Introducing Action Physical Therapy

When you type in the words “Guerrilla Marketing” at dictionary.com here is the definition you receive:

“Any of a number of unconventional methods of marketing with minimal resources for maximum results; any marketing campaign that use non-mainstream tactics and locations.”

That pretty much sums it up. This is the answer to the small business owners continuing dilemma of a small advertising budget. A lot of creativity can outweigh the problem of not enough cash.

Advertising Boca Raton tips:

1. Give your product away. When Mrs. Fields couldn’t sell any cookies, she loaded up trays of the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and walked through the mall giving them away. Once people tried one, they had to go back for more.
2. Create your own competition. Start a friendly rivalry with another business. Harry Houdini did this with his own brother. He got tired of competitors making money with his ideas, so he set his own brother up with a competing act, Hardeen, and they had a publicity fed rivalry for years.
3. Host an event for a local charity. Have a car show or a chili-cook-off. It will show you’re community minded and care about people as well as business.
4. Print flyers that tell about a great offer. Put them in every restaurant, coffee shop, grocery store, bar, and beauty shop in town. Don’t just tell about your business, though. Make sure you’re offering a valuable discount or grand opening special.
5. Write a column for your local newspaper offering tips and advice regarding your industry. This will brand you as the local “expert”.
6. Give presentations to local schools, service clubs, libraries, and churches. Always have your name and webpage address on the worksheets you hand out. Have plenty of business cards, also.
7. Write press releases for every thing you do that’s community minded and gives back to the local economy. Host a blood drive or toy give-a-way for children at Christmas time. Donate books to the local library. Let your name and your business name be synonymous with community spirit.
8. Have your employees dress up for Halloween. Let children come by to trick or treat at your office or retail store. They can sign up to win a $50 gift card at a local toy store. Holidays are an excellent time to do news worthy things and spread some goodwill.
9. Use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to make business announcements. Let everyone know when you publish a new article, make a new blog post, or launch a new product.
10. Post video’s on YouTube. Google Gary Vaynerchuk and see how this worked out for him. Be passionate about your business and let it show in your videos. They don’t have to professionally done, but they do need to offer concise information and have decent sound quality.

Marketing your business doesn’t have to be expensive. Block out some time when you can sit and plan your marketing attack for the next year. Some creativity and a lot of brainstorming will build your business even without a big budget.

The first place most people start their search for a business or product is on the internet. Online marketing is the marketing of today.

On a company’s webpage they look for:

• Services or products offered that can solve their problems
• Prices and how they compete with other sites
• FAQ’s about the company and their services
• Testimonials from past customers
• Guarantees
• Contact information
• Where to get more information

Future customers also look on social media sites. They might send a note on their Facebook page that says: “I’m looking for a car mechanic in Fernandina Beach, Florida. Anyone know a good one?” They’ll also click on ads they see on social media sites and join fan pages of companies they like.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other social media sites opened a whole new world of online advertising opportunities. They collect a wealth of information on members concerning their like and dislikes. That means when you advertise on these sites you can target a very specific audience.

How does this information help your company?

• Understanding the power of online marketing can save your company a ton of money in wasted advertising. Should you blow your budget on local print ads that reach a few thousand people? Or spend your money on web exposure that markets your company to millions of people all over the world.
• You choose who you target by how you optimize and market your page. World-wide or local, the choice is up to you.
• If you sell digital information your product can be sold automatically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Orders for physical products can be taken night or day and shipped by your fulfillment person the next day. You can get up one morning and discover you’ve made sales while you were sleeping. You’re no longer tied to only taking orders during “office hours”. Your page markets your business night and day.

When your webpage isn’t optimized correctly or marketed correctly you’ll find yourself with a lonely site that gets few visitors.

If your site doesn’t have a strong appeal to your visitors and hold them long enough to make a decision to buy, then your site won’t bring in additional business. You need a clear call to action that tells customers exactly what they need to do and walks them through it step by step.

If you know you’re site isn’t performing as well as you’d like, it’s time to consult a professional web company and let them explain how they can help you. This investment in your business will payoff in additional profits for years to come.

1. Create or update your webpage –If you don’t have a web presence, get one now. If your webpage isn’t effective, then hire a professional who can add powerful content that assures people find your page,

2. Create a marketing plan for the whole year – Don’t use a hit or miss approach to your marketing. Make a consistent week by week plan and follow-through.

3. Start a blog –This can change your image from an anonymous company, to a real person. Put a picture of yourself on the blog and write consistent posts with helpful information for your customers.

4. Focus your niche –Find a segment of your market that’s not being serviced and create the product or service they need.

5. Offer an incentive for referrals – Create a bonus or discount for your current customers when they refer a friend or business associate.

6. Set up a Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook account – These sites can be great to build your client or “friend” list and let them know of exciting events happening in your business

7. Write articles – Show that you’re an expert in your field by writing helpful articles about your industry. Always add your website name in the author box at the end of your articles.

8. Outsource mundane everyday tasks so you can create and implement your new marketing strategies. Don’t spend your day invoicing customers or filing when you could be writing business pulling emails or talking with clients.

9. Hold a contest – People love to win prizes. Offer a prize for anyone who comes up with a name for your new product or sends you the most referrals.

10. Add testimonials to all your material – You can never overestimate the impact of strong testimonials.

11. Say “Thank You” to all your current customers – Offer them an incentive or discount for additional products or services. You might want to start a customer loyalty program. If they buy 5 massages they get on free, etc.

12. Improve your SEO to make sure the right people can find your webpage – You need to know you’re using the best search engine keywords and techniques so your page is found by the customers who need you.

13. Set up a domain name that includes your business name or main business purpose – You can forward it to your current domain.

