Location Based Mobile Marketing for Small Businesses

Location based mobile apps such as Foursquare and SCVGR are another way for small businesses to reach customers that are actively using their mobile devices to update friends and followers about what they are doing including being your customer. Whether you want your business to be included in location based mobile applications or not, it is highly likely that your business is already listed as these mobile web apps pull information from popular business listing sites including Google places.

There are several marketing strategies that a small business owner can implement to make the most out of these types of mobile marketing opportunities. Creating formal and informal specials to customers using these apps can help increase your company’s exposure through their viral nature by getting more customers to check-in and share comments, reviews or basic information about your brand or company with their friends through social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Sponsored Deals

Businesses can work closely with a location based app company such as Foursquare to promote a special deal to customers directly through the app. This can be a very effective way of marketing to potential customers that are near your business. People in close proximity will receive information about your promotion. This type of paid advertising promotes the deal to all users in the region and requires a person to click the check-in button in order to receive the coupon which will in turn provide your business with demographic details about the people visiting your location for the advertised special.

Special Location Based Promotions

Another strategy that can be less cost intensive is to provide discounts or special deals for customers that choose to check-in through any number of different mobile apps. Simply create a nice marketing flyer and place it near the cash register or online check out cart that proclaims “Check-in on Foursquare” or “Check-in on Facebook” and receive “XYZ” discount or special offer. This can help a business quickly begin to trend in the local area making other users of these apps more likely to see your business.

This type of marketing is relatively inexpensive and customers generally have no problem saying something nice about a business they frequent that is also giving them a deal on one of their favorite products or services. One of the keys to being successful at marketing as a small business owner is to keep looking for trends such as location based apps and thinking how to tap into those communities of users without having to shell out the big bucks that a formally sponsored marketing campaign would cost.

Give location tagging apps a try for marketing your business to local customers and get them engaged with the brand online by actively supporting the company simply by checking-in or making a nice comment about your products or services.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Use Visually Appealing Marketing to Attract New Business

All marketing campaigns should have a visual component to them and many marketing activities might be entirely a visual experience for the end user, so focus on the graphics and design team to increase the likely hood that a new marketing effort will attract new business. When marketing to a new customer it’s critical to catch their attention and create a desire within them to want to learn more about your product or service. Depending on the marketing message and the desired demographics the visuals will be different but they need to achieve the overall goal of capturing the person’s attention long enough that there is an opportunity to acquire the new business. Small business owners have many resources available to them through the web to have the capabilities to hire designers and execute new campaigns.

Crowdsource Ideas

One of the best methods for finding the right marketing images for a specific joint venture marketing campaign is to crowdsource the project out to many different design teams that are competing for your business. This allows you to put your concept and marketing campaign focus into words and allow several designers to put their inspiration into your ideas and create an excellent visual marketing tool. Companies like 99Design.com provide graphic design services for many core business marketing tools that are likely to be part of any joint venture marketing with your business partners.

Crowdsource Examples

An example of the types of graphic design work available for crowdsourcing:

• Logo Design
• Web Design
• Business Cards
• Icon Design
• WordPress Theme Design
• Stationery Design
• Brochure Design
• Print & Packaging
• T-Shirt Design
• Banner Ads

Crowdsource Benefits

Using a crowdsourcing solution like 99Designs.com for creating all the graphics and marketing collateral for your next marketing campaign allows you to cull the best from several smart and creative designers. Each project you load into the system is like a mini-contest, the designers will create their work and when you select the one you like they are awarded the job. This allows you to avoid the process of finding and hiring the perfect candidate. If none of the designs will work for the marketing campaign you can get all your money back.

Ready to Attract New Business

By creating very appealing marketing collateral for all marketing campaigns, the businesses capability to attract new business will improve. Creating a banner or special T-shirt for a specific event that your business is attending and marketing can be that unique touch that separates your business from the rest. Engage with your target demographic by connecting your brand with visual images that appeal to them. Include as much detail about your target market to the designers in the crowdsourced pool as possible. This will ensure the best designers will align their work to match the market.

Leverage the online community of graphic designers to easily improve the visual appeal of marketing campaigns to attract new business.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Find New Clients with Strategic Marketing Plan

At the start of the year a priority for every business team that has a significant amount of joint venture marketing business should be to review all existing partners and develop strategic marketing plans to find and acquire new clients with there existing partners or identify new partners to replace dead weight. It’s important for business owners to keep track of specific metrics year over year in order to evaluate the business thoroughly to factor any new strengths or weaknesses into annual planning.

