By: Susannah Morgan

Plain and simple; contests work. Contests are proven to garner response from your customers because everyone loves a chance to get something for free. Put together ideas for contests that are relevant to your company and come up with specific goals. Do you want your business to gain more followers? Maybe you’d rather just increase your brand awareness. Consider your objectives first and you’ll be one step closer to the success your business deserves. See below for the top places contests work best:

1. Social media.

If you have recently created a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or other social media account, hold a contest to gain more followers.

2. Tradeshows/local events.

People love attending trade shows just to receive free stuff. Take this valuable opportunity to hold a contest at your booth. This is a great opportunity if your objective is brand awareness. Prospects who have never heard of your business may stick around to learn more.

3. In-store.

Inform customers at your retail location of a contest at the checkout counter or while they are waiting on their service.

4. Website/blog.

To increase traffic to your website or blog, hold a contest to gain more visitors that are interested in your services.

5. Mobile app.

Hold a contest that is only available on your mobile website or mobile app. Customers will remember your business if it is easily accessible on their phones.

As any business owner knows, reviews can make or break your reputation. This is particularly true if you have an online presence. People love to make comments about businesses and websites on forums, blogs, review sites, and even online directories. While it may be great to read all the positive things people have to say about you, the negative comments can hurt. In addition, they can be extremely damaging to your business if they are not handled properly. Online reputation management is all about taking those negative comments and making them work for your business.

The first thing to do when you come across a bad review or negative comment is to stop and think before reacting. There is no need to panic or get defensive, as this may only hurt your business more in the long run. Take a few moments to think about what the reviewer is trying to say, and think about how you can rectify the problem.

Realize that the majority of people who leave negative reviews do so because they have actually experienced a difficulty with your product or services. Do not just assume that people are trying to sabotage you. Take your clients seriously, and address their concerns accordingly. Never simply delete a negative comment as this will just look shady to other readers online.

Try to think of what the client’s problem was and how you can provide a solution. Come up with a plan of action for how to fix the situation. Once you have done this, you can respond to the client. Express your regret that the client was dissatisfied, and suggest your solution to the problem. By responding quickly to the situation and offering a solution, other clients and potential customers will see that you care about their concerns.

Once you have communicated with the client and suggested a solution, act on that solution. Do not make empty promises, as this will damage your reputation even more. Remember also that if one client experiences a problem, there may be many others who had the same problem, but just did not voice it online.

One way to improve your online presence is with social networking media. Take advantage of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Digg to increase your fan base and create interest in your website and business. The more fans and followers you have, the less impact negative comments or complaints will have on your overall online reputation.
Finally, use a service that allows you to monitor when people leave comments about you. Google Alerts is a great tool that will let you know whenever someone mentions you or your business online. This way you can respond to comments and complaints immediately, before they get out of hand.

No matter what type of business you have, you are bound to get both positive and negative comments from your clients. Online reputation management techniques can help you make the most out of negative feedback, and improve your business; online presence, credibility, and popularity.

By: Susannah Morgan

As a small business owner, you may be fighting to get your name in the news. Get Busy Media‘s research states that only 50% of businesses survive five years, though 70% make it to two years. Don’t let your small business be a statistic. Harnessing the power of small business PR can help your company survive. Use the tools listed below:

1. Build your network.

Associate with reporters in your area. Follow and engage them on social media. It’s important to get journalists on your side and build trust that turns into press for you.

2. Write interesting press releases.

If your small business can’t afford a PR consultant, you can write press releases on your own. View samples of press releases for others in your industry. Make sure the content is interesting and worthwhile to the network of reporters you have built.

3. Have patience.

Getting significant press takes time. After connecting with reporters, you may start to get asked for quotes for their articles. This doesn’t happen right away, so don’t let it frustrate you.

4. Hold focus groups.

Use your best customers to gain insight for your company. Hold focus groups, give surveys, and use the research to discover ways to get your company in the news.

5. Celebrate company milestones.

By announcing new products, services, or company anniversaries, you can get folks interested in your business.

By: Susannah Morgan

According to Bursin-Marsteller, the number of companies being talked about on Twitter has increased by 90% over the last year. Social media is not just for reconnecting with high school classmates anymore, instead, it has developed into a great tool for facilitating business and building brand awareness for your company. If your small business hasn’t incorporated some type of social media into your business plan, you are missing out on a great opportunity. Read below for some tips to consider when engaging in various online communities:

1. Be personable.

When posting on Twitter or Facebook, make sure to act like a real person interacting with your followers. Put some personality into your posts. The movers and shakers of social media don’t act like robots, and neither should you.

2. Think strategically.

If your small business marketing budget is tight, and you don’t have the means to hire a full-time social media expert, make sure to invest in only the big guys. This may mean only creating Facebook and Twitter accounts, instead of every social media site available to you. While being active on as many networks as possible is good, you still need to make updates daily in order to create a following.

3. Give discounts.

Studies by ExactTarget found that nearly 40% of Facebook users who become fans do so to receive discounts and promotions.

