Posts Tagged ‘networking’

Are you using social media to grow your business?

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

social mediaDo you still use the Yellow Pages to advertise to prospective customers? Is this approach working for you?

How about the other traditional methods of bringing in new clients? If you’re not getting the results you once did, it’s likely a reflection of several factors:

Newspaper circulation continues to dwindle, which means no one is reading your ads. Young people continue to gravitate to the Web for online gaming, and increasingly, to view video content. So they aren’t watching commercials. Millions now listen to music and talk shows on their iPods, which means they don’t hear your radio spot. After decades of interruption marketing, consumers have learned to tune out unwelcome marketing messages via direct mail and other vehicles.

None of this is to say that marketing is dead. Far from it.

Marketing is just evolving from a broadcast model into a closer relationship between you and your existing clients — and more of a targeted hunt for new clients.

If the scatter-shot approach of the past isn’t working well for you, you must now be smarter about how you identify, locate, connect with and engage your prospects. This means going where your prospects and clients are, and speaking to them in their own language, about the things they care about.

If you are marketing business services, you should probably be establishing a presence on LinkedIn, where there are millions of business professionals. If you are launching a hip hop act, MySpace is the place to connect with your future fans. If you want to be viewed as a trusted expert in your field, there’s nothing like the immediacy and intimacy of a blog to establish your credibility in your field.

You don’t have to be absolutely comfortable and proficient in your use of these tools – they’re going to keep changing anyway. But if you haven’t already, it’s time to dive in and get started. And it’s not difficult or expensive. For instance, this blog is hosted at Blogger.com. It’s free and you can easily launch your own blog and start connecting with your customers today.

Likewise, there’s no excuse for not being on LinkedIn. Your prospects are there now, waiting to connect with you. Get started now!

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Posted in Small Biz Tips | 2 Comments »

Word-of-mouth recommendations: they’re a win / win / win

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

Last week we asked about how you select vendors for your business.

When it comes to identifying and selecting business-to-business vendors, it seems that most business owners rely on word of mouth more than any other method. And that makes sense.

Word-of-mouth recommendations typically come from people you know and trust. Someone you know is sharing their experience with you, directly and in a way that meets your specific needs. By doing so, they are helping you avoid mistakes, which, when you’re running a business, can be costly. (They are also adding value to your relationship, for which you may want to reciprocate by offering your recommendations in the future.)

So everybody wins with word-of-mouth recommendations: You get the right help; the referrer earns your good will; and solid companies get more business.

But what do you do when:

  • You don’t have time to ask people for recommendations
  • The people you know have no experience with the type of vendor you’re seeking
  • You’re not aware of all the choices that are available to you
  • You’re not even sure what you need

Wouldn’t it be great to have a huge database of B2B business performance and recommendation data, searchable by your specific criteria?

That’s exactly what we’re assembling here at Inside Up.

We’ve developed a sophisticated but easy way to track businesses’ reputations, and deliver bits of that data to you, so you can confidently find the vendors who are the best choice for your growing business.

Think of it as a word-of-mouth recommendation engine, on steroids. With a lot more features added to help you get the information you need to grow your business faster.

By the way, check out this nice third-part validation we received this week.

Word is getting out – Inside Up is the place to go to find trusted vendors for your business!

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Posted in Small Biz Tips | 8 Comments »