Set time aside to meet with all valuable channels in-person and explore new potential opportunities that exist now or will be available soon. Evaluate details about successful business transactions and review the finer details with your business partners in order to identify strategies that can attract similar new clients. Annual strategic planning can be a fun and exciting time as a business owner that is exploring new opportunities for growth as there is little more satisfying than identifying a new opportunity, building the marketing plans, and capturing the market.

Year End Review

As the year wraps up, it’s always a good idea to compile all of the relevant information about the activities of the business so that you’re prepared to analyze the company’s success and plan strategies for finding new clients. The following are a few questions that should always be at the top of the list for all business owners during their review. How is the financial situation of the business? Have employees achieved goals that were set? Were there any major partner successes or failures of the past year? What was the worst and best marketing campaign of the past year? Are there any visible opportunities with existing partners that can close business quickly if pursued?

Larger companies will have more formal quarterly and annual review meetings corresponding to financial reporting activities, however for most small business year end reviews and annual planning activities often are best around December / January time frame.

Partner Strategies

Based on the successes and failures of marketing activities with partners in the previous year, it is important to always focus on areas of strength to increase the number of new clients that can be reached going forward. Working closer with your business channels to identify the right marketing angles that work best to close business fast is necessary for solidifying strategies that work.

Many small businesses get in the habit of sitting back and not getting too involved with a partner. If it’s obvious that one partner is getting more deals closed in a specific region than another partner, identify what is being done and inform the less performing partner and make it mandatory that they adjust the marketing strategy. Otherwise find a new partner that will implement the plan.

Incorporate social media into your strategic marketing planning for the business as an additional way to approach new clients. Many small business owners have avoided using social media sites. If your company is in an industry that’s not a perfect fit for social media like a consumer facing brand or a business like a restaurant, then there’s a good chance that there is a less competition to be found by people interested in your industry.

Take the time to learn about Twitter and making Youtube videos. Start leveraging social media marketing as a cost effective part of your joint venture marketing activities. Working with a partner that is open to doing co-branded social media campaigns is a great way to reach a partners established online community.

New Market Trends

While preparing a strategic marketing plan for your business it is important to include any specific trends in the industry or market in general that impact the success or failure of your business. Continue to evaluate the market and competition to be able to really provide a product or service that meets the customer’s expectations at a competitive price.

Acquiring new clients is never an easy task, so make sure and review successes and failures with all of your joint venture marketing activities and be willing to change when needed. Work with your business partners and continue to evaluate the opportunities that are available to your business. Implementing a fully prepared strategic marketing plan is a great experience and well rewarded so do the research and analysis to find the best marketing approaches to continue growing the business.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

5 Tasks You Can Outsource Now to Attract New Business

Get More Clients through Joint Venture Marketing Partnerships for Facebook Pages

Small business owners can benefit greatly by setting up Facebook pages to get more clients from a joint venture relationship. Setting up focused Facebook pages with marketing partners give businesses the capability to capture audiences that are very interested in a specific topic or reside in a certain location. The rewards from social media marketing can be tremendous when the campaigns are executed correctly for driving traffic to websites. Small business that are product focused companies can benefit immensely by creating joint venture marketing partnerships with companies that are capable of developing the right marketing campaigns, interact with large networks of social power users, and get the product in front of potential buyers. A well-executed Facebook page can be way more valuable than spending money to advertise on Facebook, people use the network to interact with friends, find interesting information, and get recommendations from their social graph and it’s these three activities that a business wants to tap into in order to generate revenue from a Facebook campaign to get more clients with joint venture marketing.

Facebook Marketing Partnerships

Building a Facebook page that generates lots of interest from a target demographic is not an easy task. However, when a partner has the ability to create fresh content that can be distributed through the right online users to the sites and places that create successful viral marketing campaigns a business can generate significant numbers of leads that result in sales. There are lots of expert marketing individuals and firms that have these experiences and small business owners that want to build a brand through social networks can develop joint venture partnerships with social media marketing as the focus. Instead of having to hire internally to develop and implement social media content and campaigns do a business deal to drive sales and brand awareness through Facebook.

Content for Page

The content that is required to get more clients through a Facebook page will be very diverse. It is important to have a combination of content that is interesting for visitors and fans of the page. Short blog articles are an important element for educating fans of the page about the products or company. Videos that are educational in nature and videos that are funny are more likely to be shared with other people or posted on other sites. Creating infographics or pictures that provide a lot of information through photos and short blurbs of text or display information in a unique way as to make a specific point, can be interesting and something people like to share with others.

