Free press can help your business stand out.

Following is a guest post by Samantha Peters

Entrepreneurs these days often try to freely market their business by focusing on social media and SEO. They set up accounts on Facebook and Twitter, look to maximize their site’s search engine reputation management, and create a system of backlinks and content to boost traffic and exposure. These approaches can certainly work for the modern-day small business, but this single-minded focus on virtual marketing avenues causes many entrepreneurs to forget a different, traditional, and effective one: free press.

Getting free press can help a small business gain exposure and credibility — all without paying a dime. Doing so requires generating a story that newspapers will see fit to cover and publish. How can this be done? Here are a few tips:

-Offer an unusual promotion. One of the best ways to generate press is by creating a positive and unusual news story. Offering a unique promotion and then communicating it to the local media is often an easy way to do this.

-Make a public commitment to a social cause. The media would far prefer to give coverage to a social cause than a pure business venture. If you can give your business a chartable angle, then you may stand to benefit from increased exposure as a result.

-Put out press releases with compelling angles. The way you word a press release can be instrumental in determining the amount of attention it receives. Specifically, you can maximize this degree of attention by offering a compelling story and an interesting angle. Don’t just describe a new product that you’re launching; rather, give it a succinct narrative.

-Become an expert in your field. There are many organizations and sites out there, such as ProfNet and HARO, that allow regular people to become writers and sources for news publications. As an entrepreneur you are likely an expert in some sort of narrow field. By being a source and offering up your insight you can get yourself and your business mentioned in the press.

-Focus on target publications. When courting free press it is important to focus on those outlets where your business has the best chance of securing a mention. Rather than sending press release after press release to the New York Times, instead concentrate your efforts on local papers, industry bulletins, and publications where you already have a contact.

These are just a few of the main ways that a small business can go about trying to drum up publicity and draw some free press. As an entrepreneur you want to keep costs down and market your business as cheaply as possible. This applies in the offline world just as much as it does online – and, to target the former, seeking out free press is a great place to start.

Visual Marketing Tips For Small Business

How do you tell your story visually? How do you use images and design to market your small business? There is a new book out now that answers all your questions on this topic, and shows you through wonderful, eye-opening examples.

By authors David Langton and Anita Campbell (of Small Business Trends), the new book is “Visual Marketing: 99 Proven Ways For Small Businesses To Market With Images And Design.” The book offers brilliant examples of visual marketing tips for small business that are easy to digest for any entrepreneur that needs advice when using images for marketing.

According to the book, “The world is visual. We use our eyes to take in much of the content that influences our behavior, tempers our reactions, and informs our decisions. Whether it’s on the web, in a brochure, or live in person, the most effective solutions are ones that unexpectedly grab our attention.”

This is very true and on point. Every small business owner and entrepreneur looking to market his or her business must agree with the fact that visual marketing is an important step in building a brand, protecting its reputation and getting noticed by customers. This book helps achieve all of this.

Here are a few of our personal favorites of visual marketing tips for small business:

#3: Augmenting the reality of mobile advertising: Sharing brand information visually over mobile devices through apps. Simply put, the world is going mobile. All small businesses need to find a way to market their business through a smart phone.

#19: Good service is earned: Making a brand statement and creating viral content through infographics. We are huge believers of infographics on UnderstandingMarketing.com. In fact, we have an entire Pinterest page devoted to infographics.

#33: Blogger outreach in the cloud: Using a visually inspired word cloud to start a conversation with a blogger. Blogger outreach is a skill that is acquired through experience, not necessarily through education. But word clouds are highly effective with bloggers and should be used by small businesses in an effort to build relationships online.

#50: Jump-start a new package design: Creating quality packaging can lead to getting carried by more retailers. Product packaging can be everything to a small business – or any business for that matter. Do not skimp on lawyers, accountants, and product packaging.

Anita Campbell and her husband, Kevin, with Chrisanne and John Sternal

#69: Changing perceptions one school at a time: Using a marketing pamphlet to update an organization’s image. Marketing can inject a lot of life into any brand. A pamphlet or promotional flyer is a quick way to get the “new” word out on your business or organization.

The UnderstandingMarketing.com team sat down with Anita Campbell to discuss her book, as well as a number of different topics in the field of running a business, public relations, marketing and, of course, the huge success of Small Business Trends and BizSugar.

“Visual Marketing” is a book for every business. It has all the visual marketing tips for small business you need to succeed and it is written by people you would spend top dollar on for consulting. Don’t delay. Buy this book. Even if you implement just one tactic it won’t be long before it pays for itself.

Have you tried incorporating visual marketing into your small business? What tactics did you employ and how did it turn out? Drop us an email or leave a comment. Also, feel free to offer your own thoughts of the book by leaving a comment below.

Other highly successful blogs and websites were also included on Evan Carmichael’s list, including SmallBizTrends, Brian Solis, InklingMedia, and Sramana Mitra on Strategy. UnderstandingMarketing.com is listed at number 43.

