SFS: Small. Fast. Smart.

How Important is Branding your Small Business?

 

What does it really mean to brand your business? If you have a small business, you need a way for your target audience to identify what you do and remember you. That is what having a brand can do for you. As a business owner, you need to establish a way to create long-lasting relationships with your customers.

This article explains not only how brand your business, but how to brand yourself. Positioning yourself apart from the competition is important to ensure your business will continue to grow and prosper.

How to Brand Yourself: An Introduction

The Holidays and your Small Business

Okay, so it's the holiday season. You own a small business and you're looking to offer your clients something special for the holidays.

Here's an idea: How about offering your current clients something special? In addition to offering incentives for new business, take care of your loyal clients, too!

Some suggestions:

1. Email your current clients a promotion coupon just for them.

2. Use the idea of having your clients refer a new one and if they use your product/services, give them a special percentage off their next purchase.

3. If budget allows, consider sending your clients a small gift or holiday card. Just being thanked for their business and appreciated goes a long way.

If have tried one of these suggestions, let us know how it was received. If you're trying one for the first time this holiday season, let us know what the feedback was. We'd love to hear from you!

Happy Holidays!

Ten Tips to Improve Your Social Media Strategy

Paska Nayden is a business coach in Easton, CT, who works with SCORE.

Is Social Media worth the effort, will it pay off or is it just a fad?  When working in a large corporation known for white shirts and blue suits, I recall the internet was initially seen as a potential threat to our relationship with our clients.   Today with social media, large and small businesses seem to be embracing this technology hoping to crack the code on how to create revenue by engaging clients or prospects in conversations. Big, small or one person companies at the end of the day focus on two things: improving profits by selling more stuff and/or reducing cost which should be the goal of your social media strategy.

The shift to social media is real and will only continue to grow as we learn to adapt our marketing and blend it with our traditional techniques.  Who would have imagined 500 million FaceBook users and over 75 million professionals on LinkedIn with most of the growth in the last 12 months?  Join the conversation, do not push your product, create value, and you will reap the benefits of being social online.


Here are few thoughts if you are just starting or want to improve your experience:

1.  Pick one platform to start with such as FaceBook or LinkedIn or another site relevant to your audience. Start with one to gain experience

Diving Into Social Media and Developing a Strategy

Cynthia Cavoto is the President of Marketing That Works For You in Stratford, CT.

Social media is here to stay AND it has huge merits for promoting a business. These include:
• Reaching people immediately – targeted audiences, no less!
• Engaging in discussions and building relationships with existing and potential customers
• Learning of potential business growth areas.

Great, what next? Do you start a FaceBook page, Twitter, blogging, LinkedIn? That depends largely upon your marketing goals. As with traditional promotions, having a strategic approach is better than randomly dabbling in these venues. This facilitates the best use of time and budget.

First, start thinking about messaging. Take comfort in knowing you cannot – and do not need to - be everywhere. Here are basic guidelines for using some of the proven (and FREE!) channels: