US Chamber Advice for Small Businesses This Holiday Season
A new report from Intuit Quickbooks shows a unique opportunity for small businesses during Small Business Season. Based on survey results from 5,500 consumers and 1,500 businesses, consumers are planning to spend “over 40% of their holiday shopping budget at small businesses” — an estimated total of $88 billion! Because of this, the US Chamber suggests, “it’s the perfect time for small businesses to lean heavily into their holiday marketing campaigns and possibly even launch a new product in time for the
Christina Metcalf
Using Existing Facebook Groups to Grow Your Business
If your town is like most, there are several Facebook groups that have formed around living, working, and/or playing in your area. Some are private and you’ll need to request to join. Others are public. Some groups are loosely veiled business generators for community leaders or professionals (often real estate agents) who recognize how important it is to insert themselves into conversations about the community. Facebook groups are an excellent way to grow your business. Here are a few ways to do this in an
Christina Metcalf
What’s Your Biggest Marketing Challenge?
When a business operator finally decides they need someone focused on their marketing, and they resolve to hire for the position, it usually goes something like this: “This position will be in charge of posting to our social media channels.” But if that’s all you’re doing, you can put that in the hands of the nearest thirteen-year-old. If you’re contemplating stepping up your business marketing, you need more than a scheduler. You need someone who understands the different kinds of marketing, your audience,
Christina Metcalf
10 Ways to Get More Business Reviews
According to an article on SmallBizTrends.com this week, “Small business owners’ expectations for better business conditions over the next six months fell by seven points to a net negative 61%. So far expectations for better conditions have worsened every month this year.” That’s not great news. With rising costs, many businesses are struggling. When it comes to dealing with these pressures, you have two options to improve revenue: new growth or new marketing efforts. New growth means pursuing new avenues
Christina R. Metcalf
Do You Have These 10 Things on Your Business Website? You Should
If you’re a small business, you probably bootstrapped your website content, picking it up here and there, copying what you like from other sites (hopefully not word for word), and adding as you go. That’s the way most small businesspeople do it unless you’re lucky enough to know someone who offered their writing services or have it in your budget to have it written for you. But do you ever wonder if you have the type of content that will transform the casual web visitor into someone who buys? Here are the
Christina R. Metcalf
TikTok Basics for Business
Are you on TikTok? Maybe you’re just figuring out video and livestreaming and you have written off TikTok as a site for kids. While you aren’t wrong about that (32.5% of users are between 10 and 19, while 41 percent of TikTok users are between 16 and 24 years old), the TikTok adult audience has grown at a rate of about 5.5 times in just 18 months. The app now boasts 1 billion active users. TikTok videos are becoming a way to pass time for many people and the average user spends about 52 minutes per day on
Christina R. Metcalf
Engagement = Content: Good for You and Your Audience
Whether you are a business or a nonprofit, operating in the public sector or the private one, serving businesses and organizations or serving individuals, established in your sector or just starting out, running an empire or “lone wolfing” it, your audience wants to get to know you better. In fact, they expect it. So, what does that look like and how does that benefit you?
Christina R. Metcalf
4 Things You Must Be Doing This Small Business Season
We’re down to the last two weeks before Christmas with some of the biggest shopping days of the season still ahead of us. Since every sale can help your future marketing, it’s essential that over the next few weeks you think not only of the money, but the data you can garner from each sale as well. But don’t stress. You still have time to implement these important activities for big results.
Christina R. Metcalf
Social Media Is Not Just for Recruiting Customers (Attract Employees Too!)
For a while, marketers have been telling people how to build relationships with potential customers on social media. They’ve shown them how to nurture a potential customer through the sales cycle to make a buying decision. And that’s what businesses have been focused on. But your social networks need to be doing double duty now. Yes, attracting new customers is important but there’s another great need right now—employees.
Christina R. Metcalf
Master the Basics of Good Content to Increase Sales
Writing is difficult for a lot of people. You may worry about your mastery of grammar or vocabulary. Maybe you just don’t think you have anything interesting to say. But if you have something to sell, you need to learn the basics of good copy, at least until you can pay someone to do it for you. These basic tips can (and should) be used when writing your web copy, social media posts, newsletter, emails, or anything you’re using words to grab attention.
Christina R. Metcalf
