I heard an idea tonight that I wanted to share with those of you who have businesses that market to families or kids.
Put your business card or small marketing material tied to the candy that you give out at the door on Halloween.
This also gives parents a better sense of safety knowing that a name & contact information is attached to the candy.
How about making it a little interactive. Offer a contest whereby each card has a unique number on it and a website address. They visit your website and enter their unique number along with a bit of demographic information and an email address. Give away a free music lesson or dance class… but this helps you to build your contact lead list for local customers.
If you have any other Halloween marketing ideas…please share….
If your a small business owner looking for the perfect name and are having a bit of a creative block…send it out to the universe and see what comes back…OR…check out NameThis . You can enter your business or product idea and people from around the globe can suggest names for it. It cost about $99 and takes about 48 hours.
While checking out this site, I found a local company here in Toronto that is doing something similar. They have a great section on their site about branding. It’s an interesting read and might help to get those creative juices flowing.
As a small business we can’t always afford those little things that help us to make a greater impact. From time to time I come across resources that I consider invaluable to my own small business.
Today I found one that has hundreds, if not thousands of free fonts. Check it out here.
www.fontframe.com
I also love the fact that most of them come in PC & Mac version.
Recently I experience (for the third time) a bad experience from a service professional. I guess I should have learned by the second time to not go back for more. I think the excuse was that I just didn’t have time to find someone else to go to. After leaving the shop I realized that the service I received was faulty to a point that I couldn’t really been seen in public, not with professional look anyways. I called the shop owner and expressed my concern. She told me to come back to the shop and she would fix the problem. This is great and appreciated that she would be willing to fix the mess she made, but I was already half way across the city. In my opinion she should have offered to come to my location to fix the problem. I ended up trying to salvage the mess once I got home, so I called back and told her to not bother with my rescheduled appointment, knowing that this was the final straw.
Being a business owner myself, to me this type of service and offer to fix a bad situation is extremely poor. If that was my business I would have offered to go out of my way to fix it, not to expect my loyal 10 year customer, to have to drive half way across town again to fix the problem. Am I out of wack? Is this something that business owners should do? Or is it not worth the hassle? Is the cost of going out of your way greater than the cost of keeping a client happy?
Sometimes I really question how some people stay in business. Like really?? If others can do it and survive providing half assed service, I should be hugely successful.
So I ask you…do you go out of your way to fix your mistakes or do you leave your customers to suck it up and be more inconvenienced if they want a fix?
Ever feel like you’re on a high? You’re pumped about something you’re working on? You know exactly where you’re going? Then someone comes along and bumps you off track? Maybe suggests something different or questions why you’re doing something a certain way. It gets you thinking, doesn’t it? Maybe makes you question yourself?
As entrepreneurs, we probably go through this more often than others because we are treading a path that is unknown. I’m sure the people who have brought us many of the great products and services we use today, had the same thoughts and feelings as they were launching their business idea.
We must learn to give ourselves a pep talk. If any of you have children or are mentors to others, you know how to do it for them. Encouraging words often comes from our mouths for others, but rarely directed within. As an entrepreneur, I’ve learned to do this to myself. Whenever I’m in doubt or feel like someone has bumped me off track, I whisper words of encouragement to myself. This is particularly important when working from a home office as there’s no one else to do it for you.
Another suggestion is to post a couple sticky notes up around your work areas with a select few words or phrases of encouragement. A good one is “Believe in yourself and what is in your heart.”
They say women love to talk, well business women love to blog.
I attended an Internet Marketing seminar last week and discovered how much blogging can help your small business.
Blogging is rapidly becoming a very effective and affordable way to drive prospects to your website. Actually the cost is $0.
Creating and maintaining a blog is easy to do. Thirty minutes a week should do it. If you can write, you can blog. It’s easier that updating your website and if you use a popular blogging tool like blogspot.com then it’s automatically searched by Google and other search engines.
Knowing what to put in your blog is key. Be sure you are addressing your audience. Give them good information - short & sweet. Also be sure to use keywords in your copy that will help Google and other search engines to index your site properly with the right topics.
And very important, be sure to put a link on your blog to your website and vice-versa.
Tracy Matthewman has taken many calculated risks in her life. From starting her own beachside henna-tattoo summer business to obtaining an Honors Bachelor of Commerce degree to landing a “dream job” at a large corporation…she always had the drive to follow her dreams. But she thanks the eye-opening experience of motherhood that made her take another look at her career and ask herself, “is that all there is?”
Despite her success as a business analyst, she longed for the thrill of taking on a more creative, instinctive venture. When the opportunity to take over WCDA knocked on her doorstep, she opened the door and invited it in for dinner. Her life long desire to run her own business, combined with years of seeing other women succeed, proved to be the only inspiration she needed to make such a drastic change.
With WCDA she feels she has found a way to help discover and offer the inspiration she and other women crave in order to go after the things that they are passionate about.
When asked why she thinks women can do anything, Matthewman says, “Because we always have. There have been so many boundaries that have been crossed already. All we need to do is learn the lessons from the women before us, add our own two cents and share them with those who will follow.”
