There are many reasons why small businesses fail to achieve their marketing goals, but none of them are good reasons.  With a little planning and focus, small business owners can quickly turn their marketing campaigns into assets instead of a drain on revenue.  Below are 7 ways to avoid mediocre marketing results:

• Create a formal marketing plan
• Don’t impulse shop for marketing
• Develop a system for marketing your business
• Measure results (should be included in your system)
• Make adjustments to fix what’s not working
• Stick with it your plan long enough to allow it to work
• Seek opportunities to collaborate with others

These seven simple steps will create a marketing power house instead of simply having you going through the motions of marketing.  If you have questions or need help with your marketing please contact me and let me refer you to someone I trust to do a good job for you.

Measuring results is important with any marketing effort, and until recently, it was not easy to do with social media.  However, Google has now created some enhancements to its free Google Analytics service, which tracks the source of traffic to your website.  The service can even track what people are saying about your company in social networks like Digg, Reddit, Disqus.  With these developments it’s only a matter of time before other social networks will create an interface to take advantage of these features.

Over the next several months, Google will be rolling out these changes giving users of its service the ability to track how much of their web traffic comes from social networks.  You will also see additional integration with Google+, Google’s answer to Facebook.  Google may be hard to beat with innovations like this.

If you are active in social media marketing, Google Analytics will make it easier for you to quantify your activities.  Be sure to take advantage of the service while it’s offered free!

Having a credible Web presence continues to become more important as more and more consumers use the Internet to find the things that interest them.  For business owners who are trying to figure out a budget for creating a dominating Web presence there is good news in the form of free directory listings.

There are several places you can go online to set up or “claim” a free online directory listing for your business.  The easiest way to get started is go to www.getlisted.org and type in your company name and zip code. You will then see if any listings exist for your business.  If they do, and you haven’t claimed them, you can click a link and go through the process of taking control of and completing your listings.

The advantages of completing these free listings is that they often show up in search engine results when people search keywords that are relevant to your industry.  Many of them have analytics tools built in which allow you to see how much traffic is finding your listing and what keywords are triggering your listing to display in the search engines.  This information can be used to better optimize your listings and your website for better search engine traffic results.

If you are convinced that you are too busy to do this for yourself, consider outsourcing it to a virtual assistant.  Most virtual assistants will charge about $40-50 per listing to get you set up properly, and since that’s a one time investment it provides a great value for you and your business.

Start building a Web presence that will bring you traffic for years to come.  It’s never been more simple or more affordable!

Twitter just acquired Summify, a company that allows members to filter their news feeds from a variety of social media channels and organize the data in a way that allows them to be more selective about what they choose to see.

That creates two potential opportunities for business owners.  First, with the ability to filter news the Summify technology will serve as a social TiVo.  For businesses that simply bombard followers with ads, they’ll quickly get tuned out, but for those of us who offer quality content, we will actually strengthen our ability to influence our followers.

On the other side of the coin, your ability to filter news feed results will allow you to more easily follow conversations that give you a clue as to what interests your customers, so that you can be responsive.  You will be able to more easily know when they are talking about you or products you sell.  The Summify technology could be a very useful customer service tool.  If you can improve your ability to anticipate your customer’s interests and be responsive to those interests you will put yourself light years ahead of competitors who will not take time to do so.

Stay tuned in on social media developments.  You never know when the next advance will provide you a new marketing advantage.

The Internet is creating many opportunities for small locally owned businesses to reach consumers with less effort and a dramatically lower cost.  But, it does require us to stop and understand where those opportunities are, because there are many choices.  Group buying, online coupons, mobile marketing, text messaging, social community ads and article marketing are just some of the choices available today.  Every day brings new ones as technology continues to make it easier.

I have been studying social media marketing for almost 2 years now with help from my marketing coach who has created a complete integrated social media marketing system specifically for small businesses.  His system is called the Village Connector Community Marketing System and features a marketing toolkit that includes online coupons, group buying, article marketing, a consumer loyalty program, and mobile (cell phone) marketing all in one system.  The thing I like about his program is that all the pieces have been designed to work together, instead of cobbling together a la carte solutions from more than one vendor.

I feel so strongly about the role social media should play in your marketing that I have arranged for all of my clients to have unlimited access to the Village Connector Community Marketing System at no charge to you.  As long as you are a customer of Cash Flow Plus, there will never be anything for you to pay to have full access to the system.  I highly recommend that you take full advantage of this program, especially since there is no cost to you to add it to your marketing plan.

If you would like to take advantage of the Village Connector Community Marketing System, please give me a call and I will make sure my coach gets you set up immediately.  I hope this helps you to get your year off to a great start.  I know that working together we can achieve that for you!

Looking forward to a great 2012!

Local merchants who are looking for a powerful way to attract more customers must consider using video content on the Web.  No one can deny the fact that video content is more compelling that written articles and blog content alone, and advances in technology have made it easy and affordable for virtually anyone who considers themselves to be serious business owners.  For less than a couple hundred dollars you can produce high quality video for posting to your website or a Youtube account.

