The Importance of Marketing for Small Business

The other day, I wrote about why freelance writers need to market continually.  Marketing on a regular basis keeps helps us to maintain our work queue, find new clients, and replace lost regulars.

But it's not just freelance writers that benefit from regular marketing.  Small businesses of all sizes also benefit from regular marketing.

Think about it for a moment.  If even huge, well known companies market themselves, how are the little guys going to ever survive with the big fish if they don't market, too?

Marketing looks a little different for small businesses and sole proprietors, of course.  Big companies can afford expensive prime time TV commercials, for instance.  It's their tremendous brand name recognition that allows them to spend so much on marketing, ironically.  Those kinds of ads will be out of reach for the majority of small businesses.

For many small businesses, marketing means having a stellar website, blogging regularly to keep it higher in search engine rankings, posting to social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, building a mailing list and sending out emails and newsletters, and creating visual content for social media sites like Instagram and YouTube.  These are all free or low-cost marketing that have the added advantage of speaking directly to your target market.

Marketing for small business owners isn't necessarily expensive.  Aside from the cost of paying a writer or editor, most of the expense is in the form of the time it takes to run all those marketing campaigns, which is of course why many small businesses either have a dedicated marketing person or outsource their marketing.

However you do it, marketing is important.  No one is going to know your business exists unless you get it out there, and the client's or customer's decision to buy is often dependent on name recognition at minimum, if not a track record of following you on social media or getting your emails.

Marketing isn't all that complicated, either, once you zoom out a little.  At minimum, you need to figure out where your target market hangs out, find a way to reach them there, and get your business in front of them as much as possible.  As long as you can do at least that, you can give your business a fighting chance.

ALWAYS carry business cards

You've probably heard this before. Well, let me tell you: always means ALWAYS, as I discovered today.

I had a couple of doctor's appointments this morning for a medical research study I was participating in. I usually bring my laptop to these types of things, in case of any downtime. I have a lovely new bag with compartments for both my laptop and the stuff from my purse, which is what I've been using whenever I bring my laptop with me.

Unfortunately, when I switched my stuff over from my purse this morning, I neglected to bring my business cards. I actually thought about it, but decided that since I was only going to the doctor's office and then back home, it was highly unlikely I'd need them.

Highly unlikely doesn't mean definitely not, as it turns out.

It might have been the least likely of places, but the woman who was doing my PFT asked what I did for a living, and when I told her, it turned out they might need someone to do the writing for their new website. When she asked for my email address, I had to write it down for her instead of giving her a card. While I know (having been in there a few times already) that she is pretty laid back and didn't care — in fact, we ended up commiserating over how we never seem to have business cards on hand at opportune moments — I was somewhat embarrassed by my lack of professionalism.

My business cards are actually quite attractive, and it is always quite satisfying to hand one to a prospective client, or even a colleague. Too bad I didn't have any on hand today... but I've learned my lesson! In fact, I just dug up my extra business card holder and slipped it into the new bag, so that from now on I won't have to worry about it when I switch purses.

BookGlutton.com: Interactive online ebook reader

I spotted an interesting story on NPR today: an introduction to BookGlutton.com, an interactive online ebook reader that allows readers to leave comments/annotations and chat with other readers. You can set your profile to show others what you read last, follow other readers, and manage responses to your comments on your profile.

Basically, it's Facebook but with books. Social reading instead of social networking. You get the idea.

Of course, because of copyright concerns, they can only offer books that are either part of the public domain, or have been approved for use on the site by the author and/or publisher. However, this also makes for a really awesome promotional tool for authors. For instance, the current featured article is offering the first four chapters of her newest book via BookGlutton. The obvious goal is to get people reading and discussing the chapters, get the word out about the book, and get people hooked so that they buy it.

The only downfall that I see is that it doesn't work with all browsers. In other words, it doesn't work with my browser. I'm apparently a dinosaur because I still prefer IE 6. I did try to upgrade once, but IE 7 crashed my computer so many times just in the first day that I restored my system's previous settings and never looked back. Heck if I'll make the same mistake with IE 8. And I'm not really a fan of cluttering up my hard drive with downloads, so I'm reluctant to download Firefox just for this one application. (I'm not a fan of that browser either, I'm afraid, so I wouldn't use it for anything else.)

However, I thought many of you — as writers and, it follows, also as readers — would appreciate a social bookreading site. If you try it out, either for reading or for marketing your books, please let me know what you think — since I can't try it out for myself!

It's 'Update Your Profile' Day!

Yes, I just made that up.