14. Create a new product or service based on customer feed back – It’s amazing how many companies refuse to listen to their customers. Don’t be one of them. If you’ve had several people comment that they’d love to have a widget in pink instead of black, then create one. And make a big deal about the new product launch.

15. Offer a payment plan for your high priced items – Not everyone can afford a big upfront fee. But if you spread it out over several months you can reach a new level of clientele.

16. Adopt a charity – This works especially well if you’re a local business supporting a local charity. It shows you contribute to the community and that your goal is to “give back” not just “take”.

17. Add video to your webpage – Not everyone enjoys reading. This generation grew up watching television and playing video games. Sometimes presenting your information as a video helps you reach a new age group or explain something in a more understandable way.

18. Hold a holiday party for the community – Halloween or 4th of July are perfect for local events. Or something to honor Mom’s and Dad’s on Mother’s or Father’s Day. Or you could celebrate Earth Day or National Library Week. If you can show that your company supports literacy for children in your community you’ll win local support.

19. Hire a copywriter who knows what they’re doing – All your printed material and your webpage content will work better if they’re written by someone who knows how to write persuasively.

20. Rent a booth at a local festival – Instead of always waiting for people to come to you, find a local festival or trade show and take your company to them. Make sure you have something at your booth to hold their attention and a give-a-away that they’ll want to keep. (With your contact information, of course.)

21. Write a How-to book that you give away – It should teach your customers how to do something useful, and have your name and information on the back in case they need further help or need to buy supplies, etc. It can be a print book or an eBook they download from your webpage. This is a good way to gain emails address for your list.

22. Teach a class or give speeches – A lot of clubs like the Rotary Club or church senior groups are always looking for guest speakers. Make sure your speech is fun as well as informative. Don’t drag on too long and bore everyone. Junior colleges with continuing education can be a great place to teach a class regarding your industry, too.

23. Have someone write a version of your webpage in another language and have them available to answer emails. This can broaden your market to entirely new countries.

24. Accept competitor’s coupons – Depending on your type of business, this can be a way to use your competitors advertising dollars to help your business.

25. Hire a copywriter who knows what they’re doing – All your printed material and your webpage content will work better if they’re written by someone who knows how to write persuasively.

26. Send out a ton of press releases every time you do one of the above!

Google is growing larger and larger as a major source of local searches. More than a third of the millions of searches made daily by Google users are for businesses in the areas around them. As a business owner, where do you stand when it comes to your local business search term ranking?

These top ten factors will help you form a Google local pack listing.

1. Claim your business on Google local listings.
You can submit your business to Google local listings if it is not already listed. If it is, you can just click to claim it, and you will be given the ability to update information on it after you confirm it is yours.

2. Be sure you have a local address.

It will be useless to customers if your corporate address is listed rather than the address of the actual establishment.

3. Assure that you have the correct category tags.

You will be able to add tags to your business profile to help customers find you. Your tags should be simple, like “bakery” rather than “fancy pastries.” Use other search terms to your advantage. For a high-end French bakery, effective tags would be “cookies,” “cakes,” and “French.” Predict the search terms that customers might use to find your business locally.

4. Use your product or business category in the title of your business claim.

For example, rather than “Coco’s,” use the title “Coco’s French Cupcake Bakery.” This should help direct customers to your search result.

5. It helps to be close to the city center.

Sure, you can’t do much about this, but it is one of many factors that affects search results.

6. Use relevant keywords in your Google Place Pages description

Fill out the description page to help customers find what they need to know about your business or products and services.

7. Add photos to your Google Place Page

Take photos of your products, your interior, and your exterior. Add a video if you can. This will turn views into paying customers. Consider this part to be mandatory! It is one of the more effective steps you can take to using Google to your business advantage.

8. Ask for customer reviews.
Good reviews will help build trust between you and your customers, even if they are making business with you for the first time.

9. Add a local phone number.
If you have business spots in more than one location, be sure to make certain that each has an accurate phone number. Also be sure that the main number listed on your website is the same as the Google map listing number.

10. Create or review your website.

Create a business website with a domain if you have not already done so. The information on your business website should have the same details as your Google maps listing. The address and phone number should be clearly listed on the home page, and photos and links

Borrel Associates recently reported that local business spending on printed Yellow Pages ads is about to plummet by at least five billion United States dollars over the next five years.

You already know why- nobody you know uses the Yellow Pages anymore, except for a few who do not know how to use a computer or prefer to find their local services in the print. Naturally, the potency of Yellow Pages advertising just isn’t what it used to be.

If you are already depending on the Yellow Pages for advertising, where can you go to make sure that you keep your business going and catch the attention of local consumers?

If you have not already, you have to get on the Internet. You need to make sure people find you when they search on-line for products or services like yours. This was a no-brainer if you were starting your business website just a decade ago. You could get a flood of visits with even a poorly designed website, without any advertising. However, there is still hope. With just a little work and effort, you can make sure local consumers find you.

Search engines are the number one way for consumers to find services and products like yours on the Internet. With the help of Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc, you can be one of the first results. However, there are a few tricks you need to learn to be one of the first results when a potential local consumer searches for your service.

But just how can you assure that your website will come up first, or close to it? Skills to do this are called “Search Engine Optimization,” or SEO for short.

Search Engine Optimization is when you take special steps to make sure that your website comes up top when your potential consumer searches for a service or business that is similar to yours. With a little research and some hard work, you really can achieve this. You will also have to maintain it, and it will not happen overnight. It is achievable, and it can be done.

Now is the best time for you to kick your business in the butt and get it to the top in search engines. Many of your competitor small business have not taken advantage of SEO, but you can be the first in your area.

As it can be seen, people are no longer reaching for the Yellow Pages when it comes to looking for local business and services nearby. They are looking to search engines for quick access to websites, contact information, and phone numbers for their local businesses. How will you rank?