[2 Minute Read]

The key to your online presence is sitting in your back pocket! Your smart phone is a way to capture the footage you need to entice potential and past customers to spend their hard-earned dollar with you. One behind-the-scenes or how-to video could be all it takes. The beauty of that photo or video is that you can:

1. Create a social media post
2. Use it as an updated Facebook page banner
3. Use it in your Facebook or Instagram story
4. Feature it in your e-newsletter
5. Edit it into a highlight reel of your business
6. Feature it as a homepage video on your website
7. Feature it as an image in the product/service section of your e-commerce listing
8. Create an edit that plays a primary role in your advertising
9. Use it to promote next year’s event
10. Plus there’s probably a few more uses that fit your specific situation

Take a look at our highlight reel we recently produced, combining a year's worth of footage, tap/click HERE to see it.
 
The point here is to be sure and map out the best use for the content that you take time, money and other resources to create. If you have a primary product or service that drives your revenue, creating a simple video that explains to potential customers and fans why and how it will make their lives easier and happier may be all you need to get people talking. The easiest way to do this is to go into airplane mode, dust off the white board and create a story board of the journey that your content can take each month.

If you have a particular theme or product/service emphasis for a specified time period, then why not spell out why your customers need to have your product or service on their radar. Just think, if you are located by the beach where hundreds of moms hang out each summer day waiting for their kids to finish up junior guards, don’t you think they’d like to know about a quick ‘n easy, grab ‘n go family lunch combo or beach day survival pack? Jump into your customers’ shoes for a moment and think about what would make their life easier and happier, then figure out where you need to be to catch their eyes and ears. Once a number of them know about you, they’ll talk and the magic of word of mouth will spread! The essential ingredient will be to spell it out for them since they’re bombarded by marketing as soon as they wake up each morning.
 
5 Tips To Take Your Quality Up A Notch

1. Purchase a simple tripod for $40-60 so you can create smart phone videos on the fly when you’re by yourself
2. Keep a running list of content ideas on your phone
3. Schedule time each week to create this magical content
4. Remember, there’s nothing better than a 20 second video on how a product will make people’s lives happier and easier
5. Look up Justin Brown of Primal Video on Youtube, any and all tips you need to use your mobile phone to go BIG with your video content.

 
Our last point is to emphasize that if you strike the right chord with your target customer, they will literally jump in their car, drive to you, battle traffic and race into your store to pick up your product, especially if there’s an element of time-sensitivity. 

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​[2.5 Minute Read]

Seriously, if you’re opening the doors to your business and hoping people walk through without having put any marketing tactics into motion, your days may likely be numbered. We meet a number of business owners that have essentially given up on marketing because nothing seems to work, or it’s just too much effort. We’ll let you in on a little secret, there is no “easy button” for marketing, it takes time and effort and if you want people to know about your product or service, it’s essential that your marketing is continually pumping out your message.
 
It's not surprising that most small business owners wear quite a few hats so we wanted to give you three steps to help you achieve your business goals via marketing.
 
Step 1: Get Focused
Choose the two to three ways you can most effectively and efficiently communicate with your target customer. The old adage of doing a couple things really well versus quite a few things really poorly works here. While we’re fans of developing a diversified marketing portfolio, it all depends on your bandwidth so even if it’s two things that you can implement, that’s a great start. The key is to have thoroughly analyzed where your target customers (associated with the specific business goal you want to achieve) are congregating so you can infiltrate their busy lifestyle. Maybe it’s their social media feeds in the evening hours or could it be sponsoring a meet up or a popular gathering spot? Whatever it ends up being, be sure it’s crafted in a way so it hits home with them and really resonates with the wish list they have circulating in their head to help make their lives happier and a little easier.
 
Step 2: Schedule Your Marketing
Next, you’ll want to figure out when you can realistically find time to devote to executing your marketing program. It might be the first 30-minutes of your work day or maybe it’s a particular day where two hours of focused marketing implementation can take place each week. The bottom line is that you need to find time during your busy schedule and then schedule it. That means actually blocking out the time and dedicating those prized marketing minutes to getting a lot done, which may mean putting your phone in airplane mode. Make it a priority and treat that time block as if it were a game-changing business meeting that can’t be interrupted or re-scheduled.
 
Step 3: Track It!
If you’re not tracking your marketing, how will you know if your time, money and resources are being spent in the most efficient way? Whether it’s reviewing your google analytics on a regular basis, asking your customers about what brought them in and methodically tallying their responses or simply running a Square report on zip codes, it’s crucial that you have a system for determining if your marketing is working. For example, if your customer mentions having seen you on social media, pry just a little bit more and ask if it was the cool drone video and if they answer yes, then you know it was the Instagram ad you’re running…the key is to have very specific ways to measure your marketing you work so hard to broadcast to your current and potential customers.

Bottom Line
If you're serious, we mean absolutely serious about making your marketing program work for your business so you increase sales and web/foot traffic then we recommend you working through our "Prepare for 2018" workshop in our DIY library."