I was working on a blog today and realized that my Blogger profile was ridiculously out of date: It claimed I had almost three years of professional writing experience, instead of the real number, which is over four years. Whoops!

But that gave me a good blog topic for today: the importance of keeping profiles, bios, resumes, and other marketing materials updated. Obviously you'll want to be sure you are getting the proper credit for your experience and clips, but it can also be rather embarrassing to realize that you haven't updated your profile in over a year — and that clients and colleagues have been seeing outdated information for quite some time!

When is the last time you updated your profile? (Or bio, or resume, or...)

Why does blogging get a bad rap?

This week's issue of WritersWeekly had some good stuff! Here's another article that caught my attention: Susan Johnston's success story about ghostblogging. Since at least two-thirds of my work these days is blogging for clients, I was pleased to see this service spoken of positively by another freelance writer.

I personally find that blogging gets a bad rap, particularly among non-writers. When someone asks what I do, if I list "blog writing" as one of my services, I usually either get a blank look, or a very dismissive response. They don't understand that many clients pay — and pay well — for someone to write blog posts on specific subjects or maintain their company blogs.

Perhaps that response has something to do with why writers often don't advertise blogging services, as Johnston mentioned in her article. A lot of people just don't understand what the big deal is.

I think I might try listing blogging services in my next ad, too... Thanks for the idea, Susan!

PonyTalesBlog.com and April promotion

I've just issued a press release announcing the launch of PonyTalesBlog.com, and a corresponding promotion for April: I've decided to donate 25 percent of all new client income in April to a Colorado horse rescue of my choice. I also published the story on a community site, and I'm looking into submitting it to a couple of local publications.

I got the idea from Kathy Kehrli, who successfully ran a similar promotion a little over a year ago. I hope it is as successful for me as it was for her!

Business cards for writers

I'm not sure how, but at some point I got signed up for some jobseeker's newsletter. I haven't opted out because periodically they do have good articles. Recently they ran an articles about getting free business cards from VistaPrint.com to aid in a job search.

The article made me think of two things: business cards for writers, and my own experiences with VistaPrint.com.

First of all, I think highly recommend getting yourself some business cards, even if you only write part-time or do all your business online. Business cards are great because clients are more likely to hang on to an attractive rectangle of cardstock than they are your invoices or old emails. Here are some of the ways I use my business cards:

* Handing them out to interview subjects
* Attaching them to invoices, contracts, and other paperwork sent through the mail
* Passing them out at events (I'll tell that story another time)
* Giving them out to anyone who might eventually become a client, or know someone who could become a client

As much as I think business cards are a necessity, I don't particularly recommend VistaPrint.com. Here's why:

* They charge you to upload your own design, even on their "free" cards.
* Their cards are slightly smaller and thinner than most business cards. The differences are slight, but they're striking when you're comparing them side by side with other cards.
* They charge for a nice finish on their cards. If you don't get the nice finish, your cards look like regular cardstock. If I wanted that look I'd make them myself!
* The "free" cards are only available once. After that, you have to pay, and they cost almost as much as higher quality cards do from other places.

For my current business cards, I used OvernightPrints.com. Here's why I like them better:

* They don't charge you to upload your own design.
* Their cards are full size and made of heavier stock.
* They offer a free U/V coating, which creates a professional shiny finish. Even without the coating, though, the finish is professional — satin matte, instead of shiny.
* They offer small quantities, something that not all print shops do.
* Their prices are pretty reasonable: for one-sided cards, $9.95 for 100, $24.95 for 250, $34.95 for 500, and $39.95 for 1,000.

I'm quite proud of my cards (which were, by the way, designed by one of my clients). Here is a picture:



You'll notice the intesting job title on the bottom card. Those of you who have read my blog for a long time will remember when I decided to list my title as Literary Goddess. I ordered a small print run of these ones, which I give to friends and clients with a sense of humor, and a larger print run of the regular cards for the more serious clients.

The power of (Internet) words

NPR reported Thursday on the Hollywood writers' strike, which hasn't changed very much since the last time I blogged about it. The report is an audio clip from NPR's Morning Edition, so be sure to click the "Listen Now" link.

What was interesting about the NPR report is the discussion of how the writers have used the Internet to get the word out about the strike and what they're asking for. The point was that the writers have done better with the PR work than the producers have, and as a result, only 4 percent of the public supports the producers.

Personally, I'm not at all surprised that the writers have succeeded in rallying the public via the Internet. While these are screenwriters and not PR writers, most writers (of any kind) understand the power of the written word, so it makes sense to me that the striking writers would know how to use words to generate support for their cause.

