Grow Your Business in Dayton (Gybindayton.com)
Learn about networking, advertising, and other great ideas for growing your business in Dayton
For me Linkedin can be frustating. I want to connect to someone and it won’t let me because I don’t know their email address or I’m not in a group with them. But, Chirs Brogen social networking guru, has some great tips on using Linkin more effectively.
Use Linkedin Effectively, by Chris Brogen
Hope you find it useful and informative.
I subscribe to several other blogs about social media and internet marketing to feed me good ideas and keep me up to date. Both of these blogs are available as email subscriptions which makes it very easy to keep up.
Mashable is all inclusive and covers everything social media from the iPad and cell phones to YouTube and Facebook. When it arrives in my mailbox it starts with a list of links to each article so that you can scan the list and see what may be interesting to you and go straight to whatever interests you most.
TopRank is a bit more focused on SEO and getting noticed on the internet.
Here are three article links that I found informative and useful:
10 Easy Local SEO & Online Marketing Tips from TopRank
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/05/local-search-tips/
7 Essential SEO Tips for Small Business from TopRank
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/05/7-seo-tips-small-business/
From Mashable, this is more in depth for the business owner willing to invest more time
10 Small Business Social Marketing Tips
http://mashable.com/2009/10/28/small-business-marketing/
Although social media is growing exponentially, I have to say that REACH Magazine is still powerful marketing for many categories of business. I have been in incentive marketing for over 20 years now, and have a long track record of matching up the right businesses for the right media and with the right incentive offers. There are many coupon venues in the Dayton market, but none of them have the rank and power of REACH magazine (The Media Audit 2009) and for the right business, REACH can be a powerful lead generator or sale generator. Please feel free to give me a call to discuss your business and marketing in REACH magazine. Along the way you also get the information that I have found helpful in the realm of social marketing free of charge. In addition we now have a new viral internet marketing program for businesses trying to reach consumers in a new and interesting way with no up front investment at all. Peter DeMott 937-478-6222
This is an interesting You-tube video discussing how things are changing.
Wow, our samples just arrived for the May edition of REACH mangazine that is distributing next week (April 26-30, 2010). I have to say that the content is diverse and exciting with everything for outdoor home improvements (landscaping, trees, grass, mulch, decks, painting, siding, garden centers, paver patios and driveways and more) to recreation and food galore.
Make sure you look for it in your mailboxes. You definitely do not want to miss this issue.
Would love to hear your comments about it when it arrives.
You can give your business internet promotion without even having a web site with the Google Local Business Center. They even provide you with a informative video about the things you can do after you create your FREE account by clicking on the Sign-up-Now button:
• Show people on google maps exactly where your business or businesses are located
• Offer an online coupon that your customers can redeem at your business
• List your hours, phone number, web site and other details
• Photographs about your business or service or product
So, you can be on the web without even having a web site, but if you do have a web site creating a business profile on Google Local Business Center will increase your SEO on your site (Search engine optimization). That means that your rank when people are searching for your product or service will appear higher on the list of matches when someone does a search.
Here is a picture of the login area for Google Local Business Center.
This is how your business might appear on Google Local Business center when someone searches for you type of business. This is where I asked for a map of photography businesses in my area.
If you click on the dot on the map, it tells you who it is.
Best of all, it is FREE and it only takes a few minutes to put all the details that you want to share about your business.
There are a lot of people starting to do the social media networking thing who may want to put a little more thought into their profile portrait. When you put yourself out there, what are you saying about yourself?
If you don’t have a profile image at all you will find developing your friend list difficult. If your profile is on the raunchy side, you can damage your reputation with your associates and clients. On the other hand, people expect that profile pictures will have a personal fair to them.
Do you have a profile image?
Does it say good things about you?
Does it have a personal fair to puts you in a good light?
http://www.photosbypdemott.com/category/portrait/business/
Here are some recent portraits from a session for Wendy McGlaun. She will be using the portraits for her personal enjoyment, but they are also making their way to LinkedIn, Facebook, and her Rainmaker profile soon. Because they were taken in her home, they have a personal flair. The portrait with her husband Jeff went straight to her facebook profile for a nice personal, but also professional look.
There was a Dayton Chamber Business After Hours networking event at the New Miami Valley Hospital South (3/23/2010). I had seen the building going up from afar last year, but I had never been in the building yet. Wow, what a great facility. The chamber did a very nice job with the event and there were lots of vendors at the display tables. The food and desserts were also wonderful and the coffee upstairs was warm and smooth.
Lots of people were having conversations and as one might have expected there were several tables with various medical related supplies. I left before I won some hockey tickets which the Chamber was willing to mail to me when they called the next day. The Chamber has various vendors bring door prizes, but I would like there to be something that could help mix things up a bit more.
I love selling REACH magazine to businesses in the Dayton market because in the majority of cases I am able to help them get their name out and grow their businesses.
What baffles me though is how few business owners have any knowledge of how popular REACH magazine is in the Dayton market. When I go to networking events (this was at a Dayton Chamber event on 3/23/2010) I bring my camera and try to have a little fun. Randomly, I ask, “What do you think of REACH magazine?” Here is a typical example of the responses that I receive from Dayton area consumers:
ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS about REACH Magazine
It would not take much effort as a business owner to discover how popular REACH magazine is. You just have to be willing to ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS. If your current customers “LOVE REACH Magazine” wouldn’t it be likely that people who are not your customers yet might respond well to your being represented in the magazine?
