One thing entrepreneurs never have enough of is time.
A lack of time is often cited as a reason why some small business owners aren’t consistent with their marketing efforts.
I can’t give you any “magical” tips on pulling time out of thin air, but I can share with you 5 tools that will help you market your business more consistently, more successful and help you to increase your profits:
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Figuring out what to write about: If a perpetual case of writer’s block is keeping you from regularly reaching out to your audience, check out Social Crawlytics.
This FREE web-based tool helps you identify your competitors most shared content online. With a few clicks you can find out what they are talking about and where they are promoting it so you can join the conversation with your own perspective.
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Creating images to support your content: 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco)
That means you need to include images in your email newsletter, blog posts and with all of your social media updates. Enter Canva.com. This web-based service offers you the ability to create custom graphics without hiring a designer.
Simply select a template, modify the text, and then publish the image in the format you want.
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Building simple web-pages: To build your own tribe of pre-qualified leads that you can develop a relationship with and market to again and again, you need to have an easy way to capture the name and email address of the folks who visit your website.
But you have ZERO design skills you say? No problem! Lead Pages offers you proven templates that are plug and play! You drop in your content, configure your email service provider and you are up and running in a matter of minutes with a stylish, highly functional, mobile-responsive web presence that makes you money.
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Building your presence on Facebook: If your target market is actively looking for the products and services you sell on Facebook you need to be active there too. It’s not just a matter of collecting friends and fans, you need to convert these connections to email subscribers that you can stay in touch with over time to build the all important know, like and trust factor.
Using content you already have on your computer, you can launch a simple Social Campaign in 20 minutes or less to attract new likes AND new prospects. The first time we launched this we attracted 46 new email subscribers in just a couple of days with minimal promotion! Try it for FREE!
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Update your blog on the go: If you’re like me, you often find inspiration for content you want to share with your audience while you’re out and about.
Instead of letting your good ideas fall to the wayside, the next time you are struck with a brilliant idea, stop what you’re doing and take 5 minutes to start a blog post using your smartphone (or tablet) and the FREE WordPress app (iOs or Android).
You can finish the post once you get back to your desk or publish it right there from you mobile device! You can also edit text, upload new images, respond to comments and more. Keep this app handy and use those extra minutes you have between appointments to share useful content with your audience and create a sales opportunity.
No matter what form of marketing you use to grow your business, for best results you MUST be consistent in your efforts. Following through and being consistent is more important than the strategy itself, the words you use or what your website looks like.
Clearly, those elements of your marketing are important, but it’s far too easy to get caught up in the minutia of what you need to do, which can distract you from actually getting it done. Make your marketing easier on yourself and get better results by leveraging technology to do your work for you. You’ll be rewarded with a better reputation, more opportunities and more revenue than you could ever imagine.