by Chris Barnard | Sep 22, 2011 | Digital Marketing
Small businesses across the world all share one common need to sustain growth; new customers.
Communicating with these potential and existing customers within their local community seems to still be in the dark ages.
At least the analog ages.
Or, more often than not most small businesses rely on existing customer word of mouth to generate new customer referrals.
Never mind wasting unbelievable amounts of money on local newspaper, Pennysaver ads, or 15 different yellow pages books that find their way immediately to the recycle bin. (more…)
by Chris Barnard | Jul 7, 2011 | Mobile Phone Marketing
We’ve seen these digitally rendered splotches before, and we will most likely continue to see these mobile-friendly bar codes as our phones become the number one way to access this metastasizing thing we call the Internet.
What is a QR code?
QR stands for quick response; the code part enables you to implant your local San Diego small business digital footprint up the mobile-enhanced digital information superhighway of the local constituency.
A QR code stores information about your business that you’d like to communicate; people can then scan your specific QR code and see the info you’d like presented.
This allows you to not only connect your customers with your local business; properly implemented QR codes can also allow your increasingly mobile customers to digitally connect with each other.
And connect that all back to your digital footprint…and front door. Mobile marketing will only continue to get further integrated into our daily lives, will you be an early adopter or band-wagoner?
By simply downloading a (FREE) reader application onto our mobile phones, we can then scan any QR code and see the quick results.
So, as a consumer we need a reader to view the info stored in the favorite local business’s QR code.
As a favorite local business owner, we need to generate a code so that we can communicate whatever message we’re looking to send.
To generate a QR code for our own Carlsbad small businesses, we can search for any QR code reader online, hook up with one free by confirming your Bing Business Portal listing, or check out this site that supposedly ranks some of the best QR readers.
You can also click here to read more about implementing QR codes into your San Diego business digital marketing plan. Or check out this blog post for more ideas and background on QR codes.
What can I do with it?
QR codes can communicate your website URL, Carlsbad business social media identities, geo-location coordinates, even discounts and promotions. Basically the code can communicate whatever message you wish to send to your customers and/or potential customers.
Just like you’d use direct mail or a radio spot to broadcast the next big deal or killer sale, a QR code enables you to do the same thing.
The goal is connecting and communicating with your existing customers and recruiting new local brand ambassadors.
How you use it will probably depend a lot on what you sell, and how you deliver your products or services.
If you own a fishing charter, you can update the daily catch.
If you own a dry cleaner, you can offer a discount for local restaurant workers.
If you own a local watering hole you can connect patrons will local cab companies.
Whatever message you wish to send will probably evolve, change, or expire. That’s ok, and all part of the process.
By getting your hands dirty by first doing the research then generating the code, your mind will already be spinning with ideas to incorporate into your new local Carlsbad mobile QR code digital marketing campaign!
by Chris Barnard | Jun 29, 2011 | Digital Marketing
In the race to acquire your small business advertising and digital marketing dollars, the winner doesn’t seem so clear-cut. At least when we take some geographical or demographic information into consideration.
Sure, the local phone book publisher has most likely seen a cataclysmic drop in ad revenue over the past few years. And certainly this must be directly correlated to the rise in online searches, increase in mobile internet accessibility, availability of improving technology, and the overall topsy-turvy world of defining consumer habits.
According to research from the Local Search Association (formerly the Yellow Pages Association) conducted by Burke, search has taken over as the top way to find local businesses for most demographics1.
Interesting that the Local Search Association was formerly the Yellow Pages Association, but maybe that’s another blog post. As a Carlsbad small business owner the challenge becomes how to best leverage each (and every) communication medium available to increase local sales and improve customer retention.
And of course how to weed through all of this digital chatter to identify those opportunities.
According to this recent article on the Google+ social networking move, the average U.S. visitor spent 375 minutes per month on Facebook in May, compared with 231 minutes for Google.
How many minutes are there in a month?
We can bet our mobile carriers can tell us. But are we getting our moneys worth for those minutes?
Moreover, how many minutes do we spend actually thumbing through the phone book?
We’ll reserve judgment on the blog posts…and promise to only take our finger-pointing to a whole new level via Twitter!
Although this is quite the contentious subject amongst some marketers, small business owners need not let emotion dictate the best communication tools for use in driving more local sales.
Hashtag AT&T are you listening?
What do ‘the phone book’ and MySpace have in common?
Hint: MySpace reportedly sold today for a whopping $35 million…it was acquired 6 years ago for $580 million…
by Chris Barnard | Jun 22, 2011 | Digital Marketing
The economy is in the tank, unemployment is stagnant at critical levels, and profits for the average Carlsbad small business are enveloped in a seemingly accelerated downward spiral.