The editors, writers and guest contributors have worked hard to make sure UnderstandingMarketing delivers highly effective insight and information to our community of small business owners, entrepreneurs and owners of companies in a variety of industries. From advising on the best ways to write an effective press release subject line and how to design a promotional flyer, to how to write a business story pitch and ways to move from elevator pitch to a sale, the articles on UnderstandingMarketing.com have always strived to deliver information that helps drive sales.

Please keep the comments and emails coming. You helped make UnderstandingMarketing a part of the top 50 entrepreneur blogs to watch. Your continued support and interest will move it up the ladder in years to come.

Photo Credit: Sun-Sentinel

Small Business PR Lessons From The Miami Dolphins

It pains me to write this post since I am a big fan of the Miami Dolphins. But there are some very significant lessons entrepreneurs can learn in terms of small business PR when looking at how the Miami Dolphins have conducted themselves in recent history.

Here is the background, for those of you who are not big football fans. The Miami Dolphins have long been a proud and very successful franchise in the National Football League. For nearly fifteen years they were one of the best-run organizations in all of professional sports. It also helped that they had Dan Marino, one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game.

Since 2000, the organization’s luck has changed and they have sunk deeper into a sad state of mediocrity. Their pathetic performance on the field has, of course, translated into sinking sales and embarrassing (at times) public relations.

So what’s the small business PR lesson entrepreneurs and companies can learn from the Miami Dolphins? While the team’s front-office decisions have played a large role in why the team’s performance has been sub-par, it is the way the front office communicates with its fan base as to why the public relations problem has grown like an out-of-control fire as of late. Simply put, when times are tough and it seems like every decision you make just is not working out, it is important to continue to communicate with your customers so they know what your game plan is, even if they do not agree with the game plan.

The man responsible for the front-office game plan within the Miami Dolphins is Jeff Ireland, the team’s general manager in charge of building the team and bringing in the necessary talent. Although he is not the owner, he makes the decisions that affect the team’s performance. Within the structure of a smaller company, there usually is not a general manager. The critical decisions are left to the owner of the company.

Here are a few quick guidelines to make sure your small business PR doesn’t share the same outcome as that of the Miami Dolphins:

1: Even if you make a bad decision, own it. Bad decisions happen. If this means you need to make an apology and say you made a mistake, then take that course of action. It will make you look human. It will make people feel compassion and empathy for you and avoid a public relations crisis.

2: Communicate. Regularly. The last thing you want to do when people are questioning your business decision is work inside a vacuum. Be open with people and communicate updates that pertain to your company so it doesn’t blow into a PR crisis. Sometimes just keeping people in the loop will solve a lot of your problems. Why? Because when you keep things too close to you it creates speculation. I think we all know what speculation does in the world of social media.

3: Win people over by being a nice person. Jeff Ireland once asked a very popular and talented player if his mom was a prostitute. He did not win many fans over by saying this, and he now has a reputation among players that makes it harder for him to attract talent to the team. As a small business owner, you should be focused on making friends in your community, not enemies.

What do you think? Are we being too hard on the Miami Dolphins? Are there any other comparisons to small business PR? Please leave a comment below.

John Sternal is President of Sternal Communications, a PR and marketing consultancy helping businesses get noticed through publicity in the media. He is the author of the PR Toolkit for Small Business and currently authoring a book about small business PR for entrepreneurs. For questions email John Sternal or connect with him @SternalPR.

Importance of small business marketing strategy

Incorporating a Marketing Strategy in a Business Plan is a Must for Success

Guest post by Sara Mackey

No matter what the size of your business is, a business plan is an integral part of its overall success. A business plan needs to be concise and exhaustive, yet leave enough flexibility to allow room to adapt as necessary. One aspect of a business plan all too often overlooked is the section on small business marketing strategy and strategy for larger companies. Every business needs to develop and prepare a marketing strategy, however what may work for one company may not work for another business. That is why every business must create a unique marketing strategy within their business plan that is specific to their niche, their products or their services.

Market Research

Market research is one of the best tools to use in the development of a small business marketing strategy. Market research will allow your business to understand current trends, what your customers are looking for and the best ways in which you can supply the need of the customer. The research gained will also allow your company to develop marketing strategies tailored to your business. If you have enough working capital, it can be highly beneficial to hire a professional market research firm to conduct the necessary research on your behalf.

Identifying Your Target Market

Once the market research has been conducted, you will be able to identify your niche market. This will be the main group of customers who you will focus your marketing resources on in order to solidify your customer base. The small business marketing strategy should detail specific information such as demographic characteristics like ethnicity, income bracket, age, and gender. It should also include psychographic characteristics such as the familiarity with technology and behavioral preferences.

Developing Your Marketing Tactics

Armed with detailed information about your customers, current market trends and identifying your niche, you can then create and develop marketing tactics you will use to promote and sell your products or services. Without understanding your target market, it is nearly impossible to develop successful marketing techniques. Your small business marketing strategy should identify every marketing tactic that is planned on being used and a timeline in which it should be launched.

All too often businesses downplay the importance of incorporating small business marketing strategies within their business plan, but this can be a grave and costly error for any company to make. Having solid and well-researched marketing strategies can save your business from detrimental mistakes and provide the vital knowledge needed to be a success.