This situation reminds me a little bit of Laray Carr. (For those who don't know the situation, basically Laray Carr/LCP was hiring writers to write articles for 30-some magazines, which it seems they never had any intention of launching. To my knowledge, no one ever was paid, and at this very moment Quincy Carr is probably running a new scam under a different name.)

Although Laray Carr was obviously on a much smaller scale than the Hollywood writers' strike, it's another example of how writers use the power of words: We discussed LCP on forums and blogs, despite bogus legal threats, and eventually informed enough people that Quincy Carr had to shut LCP down (though he just set up shop under new names).

The message is the same in both instances: Don't mess with the writers.

Billboard marketing

On the highway during our trip last week, I spotted a billboard with this logo:



My first thought was that the sign said, "Fiddler's Fridge." It took a second look before I realized what it really said: "Fiddler's Ridge." Then I glanced at Michael, who was driving, and realized he was staring at it too.

I think this sign is easy to misread. The oversized "F" in "Fiddler's" and the strangely sinuous "R" in "Ridge" create the illusion that the sign, in fact, says "Fiddler's Fridge." All I can say is, I can't believe that this company missed this rather important problem: You can't sell your product if people can't read the billboards correctly, no matter how clever the logo is. Personally, I would think that making the letters in a name look like a fiddle is nowhere near as important as the name itself.

And anyway, if your target audience risks having an accident on the highway while trying to figure out what your sign says, I'd say your marketing campaign is rather counter productive. Hospitalization generally doesn't make for good conversation rates.

Upcoming website updates: Services and portfolio pages

In my previous post, I discussed the importance of marketing for freelance writers, and listed some easy (and fun!) ways to market. One of the things I mentioned was maintaining a website and online portfolio, which reminded me of my own plans for website changes.

The other day when I was supposed to be working (I get distracted so easily sometimes!), I decided it's time to update my website again. First of all, I haven't updated my portfolio for several months, or whever it was that I implemented my last updates. Also, I decided that I'm going to separate my services and portfolio pages a little better -- instead of "selling" my services on my portfolio, I'm going to make my portfolio into a simple list, and sell the advantages of my services on separate pages.

I am hoping to get to work on these changes in a week or two, whenever my work load lets up a little.

The importance of marketing

I get Suzanne Lieurance's weekday newsletter, The Morning Nudge. Recently I started subscribing to her MySpace blog as well. Just yesterday, she posted about the importance of marketing as a freelance writer.

It amazes me how many writers say to me, "I don't have time to market," or even, "I don't have time to look for higher-paying work." I understand being busy, but still -- why would you condemn yourself to working long hours for low pay, just to make ends meet?

It's true that marketing takes time. However, it's time that pays off in the long run, because you will find more work, better work, and higher-paying work.

Marketing isn't necessarily cold calling, like many writers think it is. Perhaps the distaste or even fear that most people have of marketing is what makes them "too busy." I have to admit, I wouldn't be comfortable cold calling people either. Luckily, there are much easier ways to market.

Here are a few ways that you can market yourself without cold calling:

1) Searching for freelance job ads - A well-written resume and cover letter/email are an important part of searching for jobs. Most people don't think of this as marketing, but I think it is. After all, it means getting the word out about your services. Oftentimes, even if you don't get a job the client will keep your resume on file or pass it on to someone else who is looking for a writer. It also gives you an "in" to contact potential clients directly looking for work, without it feeling like cold calling.

2) Advertising - You don't have to break the bank to do this one. Craigslist ads are free in most cities, and you can repost your ads every 48 hours.

3) Networking - Hey, chatting with other writers can be considered a method of marketing! Several times in the past, I've gotten work through the recommendation of other writers with whom I'm friendly. I try to share the goodwill myself, too -- after all, what goes around comes around. This business should be about helping each other, not competing with each other.

4) Blogging - Yep, this is marketing too! It drives traffic to your website, helps you create a brand name with potential clients, and introduces you to other writers.

5) Article marketing - There are a lot of article distribution sites out there. The one I've written for in the past is EzineArticles.com. Although you are basically providing free copy for other people, they have to reproduce your article in full, which means with links leading back to your site. Outside links to your site can help boost your website's pagerank, not to mention drive more traffic to your site.

6) Cold emailing - Trust me, this is SO much easier than cold calling. Say you see a website that you know you could improve, or a distributed press release that leaves something to be desired -- you just email the contact and attempt to sell them in writing on why they need you. Spend some time putting together a few sales pitches first -- say, what SEO is and why it's important, or why a press release has to be interesting in order to be effective. When you email someone, you can insert the applicable sales pitch, changing it as necessary so that the email reads like a personal note instead of spam.

