If you run a small business, branding is going to be your best friend. It allows you to build a great reputation without spending huge advertising dollars and will stand you in good stead, far longer than a glossy one page in a magazine.

So, what are the characteristics of a successful brand? Let`s take a look:

• Gives back to the client. People remember when you do something extra for them or provide exceptional value.
• Represents a solid fact. Rather than basing your brand on something that changes frequently, base it on something solid, a quality you can uphold long term.
• Is positioned to always be on the customer`s mind. When done right, branding will be positioned so that people think of it when they need your type of product or service.
• Is consistent. Don`t constantly change your angle or your tag line . . . it will confuse people and water the brand down.

Branding your business is the best thing you can do, but you do need to make sure that you take the time to do it right, or you`ll only have a lot of wasted time and money on your hands.

In short, the answer is yes. However, for many small businesses, a blog seems like a time consuming way to promote your business. That doesn`t have to be the case, though.

Blogging for business is something that every business can do with virtually no budget and it will bring in potential clients. And it really isn`t as hard as you might think!

Blog posts don`t have to be long. In fact, many blogs get away with just 100 -200 words. You can say a lot in that little bit, if you word it right. No time to write? Then you can hire a ghostwriter who will not only write the posts for you, making them search engine friendly, but will even post them for you for a nominal fee.

By making good use of the articles that are written on your blog, you can catch the attention of the search engines, which will help boost traffic. Also, you can do article marketing, which is completely free, to gain more attention for your blog, and comment on other blogs. It works very well and there`s really no reason why a business shouldn`t try blogging.

Have you been struggling to get your small business out there? Working hard to market, but not really sure what you`re doing? I get a lot of emails asking for advice and though I do try to provide a lot of information on this blog and my website, sometimes you just need a little extra boost. Which is why I`m running a new workshop.

The marketing workshop will be held on Oct. 14th from 6-8:30 pm at Byerlys Community Center Ridgedale, 3081 Ridgedale Drive, Minnetonka, MN 55305. I`ll be covering all the basics to help you get started, including:

• Article marketing
• Social media marketing
• Online press releases
• Using the above for SEO

This is the perfect opportunity if you are in the area (or willing to travel a bit) to learn more about how to effectively market your small business online. The cost is just $50, affordable to all.

To register for this class, just head over to Social Web Training and sign up.

Every small business could use more money, but if you aren`t making a lot right now, then you can “make” more by using frugal blue chip marketing tips! It`s something that can benefit companies of any size, but smaller ones will find it most useful, of course.

Network, network, network. It`s free marketing! Whether you`re at a conference, a community potluck or online in social marketing forums, make sure you put yourself out there and make your business known.

Get a blog. If you don`t already have a business blog, then this should definitely be on the to do list. It`s cost effective and yet a great way to boost your visibility online.

Encourage word of mouth. There are plenty of ways to do this, offer a discount for telling a friend, set up an affiliate program, or offer rewards or 2 for 1 deals for those who bring a friend.

All of these are low cost and yet still very effective. Small businesses can really benefit from implementing these types of marketing techniques into their daily routine.

Narrowing your marketing efforts is a great way for small businesses to save some money while getting better results for the effort. A general campaign might work, but it rarely brings in the amount of clients that a properly targeted marketing campaign would.

You probably have a pretty good idea of what your market is. Whether you`re selling to teens, single moms or corporate males in their 40`s, you should know at least the basics of your target market. However, if you can narrow it down, you`ll find that you have a far more focused marketing strategy that yields better results.

Do you know everything about your target market? If not, then you will need to do a little market research to ensure that you are aiming your marketing at them the right way. For example, if you write an ad aimed at single mothers, referencing staying at home, you`ve just lost a huge part of your market, since most single mothers work.

While you can still have a wider audience, it often helps to aim your ads and split your email lists into more targeted groups so you can speak specifically to them. You`ll notice a marked improvement once you are marketing to specific groups, rather than a general audience.