Give Back to the Fan Community

It’s important to be open to developing a rewards program for fans on Facebook that purchase and use your products and recommend them to their family and friends through the social network. This can be accomplished in a few ways very easily. Provide special discounts that are time constrained and go out only to the people that are friends on the page. If you have excess inventory in a specific month work with your Facebook marketing partner to develop a unique campaign focused on that specific product and provide a significant deal to the Facebook network. Give fans of a product the ability to earn money through their own recommendations. Giving a fan a 5% revenue share for business leads that come through their social network is not a huge tax on the bottom line if it helps develop a long term customer. Another common reward, if applicable with the products being sold, is if someone refers three people to buy the product they get one for free or at a significant discount, this a common marketing tactic used by daily deal sites such as Groupon and Living Social to help promote social networking activities amongst the customer base.

Depending on the product or service you provide using picture contests on Facebook or other types of content contests is a great way to keep fresh photos, videos, and blog entries on the Facebook Fan page. Photo and video contests can be excellent ways to get people to not only share their own photos using a product, but also an opportunity for them to ask friends to vote for their picture so they can win the contest. So be open to giving back to the community that a joint venture partner develops to market the brand and products too. This will drive more traffic and participation from the community rather than a standard Facebook page that is only interested in pushing out content from one contributor and lacks incentives to share.

Utilize Facebook to engage with specifically targeted customer bases to establish a strong online brand in the market. Many small businesses have a better social media marketing experience when they establish a joint venture marketing partnership versus hire a marketing firm or just use internal employees to create a Facebook Fan page and develop a fan base. When executing a social media strategy make sure to service the community at large with rich and interesting content and allow for personal engagement with the page with the potential for reward, just for loving a company’s product and talking about them on Facebook.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Find More Clients Being Active in Local Business Communities

Small business owners can find more clients by becoming active members in the local business community, whether by joining a local business chamber of commerce or through industry groups, or just attending business social events and local trade shows. By interacting with local businesses a small business owner has the best chance at locating companies that can be excellent joint venture partners that are currently servicing their exact demographic. The following, highlights a few of the most important aspects of developing joint ventures through participation at local business community events.

Find Industry Groups / Business Owner Gatherings

Determining the type of companies and people that are required to develop the relationships needed to create successful joint ventures is the first thing required before identifying where to meet them. There are lots of places to find information about local business groups and trade shows for industry groups. A few Google searches for trade shows and a specific location will result in lists of venues and upcoming events. Attend relevant events that would be interesting for pursuing companies and individuals of interest to your business. One good source for finding local events is Meetup.com where there are plenty of business / entrepreneur focused groups where business owners get together to talk about business topics as well as industry groups that are interested in a specific niche, like software developers that get together to talk about industry topics.

Develop Relationships with Business Decision Makers

When at business functions and events as a small business owner it is best to focus energies on meeting and spending time talking with individuals that are decision makers. At business events and trade shows time can be wasted interacting with a sales rep that is just looking for sales opportunities. This can be good if there is an existing customer base for your business that aligns with their product or service, but if the desire is to locate new existing customers for a business through joint ventures, spending time with executive management is key and it’s best to avoid the typical sales rep just pitching products and services.

Establish Joint Venture Partnerships with Local Businesses

Reaching out to local businesses to become joint venture partners is a proven way to find more clients in a specific region. For most small business owners the focus is on servicing the local community with a product or service and so developing partners with other local businesses can quickly expand brand awareness to the right demographic of customers. Local business owners will be easier to develop relationships with regardless if a business is planning on only servicing a local region or planning an eventual national or global launch. It’s important that each joint venture is successful to build momentum in the market and maintaining strong communication between partners is more easily done when decision makers for each business are close enough to meet in person.

Don’t Sell – Find Champions Who Sell

When meeting business executives and business decision makers it is important to not spend lots of time selling a product or service, instead develop relationships with others that can become a champion for your product or service to their existing customer base which will lead to your business finding more clients. Build a personal relationship first even though attending business related functions, the business part will always come, but learn the kids and spouse’s names and other details through the conversation to be used in later conversations to develop a personal relationship with a potential business partner. By the time a partnership agreement is on the table and discussions about how to implement the marketing strategies for promoting the joint venture the terms will always be more favorable than if approaching joint venture partnerships from a strictly business perspective when dealing with local business owners.

Find more clients locally by becoming engaged with local business activities such as small business owner events, chambers of commerce, and other business related activities such as industry trade shows. These venues provide the capability to meet with local business decision makers and find individuals that can help really drive a successful joint venture marketing partnership for the long term.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.