Author: Brad Johnson

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/markgrow/~3/bz7FaJuH7Jo/

Since I wrote an article on small business marketing, I decided to ask my friends to help me out with entrepreneurial photos to “decorate the post.” Have fun on this crowd-sourced post as you see some of my entrepreneur friends in action, starting above with Tracey Matney!

A few years ago, I interviewed a researcher in New York about the most significant marketing mega-trends. Chief on her list was that the most effective marketing was becoming “artisanal,” meaning that it had to be local, conversational, and connected to an individual or community.

I asked her, “How will giant brands like airlines and car companies survive in this environment?”

She thought for a long moment and said, “I don’t know.”

The future favors the small

I believe that small business owners (like rising star Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez) are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the marketing rebellion before us.

Here’s an interesting thing to consider. If you list every negative trend in the general marketing world, you’ll see why big businesses are hurting and small businesses are positioned to win:

• People are not seeing big-budget broadcast advertising. Ad-free subscription services like Spotify and Netflix dominate our attention.
• Major digital advertising programs are jeopardized by new privacy laws and moves by Google and others to end the use of cookies.
• Ruthless cheaters with unfettered access to our customers flood the market with cheap knock-offs, threatening the biggest companies and their hard-won national brands.

Now let’s look at some of the most important marketing trends driving success today:

• 

  Karima-Catherine Goundiam

  People don’t believe ads and company spin. They believe business owners, entrepreneurs, and technical experts (like Karima-Catherine Goundiam).

• Increasingly the personal brand Is the company brand as people seek an organic personal connection to the companies they love. You probably love and admire a business owner in your community. Who do you love at Verizon, for example?
• Big companies can’t plaster billboards around a city touting how involved they are in the community. We want people to show up. You can no longer just be “in” a city, you have to be “of” the city.
• Direct-to-consumer online models have disintermediated the advantage of shopping mall scale.
• Platforms like Shopify, Etsy, and eBay are opening up global commerce for even the smallest businesses.

This is why I’m so bullish on the potential for small business marketing success in this era. Every important business trend seems to be tipping their way, at least to those who really understand what’s going on in this dramatic Marketing Rebellion.

Small business on the rise

A study found that more than $17 billion in consumer product goods (CPG) industry sales have shifted from large players to small ones since 2013!

Sales among “extra small” brands — those generating annual sales under $100 million — rose 4.9 percent, the fastest-growing CPG segment, according to market research firm IRI.

In contrast, large players saw their combined market share drop to 55.5 percent, from 57.7 percent, during the same period.

Let’s go back to that question I asked at the top of the post … “How will big brands survive in this consumer rebellion?”

The expert didn’t know at the time, but an answer is emerging. The big companies know they can’t adjust and are snapping up the smaller “artisanal brands” at a rapid rate. If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em.

A few examples:

• P&G snaps up small toothpaste company
• Coca Cola snaps us Texas “cult” favorite Topo Chico
• Campbell Soups buys California organic soup company to appeal to Millennials

Of course, this is also good news for small company founders who newly-minted millionaires!

The small business marketing formula

There are lots of ideas for small businesses in the Marketing Rebellion book but if I were a small business owner (wait … I am!) here are the key small business marketing ideas to focus on:

1. The customer is the marketer

Two-thirds of our marketing is occurring without us.

How do we get invited into the online and offline stories being told by our best customers? How do we help them do their job? Make the customer the hero of your marketing.

How do we create something so unmissable, cool and conversational that people cannot wait to talk about us and carry the story forward?

2. Show up

People don’t want to see photos of your president handing a check to the United Way. They want to see you involved in the community.

Don’t just lend a hand. be the hand. This is hard for the big companies to pull off so get out there and show your community love. Show up where your customers want to find you. Let them see how you care.

3. Be the brand

For a small business, the founder is normally the face of the company. This is a huge advantage in this marketing environment.

Great branding means building an emotional connection between what you do and your customers. Increasingly, that is a person, not a coupon or a product attribute.

Jon Ferrara, pictured here, is a role model for this idea. Jon is so gracious, generous, and accessible, that you can’t help but love his company, Nimble, because you simply love him. In everything he does, Jon puts his family, customers, and employees before his own interests.