7) Maintaining a website and online portfolio - Although it's tempting just to post a website and forget about it, try to make updates every few months: Post new clips to your portfolio, fine-tune the copy, and expand the site as needed. Your website is the basis for your online presence, so it needs to be able to impress potential clients.

Although these approaches do take a certain amount of time, as you get more work you won't have to spend as long on marketing. In other words, the effort pays off: after more than a year of spending an hour searching for work every day, I have not had to look for work in several months, as most of my business now comes from repeat clients, referrals, and even from clients who just happened to stumble across my website.

Kate McCulley and the Mystery of the Missing Comma

Yes, I purposely wrote the title of this post like an old Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys novel.

Anyway, this afternoon I ran across a story on NPR about Kate McCulley, the Grammar Vandal. Just the sort of thing a writer would love! I highly recommend listening to the broadcast -- it's hilarious and oh, so true.

The headline caught my attention because of how frequently grammar and spelling issues have been popping up in my life lately. For example, Kathy Kehrli of Screw You! recently wrote a post about comma usage: A Compelling Case for the Comma. Kathy talked about how the comma is starting to fall out of popular usage, and linked to a related article. Several other writers (including Yours Truly) commented to proclaim themselves loyal followers of the comma.

In addition, some of you probably remember my reference to the multiple grammatical errors in the invitation to my high school reunion. For example, the invitation began with the sentence, "It's been 10 year's." After that, there is an incomplete sentence, a word that shouldn't be there at all, an inappropriately capitalized word, a word missing the "ed" ending, a misspelled proper name, and several uses of the wrong form of "their." And that's just the announcement page! There were issues on the RSVP form, too, but I can't remember all of them.

With all this recent history, when I saw the NPR headline "Grammar Vandal Goes on Vigilante Comma Crusade," I just had to click on it. It turns out this Grammar Vandal is a 22-year-old English major living in Boston. Unlike those of us who simply gripe about spelling and grammar errors we encounter in our daily life, Kate McCulley does something about it: She fixes the problems, and to he!l with the consequences!

I think I've found a new hero. McCulley keeps a blog, The Grammar Vandal, of which I am hereafter a regular reader. She has been featured in The Boston Globe as well as on NPR. I guess defacing public signs for the greater good of humanity is an effective marketing technique!

All kinds of updates

My Blogger account has had some problems for the last couple of days, so several of my posts didn't appear until today (finally!). Be sure to read everything and catch up!

I have a number of updates:

The Lieurance-King Article Challenge:

Yeah, that SO didn't happen. I've been too busy catching up on PAID work to write marketing articles. However, I hate not finishing things I set out to do, so I'm setting a challenge for myself: To finish my 30 articles by the end of April.

The Inkthinker Query Challenge:

I didn't send off any queries in February, but I did get a couple of in March. I'm up to a whopping 9 queries for the year. Obviously, I have a lot of catching up to do there, too.

My sleep schedule:

You'd be impressed -- when we were visiting Michael's family, I got up as early as 8:00 one day (that's 7:00 in Denver). It was solely to watch/help as Panama got his hooves trimmed, though. Without that kind of incentive here, I'm back to sleeping until 10:30-ish each day. That's not bad, though, considering that a month ago I was going to bed around 5am and sleeping until 1 or 2pm each day.

My work hours:

I never realized how few billable hours I worked every day until I started keeping track. Now that I am tracking it, though, I've been able to make a definite improvement. I'm still only getting about 6 billable hours a day, though; the rest is spent searching for jobs, corresponding with clients, blogging, networking, and doing a hundred other little time-consuming tasks.

My workload:

Going on vacation always screws me up; I always think I can work in the car, and it almost never happens. In other words, when I got back I had lots to do.

There's good news, though. After several crazy days of working almost non-stop since we got back, I have not just caught up on several assignments -- I have also prepared my estimated tax worksheet and figured out how much I need to make in the way of payments this year.

(That's my least favorite part of freelancing, by the way. I can handle filing my taxes, but I hate estimated tax payments. Probably has something to do with all of the dire warnings of the penalties you'll face if you mess up.)

I still have more work to catch up on, but the point is that the list is much shorter. I think that's partly because of my efforts to track my billable hours -- I'm working harder at this than I used to.

All in all, I think that's a positive list of updates. With the exception of those challenges I tried to take on (and failed miserably), I'm doing pretty well.

Goals, updates, and a whole lotta rambling

I'm feeling distinctly cranky today. Just a lot of little stuff - my wedding dress not coming back right from the seamstress and having to go "under the knife" again, and not getting started on replacing my car window early enough today - piling up on top of my already-stressed shoulders.