Most business owners consider article marketing to be for online businesses only, but that`s actually not the case. While you should certainly have a business website even for an offline business, article marketing can be an effective way of boosting recognition of your brand and product online and off.

Online
Article marketing an online business is a great way to get lots of backlinks and to boost your SEO. You can link to specific pages in your bio at the end of the articles and this offers even more benefits.

Offline
While you may not need links to your offline business, you can still offer up location or phone number and email. Let people contact you. You might be surprised at how many actually come in to your offline business because of these articles.

Don`t discount article marketing as being a very valuable promo method, no matter where your business is based.

Most business owners look at the internet as the way to do things and real world marketing methods like direct mail don`t even register on the radar anymore. There are some disadvantages, to be sure, namely that sending out flyers or paper via snail mail tends to be expensive, while it`s free to send an email. However, there are some definite advantages, as well.

The novelty. People have become somewhat immune to email ads and mailings. The spam filters are increasingly more difficult to get past, even if the person has subscribed to your email list. Direct mail is something tangible that still gets people`s attention.

It reaches a bigger market. Not everyone is interested in emails, but you`ll find that sending out a physical item will reach your target market easier, especially if you have an offline business.

You may find that by expanding your marketing to include direct mail, you end up with more clients than ever before. Take a good look at your audience and think about whether or not they would respond better to a piece of paper in their hands . . . then make your decision.

With all the other things you have to worry about as you run a business, data storage is probably one of the last things on your list of things to do. However, it should definitely be a priority, since you`ll find that your business is in serious trouble should you lose your information!

Sadly, too many people have discovered the importance of data storage the hard way, by losing it all. This is one of the most difficult things to deal with when running a small business, particularly if you have all your information on your computer.

Imagine if you lost all your client information? Your invoices and bills? It`s a big deal. And it can cause a major setback that most businesses will spend weeks, if not month struggling to overcome. You`re far better off just taking a little bit of time to actually backup your data and make sure that your data storage solution is secure so you can keep going even if your main system fails.

Most people don`t really worry too much about data loss until it`s too late. Don`t be one of them!

Videos are everywhere these days, there`s no escaping them and chances are, you don`t want to. After all there`s something about videos that just makes it easier to assimilate information.

Part of the reason that people are using video marketing so much is that it just works. You might be surprised at how well. Being able to see what you are talking about will create a special bond with your visitors and can be a great way to turn plain visitors into clients.

I would suggest studying how to make a good quality video and then start your own video marketing campaign. It`s a great way to go and something that can really help boost your business. If you appear in your own video, you`ll find that people respond even more to the fact that they can finally see the real you.

Video marketing is not going to disappear anytime soon and you should definitely embrace it if you want to continue attracting new clients.

Social bookmarking is all the craze. Everyone’s doing it. But why?

Is it links? Is it traffic? Is it keeping up with the Jones’s?

Well, it can’t be links because not all social bookmarking sites give link love. Many do, but not all of them do. In fact, some of the best ones for links are the smaller ones. The biggers, except for a tiny few, don’t give link juice.

But the what the big social media sites do provide that none of the smaller ones provide is traffic. You may not get any link love from StumbleUpon, but you’ll likely get a lot more traffic that you will from that small site you can’t remember the name of. So which is the more valuable? Traffic or links? Well, which one has the money?

Both traffic and links are valuable. If you get enough inbound links with the right anchor text then you’ll rise in the search engines. The higher you go in the search rankings for the right key terms the more traffic you’ll get. So there is a pay off. The source of traffic, however, is just as important as the number of new visitors. So keep that in mind.

For instance, would you rather get 1,000 new visitors from a Google search query or from StumbleUpon? I’ll take the organic traffic any day. Though social bookmarking does have its benefits - traffic and links.

What I’m saying is this: Take some time out to bookmark your blog posts and web site pages. Don’t give up on organic SEO, but add the social mixing to your repertoire of marketing skills too.