My book KNOWN teaches you how to build a strong personal brand in the digital age. This is an essential tactic in the Marketing Rebellion era!

4. Engineer “peak moments”

Build exciting, unexpected delights into mundane customer interactions. When you give people something to talk about, they will.

Jessika Phillips — that’s her in the blue suit in the front — engineers peak moments into every customer engagement and event. Somehow she has made Lima, Ohio, the summertime epicenter of the social media marketing world through her fun and inspiring event.

She creates so much positive buzz that people can’t wait to attend or speak there. The customer is the marketer!

Think about how you can build peak moments into every customer touchpoint.

5. Bring people together

In the end, The Most Human Company Wins™

How does a small business do that?

By showing your face, your smile, your heart, and passion at every opportunity. One of the best ways to do this is to bring people together. Celebrate something. Teach something. Connect people and let them see how amazing you and your employees are!

Julia Bramble, shown here, is becoming an evangelist for helping people “belong” as part of a marketing strategy. Obviously I agree with her. I think it is one of the most powerful things we can do!

There has probably been no better time in the history of the world to start a business. Small business marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Just focus on one thing: Be the most human company in your niche.

Make sense?

That is the end of my post. But let’s keep going with my cool entrepreneurial friend photos. Every one of them is trying to make a dent in the world! 

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

 

The post The small business marketing formula to dominate your niche appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/618599240/0/convinceandconvertconsulting/

Wondering how to run brand contests and giveaways like a pro?

Contests and giveaways can be an amazingly easy and quick way to generate positive engagement, get more traffic to your website and, most importantly, generate more leads for your business.

That said, holding an online contest is not as easy as buying an iPad, posting a contest on Facebook and then waiting for the results to come in.

You might get lots of people interested and participating – and more likes than you ever expected on a post – but, at the end of the day, if you’re not getting the right people signing up for your contest or giveaway (i.e. your target audience), you’re not going to get a return on your investment.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to run contests and giveaways like a pro – so that you’re not just doing a contest for the sake of it but actually reaching your goals for your marketing strategies.

Why run online contests and giveaways?

As I mentioned in the introduction, contests and giveaways are a great way to get marketing results quickly and help accomplish the following:

• Boost engagement with your followers
• Generate new social media followers
• Get more traffic to your website 
• Grow your email list 
• Produce more leads and sales for your business 

Contests and giveaways are interactive by nature, and people often love them – after all, they’re an opportunity to win something that people want or need.

What’s more, contests and giveaways require participants to leave their details with you – and, with the right type of contest and prize, that means you can generate more leads for your business.

Plus, contests are a great way to generate more interest in your business and the products and services you offer – so, by promoting your products/services this way, you can even boost your sales considerably.

That being said, not just any contest will get you these results – you need to be very clear about your objectives, build a contest that supports these objectives, offer the right prize and promote your contest/giveaway extensively.

Step 1: Determine Your Contest Objectives

Before starting any new marketing plan or campaign, it’s important to take the time to establish what your campaign’s objectives are. 

When you know what your objectives are, you can build a campaign that helps support these goals and helps you reach them. 

First, consider your overall marketing and business goals – what do you want to achieve in the coming quarter?

Once you’re clear on those objectives, you can plan your contest goals to help you reach the results you want. 

Here are some of the goals you can set up for your contest/giveaway campaign:

• Generate more leads/email subscribers
• Boost your sales
• Increase brand awareness of your brand or a specific product/service
• Get more social media followers
• Boost your audience engagement 
• Drive more traffic to your business website 
• Gather user-generated content 

Once you know what your goal is, you can build a campaign that will help you reach that goal. 

Step 2: Choose a Relevant Prize

The prize you offer in your contest or giveaway is one of the most important elements that can determine the success of your campaign. 

If your prize is too generic – like, let’s say an iPad, which seems to be one of the most used prizes for online contests – you might get a lot of attention, but is it the right attention?

The thing is, everyone could use an iPad: from a 14-year old teenager who’s in a video-game phase to a 35-year-old marketing executive.

In other words, you’re going to get a mishmash of people signing up for your contest, none of them potential customers for your business. 