4. Do some competitive research.

Look at what your competition is doing to stay successful. Following the leaders in social media is a great way to get ideas for your own company.

5. Pose questions and answer followers/fans.

Take the time to prove that you are an expert in your trade by answering questions. Social media is also an excellent way to gain insight by asking questions to your consumer base before making a change in your product line/service.

By: Susannah Morgan

According to BIA Kelsey, 97% of consumers check online for local services before they make a purchase decision. Your online presence should include your Kudzu profile page, a website, a blog, and a Twitter and Facebook page, if possible. The more abundant your company is online, the more powerful your credibility becomes. Make sure your small business website includes the following:

1. An easily accessible contact page.

Have a section on your company website which features your business address, phone number, fax number, and email address. You may also include a sign-up button on this page that subscribes customers to your newsletters or enters them in giveaways.

2. An online photo gallery of your work.

According to OnlineGraduatePrograms, 1 in 4 people abandon a website that takes more than 4 seconds to load. Make sure your main homepage stays away from large photos that could cause slow load times. Instead, have a separate page which links to your Kudzu photo gallery or includes a slideshow of before and after photos. Seeing is believing; and customers want to see the work you do before they hire you.

3. An “about” page.

Solely dedicate a section of your website to the history and founding of your company. Include photos of current employees, and share the reason for starting your business. Giving the background of your company is a great way to showcase how passionate you are about your line of work.

4. Shareable content.

Run special offers for current or new customers, and make the content shareable on Facebook or Twitter. Getting the word out about discounts is a great way to convert prospects that are on the edge about trying your services.

By: Susannah Morgan

As a small business owner, do you feel like your success is stagnant? Are you running out of ways to reach new customers and build a larger customer source? Bring in more cash to your company bank account by establishing yourself as an industry expert. While this process takes loads of patience and a lot of action, it will pay off tenfold. Abide by the tips below to become a trusted expert in your industry:

1. Find solutions.

Survey your existing customers to figure out what problems they deal with the most. The better you know and understand your customers, the easier it will be to serve their needs.

2. Be informed on the latest technology and industry news.

Be aware of and implement the latest technology for your services. Customers expect the best, and this will give you an edge over your competition.

3. Be heard.

Schedule frequent podcasts and gain subscribers by providing unique information relating to your industry. According to a survey completed in 2010 by Edison Research, 90% of respondents specified they had taken some kind of action as a result of podcast advertising or sponsorship, and over 40% stated purchasing behaviors. Speak at conferences, community centers, and other events to garner recognition.

4. Be in good company.

Interview top leaders in your field and become known as a colleague. By networking with these leaders, you can gain influential information that is pertinent to your success.

By: Susannah Morgan

As a small business owner, it’s vital to take a step back every now and then to review the business plan of your company. Benchmarking is a great way to compare the success of your company to those in your trade. Look at those companies that are of a comparable size and have related objectives as yours. Gather research from industry groups who collect poll data from their members. In the current economic times, benchmarking is especially important. Below are 4 things to consider during this arduous but essential process:

1. Niche.

What are your company’s specialties? If you don’t already have a niche in mind, now is the time to focus on what your company does better than your competition and market it to your prospects.

2. Pricing.

Have you evaluated your pricing options recently? It’s still early enough in the year to think about restructuring your pricing.

3. Customer Service.

A company’s customer service can make or break a small business. It’s the one thing that can make prospects choose you over a big brand. Is it a strength or weakness? Find ways to serve your customers better even if you already pride yourself on your excellent service.

4. Social Media.

Gone are the days of “Twitter-what?” and “Facebook-who?” According to Nielsen data, more than 80% of all Americans use a social network. Your small business needs to have a web presence on both of these avenues to get ahead and stay there.

By: Susannah Morgan

It’s no secret– customers turn first to companies they trust. Your company’s credibility is a key factor to success. No one wants to unknowingly hire a fly-by-night operation. While uniformed technicians and branded company vehicles send a message to your current customers, it may be difficult to translate your credibility to online prospects.

Hubspot‘s research indicates that this year, the audience of internet users in the U.S. will expand by 3.1 percent to 239 million, representing 75.6 percent of the total population. If your company’s web presence is sparse, now is the time to concentrate on building it out. Below are three ways to increase your online credibility:

1. Online reviews.

If you have already achieved multiple reviews on your Kudzu profile, the next step is to spread those reviews across a wide variety of mediums. Call them out on your Facebook or Twitter profiles. Create a reviews widget on your business website. Link to your reviews in your email signature.

2. Professional homepage.

Check your Kudzu profile and business website for grammatical errors. Make sure your site has a user-friendly, clean, professional design. Include all forms of business contact information for customers to easily access.

3. Credentials.

List all awards, licenses, and credentials of your business on your Kudzu profile and business website. Customers’ confidence in your service builds with each qualification.

It’s best to start your online reputation management initiative prior to having any online reputation problems.  If you take a proactive approach, you can shape your online presence in a way that reflects your business’s essence and personality.

All it takes is one negative comment on a blog, website, or review site with a decent amount of traffic and boom! Your reputation is in the ditch.