If this is something your local business has experienced over the past couple few years, we don’t have any answers for you.
But we do have some questions.
How locally visible is your small business on the Internet?
This one goes without saying, but we’ll go ahead and repeat the social local mobile digital marketing connectivity come small business communications mantra as long as there are clueless businesses still out there in Carlsbad.
We’re reaching here, but we suppose the primary responsibility of any local business is to provide a product or service to the community.
But how does your local community learn about your location, your services, products, or what your loyal customers say?
In a word (or two), the Internet.
What motivates your customers?
Some people are motivated by cost, others by convenience, and others by exclusivity and elegance.
Do you know what motivates your customers?
If you don’t know the answers, then you haven’t been doing a very good job of communicating with the very people responsible for the fiscal health of your small business.
Motivation can come in different forms; from a no sales-tax day, to sponsoring a local little league team, to a simple financial incentive, the smart Carlsbad small businesses are already diversifying. The businesses we’re talking about are taking advantage of new opportunities rather than remaining complacent in a losing situation.
Whether these new opportunities for local small business communications involve super heroes, super submarine sandwiches, or super stoked happy hours; is up to you to decide. Local economic factors, geographic interests, and community involvement will dictate your success.
One thing will dictate your failure…not properly motivating your customers.
How do your prices & products compare to your competitors?
We know, that’s classified.
Too bad the general public has taken to figuring it out themselves, without the help of wikileaks.
Despite your best efforts to keep your prices secret (by not having your products available online), we can still determine the cost – and even the value – by seeing what people say about their experience with your products, prices, and personnel.
We can see all of this digital word of mouth with s few simple keystrokes of your products, services, or actual business name.
With service businesses like home remodeling for instance, what’s more important than your rate or estimates is how well you communicate the effort, expertise, and effects of the very services you provide.
If people are shopping strictly on price, you’re done anyway – there’s always someone out there that will do the work for less money. But is it really the same work?
In the case of a new bathroom for instance, it is up to you to communicate your craftsman expertise and quality of materials to your customers. Maybe you offer one day dental crowns or single visit appointments. Or on the other hand, maybe your dental crowns are finely precision-tuned specific smile solutions custom fit to each different dental patient.
Whatever it is, the responsibility is yours.
You need to communicate with the local community, let us know why your Carlsbad small business should be the only choice for our hard-earned dollars.
by Chris Barnard | Jun 14, 2011 | Digital Marketing
Social media for your Carlsbad business is an easy and cost-effective way to maintain communication with your customers when they are not in your store or business.
Local search is an essential ingredient to any business concerned with how people find them online.
And mobile compatibility should be on your radar if it’s not already generating return on investment and adding more local dollars to your small business’ bottom line.
For a lot of us, our business existed – and prospered in some cases – without (or before) all of this Internet mumbo jumbo.
Isn’t all of this digital marketing stuff for kids and geeky shut-ins who’d rather slam away on a keyboard rather than gulp some fresh air?
It is essential for us to realize this most fundamental and foundational element of local Carlsbad small business digital marketing success.
Like Lotto, we need to be in it to win it.
As local business owners we hear about all the advantages social media, or listen to a cross-section of customers, colleagues, family members, and caffeine addicted bloggers…but we don’t take action.
And forget about local search and mobile integration, those are otherworldly terms that spark feelings of dread from some local small business owners.
Dread because we don’t know what this stuff means, and think we’re getting shined on for useless services directed at making the ad agency or marketing company money, not the local mom & pop.
Online is where it’s at folks, and it’s not for just the kids and cool people trend setters any longer. Its soccer Moms, doting Dads, yuppies, students, thirtysomethings, and even formerly technically averse grandparents have jumped on board the SoLoMo train.
When we want a friend or family member’s opinion about a product or service, we ask – social media.
When we are looking for products or services, we search online – local search.
How we access this digital environment to search or speak, is shifting – mobile integration.
Communication used to be one to one. Now it’s many to many…and digital marketing is our force multiplier.
Technology + Communication = digital word of mouth for the local Carlsbad small business.
And word of mouth is as grass-roots and cost-effective as we can get.
Social media, local search, digital whatever, and mobile this or that, are all TOOLS allowing our local Carlsbad small businesses to effectively communicate using this digital medium we all flock to before the sleep is even out of our eyes.
In the last 30 days, how many people searched online for products or services you currently provide?
To further narrow it down, wouldn’t it be great if you could determine how many people searched online for similar terms right in our immediate Carlsbad area?
You can find the answer to dynamic keyword research here – at least according to Google.
Go nuts, play around…and envision your local Carlsbad digital marketing potential!