Whatever your contest goal is, whether it’s to get more leads or more engagement, the key is to get these results from the right people. 

To do so, you need a prize that will only appeal to your particular target audience.

Ideally, your prize should be brand-related, as well as something that your target audience wants.

For example, one of the easiest ways to offer a good prize is to use your own business’s products or services, like this example from Qwertee, who gave away 30 free t-shirts as part of their giveaway (and yes, they sell t-shirts).

The thing is, when you give away something related to your products or services, you’re going to get the right attention: not only freebie-seekers but also people who would genuinely want or need your products/services.

---

When you give away something related to your products or services, you’re going to get the right attention: not only freebie-seekers. #contest #marketingtip

Click To Tweet

---

Here are some of the targeted, brand-related prizes you can offer:

• Coupon codes and discounts to be used on your website/in-store
• Your products 
• Access to your services 

Also, you should make sure to showcase the value of the prize – it’s another great opportunity to promote your business and your products/services and show people why they’re so valuable, like you can see on this contest landing page from Lucille Roberts.

Here’s another example, from Riedel UK, offering up a beautiful set of their wine glasses as a contest gift.

The reality is that you might get fewer participants than you’d want this way (or, at least, compared to if you were giving away a tablet or something similar that appeals to a wider audience), but the idea is to get targeted participants. You want to get real leads and real engagement from people that are likely to be converted into your customers down the line.

Step 3: Design Your Contest 

Once you know what you want to achieve with your contest and have decided on a prize, you can start putting together your contest or giveaway; there are numerous types of contests/giveaways, such as:

• Photos and video contests
• “pick your favorite” contest
• Mention and/or hashtag contest
• Writing or essay contest
• Instant win contests
• The “refer-a-friend” contest
• And, of course, giveaways, which are similar across platforms

In order to run a successful contest or giveaway, you can use a number of tools to help create your contest, publish it on the channels you want, as well as manage your participants and assign winners fairly. 

Here are some useful contest tools to consider for your campaign:

Easypromos 

Easypromos is one of the most popular options for creating this type of interactive content. You can use it to create giveaways, contests, games and quizzes, as well as coupons and codes for special offers. In total, there are about 30 different applications to choose from.

In addition, as you might notice above, it works on a variety of online platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as your own website and even via email newsletters.

There’s an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder. Plus, you can monitor your campaigns’ results and ROI, as well as set up automated emails to nurture your leads.

Shortstack

Another popular solution is Shortstack. This robust tool allows you to create contests, giveaways and quizzes, as well as landing pages for your interactive content.

It also has various features to ensure you can run your contest from start to finish: email marketing features, drip emails and lead collection tools, among others.

Their campaigns work on a variety of platforms, including all popular social networks, as well as on your website and on landing pages. 

Here are some of the most important elements that need to be on your contest post/page:

• A title that gets people’s attention
• Your prize
• A very clear and visible call-to-action (usually, in the main title)
• Entry details
• Contest rules (make sure you’re following each platform’s rules too)
• Other contest details, such as the time frame for your contest and how the winners will find out

Step 4: Promote Your Contest Everywhere

In order to get the most out of your contest, make sure to promote it high and wide – the more people join in, the better.

Here’s what you need to do in order to promote your contest:

• First, create a landing page for your contest 
• Send an email blast to your list and let them know about your contest and where they need to go to sign up (that email will probably have the biggest open rates you’ve seen so far!)
• Promote your contest across all social channels
• Promote your contest on your website and/or blog; for example, you can create a banner to promote it, use a Hello Bar or even write a blog post about it
• Create an ad campaign: if you’ve planned a really big contest and want to get the most out of it, it might be a good idea to invest in social media ads to reach a much wider audience 

Conclusion

Contests and giveaways can be extremely powerful tools for your business. They offer this highly-effective, super-fast way to get results: more leads, more engagement, more traffic and so on.

Follow the steps outlined in this step-by-step guide, and you’ll be running high-performing contests and giveaways in minutes.

Just remember this: stop giving away iPads.  

Unless you’re Apple, of course. 

The post How to Run Online Contests and Giveaways Like a Pro appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.