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Suggest You - Promoting Your Local Business #1 - Preparation
Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I enrolled in a course titled, "Services Marketing." Among other things, my professor required that we document three positive and/or negative customer experiences we had each week to share with the class.We were asked to include the following:1. Describe what happened.2. How did this make you feel?3a. What should t
Some sites will conceal your email address completely. A prospective customer would have to click on a form to send you email. Spiders used by spammers won’t be able to use these addresses at all - the address is never shown to the customer. Some sites will conceal it from peo
When you started your network marketing business were you told to make a list of friends and family? Did you use a "memory jogger" to help you remember the names of casual acquaintances, or someone who did some plumbing for you 10 years ago?Did you find these methods didn't work?If so, you are not alone. Because although many network marketers are told to "make a list" it is actually one of the worst things most of us can do.It also won't work if you start prospectin
Things that you should have ready:
#1: accurate, current information on your business. Much of the data online about local businesses comes from phone books. The phone books are either scanned and optical character recognition (OCR) used to read it or the pages are physically or via a scan to low-wage parts of the world. There the pages are keypunched into a computer. Even with a second or third person keypunching the same data and doing comparisions to catch errors, errors still creep in. The bigger your business, the more likely this is to happen.
Even with a small business, it’s a good habit to check that your name is exactly the way you want, the categories are appropriate and the phone numbers and addresses are correct. This isn’t very exciting, so having the information in front of you is a good way to make sure you do it at each site.
#2: a website. I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to get a domain name if you don’t have one already. We now have “local number portability” for cell phones and land lines. We’ve had toll-free number portability for a long time. Those mean if you can get serious savings with another provider or having serious service issues with your current provider, you can move. Having an address at any provider, like CitySearch or Yahoo, means that you’re locked-in. You do NOT want this. You want people to be able to come to your domain and add that to their bookmarks or address book.
The website doesn’t have to be fancy. You want your name, address, hours of operation and a couple of pictures. A little information on your business - see #5. You also want to put your email address online. More on that in #3.
#3: You need an email address with good anti-spam measures. From personal experience, Hotmail and Gmail are both very good. I find Hotmail more familiar with how I’m used to working (folders, delete messages) but it’s a little clunky compared to Gmail. The ads are more intrusive and they have more steps to do things so they can show more ads.
Some sites will conceal your email address completely. A prospective customer would have to click on a form to send you email. Spiders used by spammers won’t be able to use these addresses at all - the address is never shown to the customer. Some sites will conceal it from peop
Shrink wrap sealers are machines developed for sealing shrink wrap films or bags. Shrink wraps are one of the most inexpensive types of packaging available today. Shrink wrap sealers are basically classified into two - impulse heat shrink wrap sealers and direct heat shrink wrap sealers.The impulse heat shrink wrap sealer is used for sealing thermoplastic materials that need low temperatures to shrink. The direct heat sealer shrink wrap sealer, better known as constant heat shrink wr
Even with a small business, it’s a good habit to check that your name is exactly the way you want, the categories are appropriate and the phone numbers and addresses are correct. This isn’t very exciting, so having the information in front of you is a good way to make sure you do it at each site.
#2: a website. I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to get a domain name if you don’t have one already. We now have “local number portability” for cell phones and land lines. We’ve had toll-free number portability for a long time. Those mean if you can get serious savings with another provider or having serious service issues with your current provider, you can move. Having an address at any provider, like CitySearch or Yahoo, means that you’re locked-in. You do NOT want this. You want people to be able to come to your domain and add that to their bookmarks or address book.
The website doesn’t have to be fancy. You want your name, address, hours of operation and a couple of pictures. A little information on your business - see #5. You also want to put your email address online. More on that in #3.
#3: You need an email address with good anti-spam measures. From personal experience, Hotmail and Gmail are both very good. I find Hotmail more familiar with how I’m used to working (folders, delete messages) but it’s a little clunky compared to Gmail. The ads are more intrusive and they have more steps to do things so they can show more ads.
