Costco Connection - August 2012

; FRESHviews

Start it up,
and keep it
rollıng

PAUL AND SARAH EDWARDS:
LIFESTYLES FOR THE MILLENNIUM

COSTCO MEMBER Kevin Ready is a con-
sultant, author and speaker. His book
Startup: An Insider’s Guide to Launching
and Running a Business
(Apress, 2011; www.kevin
ready.com) offers advice
on the pitfalls startups
often face and how to
avoid them. Here are some of his tips.
Be flexible. Staying observant, watch-
ing what customers respond to, experi-
menting with new products and services,
and being willing to drop what doesn’t
work in favor of new ideas are some of
the most important factors for success for
any business, new or old, large or small.

Focus on marketing. Founders often end up focusing too much on their product or service, and not on the task of communicating and connecting with customers. The best product in the world won’t be a success without a plan to connect with customers.

MARY ANN HALPIN PHOTOGRAPHY

Find your “essential message.” Boil down your sales pitch to five words.

Condense all the good points about what
you do into one simple differentiating and
powerful statement. Then leverage that
statement in all of your communications,
including marketing, business cards, etc.
Do analysis and find that one nugget
of information that resonates most with
your market. C your market.

Try before you buy. You always test-drive a car before you buy it, right? With a small business you should do the same. Start easy, quick and low risk if you can. The “all in” approach where you quit your job and throw all of your savings at a business idea can be dangerous and costly, especially if you haven’t validated your idea thoroughly.

Make scalable choices at the beginning. There are many initial decisions that profoundly affect how much money you can make and what options are available to you in your business as it matures. What is the maximum amount that your plan can make in a day, week or month? Is that enough? Better to realize it early and change your idea to something that scales well.

Paul and Sarah
Edwards (www.
elmstreetecon
omy.com) are
the authors of
17 print books,
and have a new
BarChart entitled
Social Media
Marketing.

ARTVILLE

STUDIES HAVE FOUND that 44 percent of small businesses in the United States do not have a website. Often these businesses once had a website, but, lacking the time or funds to maintain it, they abandoned it. Of companies that have a website, nine out of 10 are unhappy with the site.

This comes at a time when 85 percent of people use the Web to find local businesses, according to a survey by Local Consumer Review. Traditional ways of locating businesses, like Yellow Pages, direct mail, newspaper advertising and radio, are being used less. If a company wants business, customers need to be able to find it through the Web, via smartphones and tablets.

If you don’t have a website or are unhappy with its effectiveness, there are things you can do that won’t break the budget or keep you up after hours.

First, consider one or more of these alternatives, a number of which are free.

Get a free listing on Google Plus
Local ( www.google.com/places). You can
supplement your listing with locally targeted
advertising through Google Ad Words Express
( www.google.com/adwords/express).
Sign up for Google Plus’ Business
Pages ( https://plus.google.com/up/start).
It’s free and easy to use, and puts you on
the map. You can relate to customers
through the Circles function.
Create a Facebook page for
your business ( www.facebook.com/
pages/ create.php). These pages are
distinct from personal pages. As with a
website, you’ll need to add fresh con-
tent, but a Facebook page is free, and if
you keep a personal page you already
Weaving a

websıte

know how it works. Facebook even provides guidance on how to use Facebook for marketing ( www.facebook.com/marketing).

Start a blog to serve as a website and attract search engine attention.

Since only one in 20 small businesses has a blog, this is a marketing tool that makes you stand out from others. Leads that come from a blog cost less than those from other inbound and outbound methods, and a blog can substitute for traditional publicity techniques. The two most popular blog software platforms are WordPress ( wordpress.org and wordpress.com) and Tumblr (www. tumblr.com). WordPress.com provides free software and hosting; WordPress.org has free software but not hosting. Tumblr appeals to younger customers and is both a microblogging and a social networking site, where you can post short text entries, photos and videos from your phone or wherever you are.

To be sure your site works for you, have a clear goal for it. For example, a simple WordPress blog will serve as a brochure. WordPress will also work if you want to provide document support information. If you want to directly communicate with customers, then consider Google Plus ( https://plus.google.com), Facebook and Tumblr. With add-ons like WP Simple PayPal Shopping Cart, WordPress also enables you to make sales on your site.

Finally, make it easy for customers to find your site using search engine optimization (SEO). To find out what is needed to optimize your site, use a free website grader like HubSpot’s Marketing Grader (http:// marketing.grader.com). Learn more from Google’s SEO Starter Guide. Find the words people use to locate local businesses with Google’s free Search-Based Keyword Tool ( https://adwords.google.com). To use it, you need a Google password.