There are somethings that help prepare you to see a disaster before it happens, and stop it before it goes too far. The best solution is to be proactive and begin establishing your online reputation before a crisis.

Below are 7 tips to help you understand what direction your online reputation is going in, and it will help you see if you need to make any necessary changes in your business before it’s too late.

Get your online reputation started right!

1. Know your customers

Be sure to poll your customers, do surveys, talk with them and learn what they love about your business, and what they don’t like. By knowing what they love, you can talk about those features, and knowing what they don’t like gives you an opportunity to fix it, or address it.

If you can’t correct your company’s flaws, you can at least be better prepared in the event that it becomes a reputation attack.

2. Know the employee experience

Employees are the key to internal marketing, whether or not they engage with prospects and customers, they do talk to people when they are out and about. When someone asks them where they work, what they do, how do they like it – they are a voice representing your business. Are they saying positive things about your business? Are they saying negative things?

Make a point to listen to your employees and learn what they think about your company’s products and services, what they think about the company culture, what they feel the pros and cons are. Much like the point above, about knowing what your customer’s experience is, and knowing what your employee’s experience is, can help you prevent a reputation disaster.

3.  Watch what you say! Choose your online voice carefully

What you say on Twitter, on Facebook, anything you write online, has the potential to live online forever. Do you comment on blogs? It can be a great thing to do, especially if you have a company blog, but be careful to leave a real comment, do not make it a sales pitch or PR pitch.

It’s great to have your business engage in the blogging community, but be conscientious to stay in alignment with your brand voice. And for goodness sake, have a social media policy for your business! Your employee’s voice, may represent your business, this can be a good thing or a bad thing, so do implement a social media policy.

4. Build your online reputation now

Build your online reputation now before someone else builds it for you. When a prospective client wants more information about your business, they tend to look it up online and read through the content on your website, your blog posts, your reviews etc…  If you do not actively create your reputation, then you’re leaving it up to others to do so.

It may be in their reviews or comments, but it’s best for you to build it before you’re stuck fighting to defend your reputation after some negative reviews and comments.  It can take months to create new content that will rank on the first pages of Google and if you wait until you have to negative reviews and statements about your business on the first pages, by then you’re deep in a crisis and scrambling to build positive content.

So, do it now while you’re not in the heat of a reputation mess, and it will help you to keep out any future negative statements. Be proactive and put this in place before you need it!

5. Monitor

Monitor what’s being said about you online. I know there are only so many hours in a day and so much to do. However, it really is important to keep your eyes and ears open to hearing what is being said about your company. It will allow you to not be blindsided by a crisis and reputation issue.

6. Be sincere

Seek to be the best business you can be and seek honest feedback from your employees and customers. Allow their perspective to shed light on how your business is perceived, and learn about the customer’s experience and the employee’s experience. It’s okay to have a business with heart! Matter of fact, it can set you apart from your competition, and deepen customer and employee loyalty.

7. Be transparent & consistent

Don’t be shady!  Now, no you don’t need to “tell all.” Your customers and prospects don’t want your deep inner details, so don’t go TMI on them (too much information). But you can let them see your contract, your agreements, and your guarantee in writing. Give them contact phone numbers so they can reach a live person. The old ways don’t work in today’s world, people need to feel they can trust you and your business, and they won’t have a bad experience.

The old rule applies in life as well as in business: do what you say you’ll do, and be consistent in your quality and delivery. Of course, things happen sometimes, and mistakes can occur, when that happens be upfront about it and fix it. Be consistent in your online voice, and in your business’s essence. Do you best to deliver a consistent quality experience for your customers and prospects?

Reputation management isn’t something to wait on. If you are proactive with your reputation management and monitoring, you’ll find yourself in a much better place than if you leave it up to chance.

You may not realize that unhappy customers are more likely to write reviews than happy customers. Just like unhappy employees are more likely to publicly express their opinions, than the happy employees. Keep a pulse of what people are saying, and what they experience in working with your business.

Do your best to be seen in a flattering and authentic light!

By: Susannah Morgan

Merchandise branded with your company logo is a fantastic, economical way to advertise your small business. What’s a better way to advertise than for a prospect to literally walk away from you holding a tangible reminder of your business? In fact, promotional merchandise is an $18 billion dollar industry. See below for some benefits of implementing promotional items to your advertising campaign:

1. Longevity.

Research shows that over half of people keep branded merchandise for over a year. When choosing products, stick to items that consumers will not quickly dispose of. Stay away from branded gourmet food packets and plastic bottles of water that will be in the garbage by the end of the day. Mugs and t-shirts are better options.

2. Usefulness.

Everyone loves free stuff! 83 percent of people surveyed by the Promotional Products Association International enjoying receiving promotional pieces. Pens, notepads, markers, and highlighters are easy to keep handy. Consider stocking up on writing tools because they will be shared and used most often by people.

3. Brand recognition and recall.

According to research done by the Advertising Specialty Institute, more than 8 out of 10 (84%) survey respondents were able to correctly remember companies of the branded products they own. The next time they need a service you provide, your company will have top-of-mind awareness.