You would be surprised how many people will watch simple videos of you simply doing what you do for a living, or talking to your audience about a topic that interests them.  Restaurant chefs, real estate agents, attorneys, dry cleaners, tailors, virtually anyone in business can tell the story of what they do and why using short, simple videos.

As you create your videos, keep in mind that Youtube gets more views than the top 10 TV networks, so there are lots of folks looking for content that is educational, entertaining, and timely.  If you can be the source of that content, you can certainly attract viewers to become your customer.

If you have questions about using video content to promote your business please contact me.  I have a local connection who can help you map out a strategy and help you get it done.

Most people on the Internet are looking for a combination of three things:  Communication, information, and entertainment.  It’s pretty simple to position yourself to be the source of information, especially in your area of expertise, if you will take the time to produce content that people can use to get their questions answered.

Taking the time to create quality content is a strong investment in your business, because if you create the content one time, you can have thousands of people who get exposure to it and become a potential client or referral source for you.

People also love to share content and it’s easy for them since it only takes a few button clicks to post a link to your article on their social networking profiles or to send it to their mailing list.  I watched a Youtube video featuring a cute little skit where the author was talking to his dog and the dog was talking back.  It was very entertaining, but the kicker is that the video has gotten over 44 million views in just over 2 months!  Can you believe that?

I’m not saying that your videos and content will duplicate that success, but even if they got a thousand views or a hundred views, that’s one hundred or more people who now know you exist and now know how you can help them.  If all you did was produce a quality article or video once a week and encouraged people you know to share it with their friends, you’d reach more people than you typically reach through a coupon circular or newspaper ad.

Consider making a small investment of time and effort to share a few tidbits of wisdom consistently.  It’s free to post on social media networks, so your only real investment is a little time on your end.

Many merchants are satisfied to simply advertise to their clients rather than investing in relationships with them.  It’s easy to take out an ad as long as you have the budget for it, but it takes a little more commitment to invest your time in getting to know your customers.  I’m pretty sure that extra commitment is why more merchants don’t calculate into their marketing budget an amount of time each month that they will invest in relationship building with customers and referral sources.

The problem with relying exclusively on advertising is that if you stop advertising customers stop coming in, since their only motivation is typically whatever deal you are currently promoting.  When people come to you because of a referral, or because of their relationship with them, they return frequently without the need for you to always have a discount offered.

Initially, it takes a little more time to build that relationship, but it’s truly an investment that pays future dividends when the majority of business comes to you from referral sources and repeat customers who enjoy their relationship with you.

As you consider your marketing budget, consider budgeting a certain amount of time each week that you will spend connecting with your customers and with potential referral sources.  Make those connections count by following our advice in previous articles about acting with a “servant’s heart” in your dealings with people, and you will see people respond to the opportunity to get to know you better and enjoy shopping with you as much as knowing you.

Business professionals are in business to make a profit.  Profits come from selling the products and services we offer.  But, there’s another sale that takes place every time we sell our products and services.  That sale, perhaps the most important of the two, is the sale of ourselves to the customer. Customers have many choices when it comes to where they shop.  So, selling them on the value of a relationship with you is an important component to earning their business.

One of the ways to sell customers on the value of a relationship with them is to find ways to be of service to them that don’t involve buying anything from you.  If you can adopt a “servant’s heart” mentality in your dealings with people you will find them drawn to you, because they will see the value of having you be an important part of their people network.

Ways you can fulfill the role of servant include remembering to acknowledge people in the things that are important to them.  If you don’t know what’s important to them ask!  People love to talk about what’s going on in their lives, their triumphs, even their pains.  Take a little time to give them an audience on those issues.  Ever wonder why bartenders are so popular with their customers?  They are a captive audience for anyone who wishes to bear their souls to them.

If you have a customer who has children, be sure to ask about them, and what they are involved in.  If you have customers who own businesses, consciously look for opportunities to use their services or refer others to them.  Find out the favorite charities of your referral sources and customers and find something you can do to help that cause, even if it doesn’t involve a donation from you.

In essence, acting with a “servant’s heart” is simply an extension of the principle of feeding the craving other people have to be appreciated.  It works best when it’s done with the sincere desire to benefit others, so do it for the right reasons.

Are you one of those business owners who joins business organizations and attends networking events regularly, but fails to follow up with the people you meet?  We all do it, so the key to turning this trend in your favor is to admit that you do it and start doing something different.

There is no question that in business the “fortune is in the follow up”.  It is rare that you get new business simply by attending networking events and handing out business cards.  Successful networkers know that events are just a way to identify people who are a good fit for them to follow up with and explore where their may be opportunities to work together.  Don’t fool yourself by thinking that because you left with the largest stack of other people’s business cards that you are positioned for success.  What you do next with those business cards will determine whether the exercise was worthwhile in the first place.

I recommend that you make a commitment even before you go to the next event to make it your mission to come out of the event with appointments to follow up and not just passive promises to “get in touch” after the event.  When you book an appointment with someone it carries a greater impact.  It tells people that you are serious about your business and theirs, and it immediately distinguishes you from others who are simply going through the motions and delaying their success.

Remember, as a networker you are not a collector of business cards, but a builder of relationships that lead to business.  Follow up and follow through is what makes that happen.