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What is The Ultimate Guerilla Marketing Tactic?

What is The Ultimate Guerilla Marketing Tactic?

Amazon gets it. So does Salesforce. So does Etrade. Tesla? Yep, they get it too. Virtually all companies that exist mostly or solely online already understand how critical successful Internet marketing is to the bottom line.

Yet for small businesses, there seems to be a massive disconnect with how to make digital marketing work in a way that’s impactful and cost effective. So let’s take a closer look at this difficulty, the best ways around it, and why local online marketing is so necessary to create lasting success.

If you’re a small business owner, you may believe that online marketing really isn’t very important… especially if your business is located in a smaller town. But do your town residents have mobile? Do they have access to the Internet? If so, you are missing out on an opportunity to outwit your competitors.

The reality is starker. According to Marketing Land, 90% of survey respondents say that positive reviews influenced a purchase decision.  Just as people leverage Google & Bing far more than the Yellow Pages to find services, they are also checking on the services they find via review sites. This trend growing nationally and is happening with as much frequency in small communities as it is in large cities. However, in small cities, bad reputations travel like wildfire. In other words, an accountant in the city with a handful of negative reviews is simply better equipped to correct those negative reviews vs. an accountant in a small town of 5,000.

And it’s important to recognize that mobile is quickly replacing all other forms of computing. Laptops and PC’s are dwindling in sales while tablets and smart phones are selling like hotcakes. If you run a local service business, it’s critical to be found in mobile-optimized search. (Yes, that’s a thing.) If your website isn’t mobile friendly, Google has said it will be dropping your website from all search results as of 2017.

If you run a small business, you must have a robust online presence. It’s that simple.

And this is where that concept of Guerilla Marketing comes into play. Remember that the notion of Guerilla Marketing is that you can have a huge marketing impact without breaking the bank and really, that’s at the core of online marketing in general. The Internet offers the potential of truly infinite reach for a relatively low cost for that potential impact. At least that’s the promise…

The truth is, this is where most business owners get lost. With search engines like Google & Bing, reputation sites like Yelp & Angie’s List, social media sites liked Facebook & LinkedIn, is it any wonder that most feel completely overwhelmed?

If you’ve talked with experts you’ll know right away that local SEO alone can cost $1,500 a month for a handful of keywords and Reputation Management can cost $500 or more each month per location.

But marketing online can be affordable, particularly if you take advantage of the right technology and learn the methods that actually work for SEO, writing content, marketing automation, etc. Sure, it takes time to do this work but if you learn how to do it properly, you’ve created new potential revenue streams that will last a long time.

One important tip as you contemplate online marketing… don’t think for a minute that you have to come across as some giant corporation. If you serve a local market, chances are people would prefer to know they are dealing with someone who cares rather than a faceless monolith. So, let your individual personality shine. Make it your mission to become the hero in your market. Leverage your messaging both online and offline to create deep personal connections that will bring you lots of business and lots of referrals… and that can elevate your brand to a premium status… yes, you might actually be able to charge MORE in your market if done correctly.

So, is it necessary to leverage Internet marketing to help grow your small business? In today’s world, the answer is a resounding yes. In fact, it is critical for your survival. If you are curious about your local reputation, how well positioned you are in your local market, and what you can do to begin taking action on strengthening your local marketing, check out this free local website analysis (link to: https://greendaysgroup.wwwsrvr.net/local-seo-website-analysis) that offers a pretty handy report on a company’s local presence.

Then start to take your local online marketing seriously. Make “action” be your mission and strive to be at the forefront of your local market while also working to do so in a manner that keeps your return on investment front and center.

And remember that as your company grows, be sure to reach out to your local insurance agent for ways to reduce insurance costs, expand benefits for employees, and make your company more stable. They may be able to help you find savings opportunities that you can then invest in your nascent online marketing efforts!

How to Leverage America’s Aging Workforce in Your Business

How to Leverage America’s Aging Workforce in Your Business

If you find that a number of the candidates looking for open placements in your organization lack the business expertise, interpersonal abilities, or overall expertise required for getting the work done… you’re not alone.

Many employers are running into a skills gap and it is costly. According to a study conducted for careerbuilder.com, a company loses more than $14,000 for each job that’s open for 3+ months.

As employers struggle to meet the challenge of hiring great talent, several are taking a look at ways to keep existing employees that are nearing retirement. In fact, in 2014 the Human Resource Management Foundation discussed this at their Executive Roundtable on “The Aging Workforce”.

In it, they discussed the fact that many older employees retain institutional knowledge and specific skills that extends their value to the organizations at risk of losing them. The challenge for anyone in a position to handle personnel issues is to find clever ways to retain those tenured employees while also leveraging them to help train and instill the correct corporate values in younger, newer employees.

One thought is to creatively work with older employees to help them change their work-life balance while retaining them as employees…

Phased-in Retirement

One option is to work with employees at or near retirement to create a less intense position by changing work hours and by emphasizing training others in the role. This allows them to ease into retired life while helping to ensure their knowledge and understanding of operations, clients, corporate culture, etc. are passed on.

Mentoring

Somewhat akin to this is creating specific mentorship programs where more seasoned workers can become an advisor to younger, newer employees. This again helps to facilitate transference of knowledge and expertise and affords more time to make sure that information is passed in an environment that maximizes success.

Recruitment

AARP offers a special program called Life Reimagined for Work (http://workreimagined.aarp.org/) that helps companies find knowledgeable employees while also helping those professionals to connect with jobs and roles better suited to a lifestyle that is more aligned with near-retirement goals.

If you have members of your workforce that are over 50, this is the right time to begin thinking creatively about the future struggles you will likely face in recruitment and how you can extend the knowledge and value of existing older skilled employees so that they can continue being a part of your future growth as a company.

Benefits

One key area to explore is to offer benefits that are appealing to older workers. You can offer supplemental policies that cover gabs in Medicare for example. You can do the same with other benefits as well ranging from vision and dental to pet insurance. Often times these other benefit programs can be added in a way that offers affordable premiums to employees with minimal out-of-pocket expenses to the employer.

If you have a larger workforce, you may also want to consider adding a long-term care and / or long-term disability program with guaranteed issue. (This is important because guaranteed issue ensures folks can’t be turned down.) Sometimes it is difficult to pick up these benefits as an individual, so offer them as a company would make remaining as an employee extra attractive.

We highly recommend talking with your insurance professional to explore how a targeted benefits program can be included as a part of your total solution in retaining and leveraging older skilled employees.

All Parties Win

By creating a comprehensive program for eliminating a “skills gap” in younger / newer employees by capturing the knowledge and wisdom of your older employees, you address one of the single greatest problems that plagues most companies that fail to address these issues while benefitting yourself and your staff in the process.