Some sites will conceal your email address completely. A prospective customer would have to click on a form to send you email. Spiders used by spammers won’t be able to use these addresses at all - the address is never shown to the customer. Some sites will conceal it from peo
Are you a reader enthusiast? Well if you do for sure you have a better gratitude for the printing press services. The benefits it gives us made us luckier that we can now preserve and duplicate our books and other papers alike without using the conventional means of printing. But thanks a lot to this process for transformation in printing world had come to its fullest development.Before anything else, did you know where printing press first originates? And how does it help the people
#2: a website. I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to get a domain name if you don’t have one already. We now have “local number portability” for cell phones and land lines. We’ve had toll-free number portability for a long time. Those mean if you can get serious savings with another provider or having serious service issues with your current provider, you can move. Having an address at any provider, like CitySearch or Yahoo, means that you’re locked-in. You do NOT want this. You want people to be able to come to your domain and add that to their bookmarks or address book.
The website doesn’t have to be fancy. You want your name, address, hours of operation and a couple of pictures. A little information on your business - see #5. You also want to put your email address online. More on that in #3.
#3: You need an email address with good anti-spam measures. From personal experience, Hotmail and Gmail are both very good. I find Hotmail more familiar with how I’m used to working (folders, delete messages) but it’s a little clunky compared to Gmail. The ads are more intrusive and they have more steps to do things so they can show more ads.
Some sites will conceal your email address completely. A prospective customer would have to click on a form to send you email. Spiders used by spammers won’t be able to use these addresses at all - the address is never shown to the customer. Some sites will conceal it from peo
Q: I want to start my own business. I have tons of business ideas that all sound great to me, but my husband is not so sure. He says that we need to figure out a way to test my ideas to pick the one that has the best chance of succeeding. I’m ready to just pick one and go for it. What is the best way to determine if a business idea really is as good as it sounds? -- Hannah C.A: Heather, I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but your husband is right (first time for everything
The website doesn’t have to be fancy. You want your name, address, hours of operation and a couple of pictures. A little information on your business - see #5. You also want to put your email address online. More on that in #3.
#3: You need an email address with good anti-spam measures. From personal experience, Hotmail and Gmail are both very good. I find Hotmail more familiar with how I’m used to working (folders, delete messages) but it’s a little clunky compared to Gmail. The ads are more intrusive and they have more steps to do things so they can show more ads.
Some sites will conceal your email address completely. A prospective customer would have to click on a form to send you email. Spiders used by spammers won’t be able to use these addresses at all - the address is never shown to the customer. Some sites will conceal it from peo
Restaurant owners don’t run a cash machine 24/7. They face the reality of being observed by thieves undercover and this alone is a serious threat not only to the business but to the safety of the management, staff and customers. The most difficult part about this harm is there is no certain point one realizes that there is a thief lurking around the corner waiting for the right time to attack. And the sad part about it is there are a big percentage of theft casualties done by employees.
Some sites will conceal your email address completely. A prospective customer would have to click on a form to send you email. Spiders used by spammers won’t be able to use these addresses at all - the address is never shown to the customer. Some sites will conceal it from people with a bit of javascript so that they can register a keyclick. For the directory, this is useful information. We show a page on tires 100 times, which links do people click on? But the spiders don’t do javascript and so they see the address in the clear. And other sites just publish your email address.
So rather than worrying about doing tricky things on your website to hide your email address, figure that the bad guys, the spammers, are going to get it. Make it as easy as possible for the good guys - your customers - to talk to you. So don’t use “jdeibele(at)mypages.com” or post it as an image or whatever. Just put “jdeibele@mypages.com” out there.
#4: Have 1-3 pictures of your business that you like. Post them wherever you can. People like to see pictures of your business. Or of you. Or happy customers. Or “before” and “after” pictures of a job you’re particularly pleased with.
#5: Description of your business. This is another thing that’s good to have written out. A history about your business would be nice - who are you? How’d you get into this line of business? The more detail you can give, the better. But having 2 or 3 paragraphs to start with is a big help.
Tomorrow, we start with the first site to put this information.
Note: This is the first article in a series of articles on how to promote your local business. If you’d like to add information or have me explain in more detail, please contact me. I think you can find my email address. :-)
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