Stimulate Sales

Marketing on a Shoestring Budget is not just about saving money. Instead, it’s about identifying and using free and low-cost tools and resources to tell the story about you, your company, your products & services, and the value you provide your customers. Marketing is everything you do to promote your business, from the moment you conceive it to the point at which customers buy your products or services and begin to patronize your business on a regular basis.

Today, one of the best no-and-low cost marketing weapons is social media. This includes blogs, social networking, email campaigns, podcasts, webinars and other popular online relationship building and connecting sites and software. But, before social media became the powerhouse that it is today, there were other great shoestring or KISS marketing tools. Following are 14 good, old fashioned marketing and branding secrets:

1. Your company’s name
2. Telephone greetings
3. Special events
4. Community involvement
5. Free samples
6. Newsletters
7. Publicity and public relations
8. Location
9. Direct mail letters
10. Word-of-mouth
11. Networking
12. Cause-related marketing
13. Reputation
14. Satisfied customers

Using these tools, plus social media and other KISS marketing activities in a strategic and client-focused way, can put you on the right path to generating brand awareness and stimulating sales.

On 10/16/09, I am going to be the keynote presenter at a great networking event — eWomenNetwork Accelerated Network Luncheon. My topic – you guessed it – “Marketing on a Shoestring Budget with a Jimmy Choo point of view!” If you’re in the Chicago area – feel free to come on by. Go here to get more information (if the click doesn’t work, just type into your browser): https://events.ewomennetwork.com/event/details.php?eid=11332

“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” ~Maya Angelou

If you’ve done any reading on Twitter marketing, you probably realize that tweeting can be an effective, cost-free or low-cost solution for marketing your business (i.e. a Kiss Marketing Strategy!). All too often, however, we may be left wondering what to tweet about our businesses. Some of us may be concerned that we don’t have much to say – especially for brand new business owners. Others just aren’t sure where to start. The key is to balance our relationship-building tweets between just plain ole’ fun and gossip and business-relevant tweets.

A good tweet can not only let your followers know about new developments in your company, but it can also educate, inform, or entertain them. Once you achieve visibility, both your company profile and your client prospect levels will rise. The word of mouth that can come from a particularly intelligent tweet or series of tweets can result in hundreds or thousands of dollars in free advertising.

If you provide tweets that appeal to your followers, you’ll gain credibility and be on your way to forming a valuable relationship. This can be very powerful from a marketing point of view.

If you’re looking for things to tweet about in relation to your business, consider some of these ideas. This is a list of 19 reasons to tweet about your business and help you get started today in utilizing this amazing promotional strategy for your business:

1. Starting a new business
2. Celebrating a company anniversary
3. Publishing of a new article or series of articles
4. Publishing of a new blog post related to your business
5. Publishing of a book or ebook
6. Promote a book signing
7. Receiving an award
8. Announcement a partnership
9. Promote a specific product, service, event, contest or fundraiser
10. Promote a product or service that is holiday themed
11. Promote a sale or holiday sale
12. Promote a campaign using your company products that promotes a cause or creates awareness about something important
13. Announce that you’re available to speak on particular subjects of interest
14. Promote a public appearance on television, radio or in person
15. Launching of a website or blog
16. Website or blog anniversary
17. Announce free information or resources are available
18. Sponsoring a workshop, seminar, conference or teleseminar
19. Announcement of a new strategic partnership or alliance

While there are many other reasons to tweet, these ideas should help you jumpstart your creativity.

Come back and visit me in a couple of days to get a free copy of my report, “How to Twitter Effectively”. Have a twittering great day!!

“We are what and where we are because we have first imagined it.”

~Donald Curtis

Design a business that showcases your strengths — your brilliance, and that provides great value to your market!! Sometimes you may find that the biggest problem with designing your life around what you do best (your brilliance) is discovering what it is!  We often work hard to improve our weaknesses…and ignore our strengths.  It’s easy not to our own brilliance because we’re naturally good at it and take it for granted. Tap into your brilliance and build your brand around it!

Ask yourself…

• What do I do easily and naturally?
• What activities energize me?
• What have other people said I’m really good at?
• What consumes me…what lights my fire?

Discover and acknowledge your brilliance – and build a dynamic, successful business that showcases you and what you have to offer others.