On top of it all, I had a major setback in my bedtime/wake-up time progress. I had woken up at 11am the past few mornings, and all of a sudden - boom - an early Daylight Savings Time hits me, and I'm back to waking up at noon. Grrr.

The good news is, I guess, that I've been able to change my schedule. It's slow work, but the point is that it's working.

I'm also plugging away at the article marketing challenge. I have eight articles, most of which are live, but I've gotten behind this weekend.

Which brings me to my newest goal. I think I've mentioned that being a freelance writer isn't writing for 40 hours every week; there's a lot of job searching, administrative work, and other tasks that reduce the number of billable hours quite a bit. However, with a backlog of work remaining (and my motivation fully returned), it is my goal to clock 40 billable hours in the next week. That doesn't include job searching, personal blogging, etc. - just the time I spend working on paying projects.

I'll post daily on how I'm doing.

I'm an expert author!

As I've already mentioned, I recently joined the Lieurance-King article challenge. Although I still haven't written or submitted any articles beyond my first two, I got an encouraging email today: my first article was accepted for publication on EzineArticles.com, and I have already been promoted to Expert Author status!

As for my other goals... Well, I was doing better about going to bed and getting up earlier. I was down to a 2am-3am bedtime, but then this morning I slept in horribly. I never even heard my alarm! Going to bed earlier may be more difficult tonight, but I'm determined not to lose ground so soon.

I signed up for the Lieurance-King Article Challenge!

I decided to participate in the Lieurance-King Article Challenge. I'm starting midway through (meaning I'll have to write very fast), but basically the idea is to write and submit 30 marketing articles by March 31st.

I have been wanting to try article marketing for a while now. I'm still not completely sold on the idea that it's going to provide enough marketing to make it worth writing for free, but I'm game to try it.

Besides, I write these types of articles for clients, so it makes sense that I should try doing it for myself, too. After all, if they're still hiring me, something about it must work, right?

Today I wrote two articles and submitted them to EzineArticles.com. I very quickly found that trying to keep the word count down (i.e. the 250-400 words that Kristen King recommends) is probably more time consuming than just writing the article. Perhaps I need to find topic ideas that will lend themselves better to shorter articles...

Anyways, I'll let you know when they my articles are live!

A new standard of site traffic

My article running in Writers Weekly has introduced a new standard of site traffic. With exception of the first few days after my article ran, during which my site traffic went through the roof, since the article's publication I have maintained a steady rate of about 300 hits on my site each day. In fact, although it's too early to tell for sure just yet, I may be forced to upgrade my traffic allowance yet again!

If I upgrade my traffic allowance to the next level, I will be forced to make an important decision: whether to upgrade my hosting plan as well. An upgraded hosting plan will require re-uploading my entire website, including all of the images and other miscellaneous files; an upgraded hosting plan will also mean having to learn new features or having a bunch of features I will never use. However, if I simply upgrade my traffic and storage allowances, I will be paying the same amount of money as I would for the upgraded hosting plan.

Definitely something to think about...

More marketing plans and a website change

I skimmed through a fantastic little book this afternoon on Internet marketing, called Lucrative List Building. You can read more about Lucrative List Building on Reading For Writers. In any case, it gave me a few more ideas.

One idea in the book led to me finally following through with a website update. I updated my portfolio with a couple of articles that I have published recently. I also - after reading Lucrative List Building - decided to include a "Tell a Friend" button on the site. You can see it on the main page.

I am toying with a couple of other ideas, as well. I might start a newsletter for potential clients, probably containing information on writing Internet copy, and start building an opt-in list in association with that. I'm also thinking of trying out some paid advertising (such as AdWords), although I haven't made up my mind on that yet.

In any case, I am feeling very motivated to start selling my services a little more actively in 2007.

My new marketing plan

It's kind of ironic: although I write marketing materials, such as keyword articles and press releases, for my clients, I have never used that kind of marketing for myself. Tonight, however, I started thinking about it, and before I knew it I had come up with an online marketing plan.

The focal point of my plan is that I have decided to write and submit a few press releases to some of the online publishers. I am also considering writing some white papers or articles, both to submit to outside sites and to offer on my own website. And finally, I decided to start advertising regularly on Craigslist.

All of these are free options - advertising on the Denver/Boulder Craigslist is free, and there are several free article and press release submission services. All they will cost is a little time, which I am hoping to put in this weekend. I would love to have worked on it a little more tonight, but I have a deadline to meet first!