Proof of REACH’s popularity and usage by consumers
When I talk with local businesses about REACH magazine, I don’t just rely of evidence such as this video clip. REACH magazine is a part of THE MEDIA AUDIT which rates TV, Radio, Newspaper, and Direct Mail magazines in the Dayton and Cincinnati markets. They actually do this all over the country in many medium to large markets. The information from their surveys is used by radio and TV to determine advertising rates based on shows and day parts. For REACH, we just use the information to powerfully show that REACH magazine is the most popular and well used coupon direct mail magazine in this market hands down.
Again, ask your customers
But, I think that many business owners are inundated with sales people showing them “data” to get them to buy something. Sometimes I just think they need to see something like this just to realize they need to look into something a little more closely.
Never purchase advertising by price alone – consider ROI (Return on Investment)
There will always be something cheeper to buy. Buying things because they are cheeper is not the best plan. Return on Investment is the critical issue when purchasing advertising. If you spend $50 and get nothing back from it, that was 100% loss. If on they other hand you spend $500 and get a 10 time return in measurable sales (depending on your type of business of course) then that more expensive advertising created a RETURN ON INVESTMENT or ROI, that advertising cost less than the $50 ad that had no ROI. This is critical to understand as a business owner, but too many times I hear the question, “how much does it cost” before the business owner has a clear understanding of what the advertising can do. Many make advertising decisions based on price alone rather than based on value and return on investment.
What happens when mom visits and tries to take someone’s REACH magazine?
Tell me what YOU think of REACH magazine. Your comments are welcome below.
Lately, as I have been presenting REACH Magazine and The Big Deal to clients and prospects, we have been talking about things like promoting their business on Facebook. Facebook is a great place to promote your business and create a personal/business presence on the web. It is very easy to get hooked into spending more time than you would like on Facebook, so as a business person you might want to set a miminum and maximum time you want to spend there each day. Ask around and you will find almost everyone you know is on facebook. It is very popular and has participation much greater than Twitter and LinkedIn. Just google “facebook growth” and see how fast it continues to grow.
There is no question that every business person should have a facebook personal page and a facebook business page. As you add people to your personal list, you can keep them on lists such as PERSONAL FRIENDS, RELATIVES, OLD SCHOOL BUDDIES, BUSINESS PEOPLE, ETC. But, NO, people do not want to know about “everything” you do. Share things that make you a real person or express something about you so that other can get to know you better, not things like, “I just brushed my teeth.” At the same time realize this. People buy from PEOPLE and letting people get to know you and what you are doing from time to time can help break the ice for you to make some important connections from places and people you would never have thought of.
You then can create a business page as well. These PAGES are sometimes called a FAN PAGE because people who join that page click on a button that says, “become a fan”. This is where you can put your business description, location, hours, and etc. And this is where you can openly promote your business. People who become fans of your business like your business and may be recommending your business to their friends. When they become a fan of your business this is noted on their personal “Wall” and your fan page is listed on their info page as a business they are a fan of.
When you join up with Facebook, there is small print about what you can and cannot do. Do NOT set up a personal page for your business. You can create a “group” or a “fan page” for your business, but you have to have personal page first. However if you put your business logo on your personal page and start having sales and promotions there you could get REMOVED from Facebook. This is considered spamming and although you will see this from time to time, sooner or later people doing this from their personal facebook pages will be banned.
Here is an article about how to promote your business on facebook that I found interesting:
http://robmaguire.com/blog/2008/12/13-ways-promote-your-facebook-page/
If you would like to become my “friend” on facebook I welcome business and personal connections there :
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=1407421933
In addition if you would like to see how I use my Business Fan Page to promote my part time photography business, feel free to become a fan here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Germantown-OH/Peter-DeMott-Photography/152303558213?ref=ts
We can continue to learn together.
A couple blog posts ago I shared about an e-book, “10-Minute Business Success“. I have been reading it and came across one of the discussions which was very thought provoking.
Paul Lemberg said this,
People ask the question, ” How do I generate breakthroughs?” I’m asked this question all the time, “How do I generate breakthroughs?” And the answer is always, “Look at the things you don’t know.” And that’s hard for people to do, right?” You don’t know what you don’t know.
But that’s where the breakthroughs are. Everything that you know is already incorporated into your business, which may not be bad…
It made me think of a couple things. Some people don’t know much about networking or, for example, the Rainmakers model of networking. They might say, “Networking, I don’t get it, I’m not interested and I don’t have the time.” And that might prevent them from trying to learn about it.
Another area might be something like twitter or facebook or other “social networking” relms. I was pretty much not going to do any of “that stuff” until another photographer talked about how it worked for him. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And it is likely that getting to the next level takes “Looking at and trying things you don’t know.”
Last of all, I just met with a small business owner who has been building his business for many years. He is considering REACH magazine advertising, but it is not something he knows. The things that have built his business to this point are the things he knows and there is a reluctance to try something different. Even when I was able to show him REACH ads from other markets that were helping his same category of businesses to grow, he is reluctant to give it a try because it is something that he doesn’t know. I now have businesses which I work with grow from being Dayton only businesses to becoming multi-city enterprises and tell me that REACH is the backbone of what they have been able to do. They were willing to give it a fair try and look at the results.
Each of us have things that we need to try even when are uncomfortable or we feel like we don’t “get it.” But, sometimes when we go ahead and try something that we don’t know, it becomes the very thing that takes us or our business to the next level.
YOU don’t know what you don’t know!
If you have not visited a Rainmakers networking event, give it a try. If you are not doing facebook and twitter, give it a try. If you are a business that serves consumers and you have never tried REACH magazine, give it a try. You don’t know what you don’t know and that is what makes it hard, but I have seen each of these things take businesses to the next level.