cards and flyers at their office, or to mention your business in their customer newsletter. Take a moment and make sure people in your immediate circle understand what you’re selling.

Customers on the Fence

Before you send off your next proposal, call your prospect and tell her the proposal she requested is ready. Tell her you’d like to forward the proposal, but before you do, ask her what time tomorrow would be convenient to discuss the proposal. Remember, always set up your next appointment before releasing any information.

Charge at Least Five Bucks

Always charge a fee for all your event marketing efforts. Fee-paid seminars and workshops almost always generate more participants than free events. The fee does two things. First, when you charge for something, there’s an implied “value” built in. Your prospect will believe they “get more” when they pay, versus not paying. Second, when a prospect pays you, they’re showing a commitment and are now a more qualified prospect and more likely to show up. Don’t just take my word for it; test it. It’s true.

Stimulate Customer Senses

Do you think the smell of fresh baking bread flowing throughout the grocery store or music playing is by chance? Absolutely not. Retail businesses have been going out of their way for years to stimulate shoppers and keep them browsing. Stimulating the senses works outside of bricks and mortars too. For example, let’s say you’re a business development expert and you’re getting ready to mail your quarterly newsletter on white stock. Instead, try a red or pink-hued paper. Or, if you’d prefer to remain conservative, use a white textured stock. Another example: There’s nothing worse than the smell of a disinfectant used in a doctor’s office. Try burning vanilla candles in the waiting room, they’ll help sooth your customers while they wait. If your business is notorious for long waiting room times, fresh baked cookies work well.

Remember, the more comfortable we keep our customers, the longer they’ll stay, the more memorable experience they’ll have and the more they’ll spend, or pass on positive word-of-mouth. When you’re planning your next marketing activity, remember to stimulate your customers’ senses, including eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

Sharron Senter is a New England-based marketing consultant who helps small businesses deploy low-cost marketing strategies. Visit her at http://www.sharronsenter.com.

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Dare To Be Different

What is about SEO marketing that makes it so powerful that online businesses all over seem to make such a big deal out of it? If you own one yourself, you may have heard and read about countless suggestions to try SEO marketing and just how effective it is. Well, suffice it to say that SEO marketing is without doubt, effective in more ways than one.

The Internet is actually a living network that changes everyday. Every online business needs to stay on top of everything and be SEO consulting companies have to tread a fine line to compromise their client expectations with the best possible service. As a client, you have to remember that in terms of SEO, there are things that are impossible to do. Part of the responsibility of a good SEO consulting service is to explain to you the basic expectations that are possible, so you can modify your expectations accordingly.

Know that SEO consulting companies have many strategies of implementing search engine optimization. If you make impossible demands such as getting your site in the top 10 search results in a matter of days and would like the SEO company to make it happen at all costs, you may force them to resort to means which are “inappropriate.” This can lead you to get your site de-listed from search engines. Thus, make sure that you demand realistic expectations. Keep in mind that SEO consulting can help you increase your search engine rankings, but they can only do so much. Search engines are quite complicated, and working to please them is not that easy to do.

What then should you expect from an SEO consulting firm?

1. The SEO consulting company should develop a list of keywords for your site, using information that they have researched as to the most common queries performed by surfers. They will work beyond the keywords that you have provided since they might not be the ones used most.

2. Your SEO consulting firm must make the necessary adjustments to the titles and Meta tags on your pages based on the keyword list. They should also target the right pages to be optimized for specific terms.

3. They must perform a general site analysis and optimize all your HTML elements with the use of keywords to add more relevance to your pages.

4. The SEO consulting company must submit your site properly to all major online directories and do research on directories which best suit your niche or industry.

5. Part of the SEO consulting service is to track down the status of your site on major search engines. They have to check whether all the pages of your site were indexed.

6. SEO consulting services also include submitting the website to search engine site reviewers. Aside from indexing web pages, most search engines also have channels that provide relevancy boosts on certain pages. At times, these boosters can be obtained on other search engines as well as the one which actually reviewed the site.

7. Good SEO consulting involves continuous flow of suggestions for new content that can be readily optimized to emphasize the most important terms included in your keyword list. Your SEO consulting firm must work hand in hand with you in a long term basis.

8. Some pages or even your entire site must be redesigned at some point to make sure your site relevance is maximized. Your SEO consulting company must suggest ways to come up with a web design that is search engine friendly.

9. A reliable SEO consulting company will open-handedly provide you with a list of prospective sites which you can get links that best suits your site. Note that getting links from good sites is very important in raising the relevancy of your site, especially on search engines which use link analysis to determine site ranking.

It is obvious from the list that what you should expect from your SEO consulting firm is a well planned, thorough and effective implementation of your search engine marketing campaign. In time, a SEO consulting services should result to the proper indexing of your website by all the search engines. Not only that, your site should be listed in all major site directories and properly placed depending on your region and topic. Third, you should expect your SEO consulting company to give your site reciprocal links from other websites which will contribute to the relevancy of your site. Note that SEO consulting is not only limited to fixing meta tags, HTML design, content optimization, and reciprocal links, but it involves all other factors that will give more targeted traffic into your site. With good SEO consulting service, you can watch your site find its way to the top of search engine rankings.

About the Author:
Moe Tamani is a Marketing expert with a leading SEO consulting specializing in Organic SEO.

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