NEWS & PRESS

via ThriveHive

It’s officially the holiday season! How are you going to market your small business? Here are 10 ideas to get your business noticed during the delightfully chaotic month of December.

PS we also have December Facebook Ideas and December Instagram Ideas

1. Update Your Google Business Listing

Holiday shoppers are going to be turning to Google for all of their holiday needs, whether for gifts, event services, home cleaning, appliance repair, travel, safety, and more. Make sure your business information is up to date so you can get found on search. Be sure to:

• Verify your contact information
• Update your holiday hours
• Upload photos of your seasonal products and services
• Create Offer and Event posts

There are many ways to optimize your Google business profile to stand out in search and attract customers—and no better time than now to do it!

2. Host or Participate in a Toy Drive

During the holiday season, it’s important to remember those less fortunate than ourselves. Host or participate in a toy drive and encourage your customers to do the same. Share photos of your participation on social media and tag the charity you’re working with. Ask them to retweet or share the post for a greater impact. Joining other local businesses to benefit children is a great way to get more involved with your community. For a list of toy drives, check here.

3. Get Personal

Share pictures or stories of your family and holiday celebrations on your blog and social media profiles. Do you have a favorite holiday memory that inspired you to open your business? What about a family recipe or tradition? Share yours and ask your followers what theirs are. This will help build engagement with and among your audience. This will help open up communication with your followers and build engagement.

Bakers can share a video or recipe on their blogs. Photographers can post their family Christmas pictures on Instagram or Facebook and encourage others to do the same. Personal trainers should encourage clients and potential clients to join them on holiday road races through social media. Share your life with customers to engage them online!

4. Host a Party

Events are a great way to market your business during the holidays. Have an open house and extend your business hours one evening. Invite local customers and other businesses to stop by and mingle. Serve some food and drinks or get them donated by another local business! The more the merrier during the holidays and a party is a great way to ignite some word-of-mouth marketing and build solid partnerships.

5. Dress up

Ugly sweater parties are popular during the holiday season, but why stop there?

There’s nothing that attracts customers like a fun attitude so take advantage of the festive spirit! Grab some reindeer antlers or wear Christmas pajamas if it’s appropriate for your business. Daycare centers can have fun dressing up and encourage a pajama day for students! Business professionals can have fun with a holiday-colored tie or socks to get in the holiday spirit. Of course, don’t forget to post on social media with the appropriate holiday hashtag.

6. Gift Guides

A gift guide is a great way to market your business during the holidays. Write a blog post about gifts for moms, dads, kids, and friends!

The gift guide can include some of your products but the best way to sell your business is not to sell it at all. Instead, showcase items that are related to your industry:

• Gift Guide for Accountants (tech gadgets, ties, fancy pen)
• Gift Guide for the Home Decorator (Christmas pillow covers, gold candlesticks, electric candles)
• Gift Guide for the Fitness Enthusiast (ice cleats for running outside, winter hat with Bluetooth headphones, Epsom salts for tired muscles).

People are always looking for gift ideas! Show potential customers how helpful you can be!

7. Send Holiday Cards

Customers like to be appreciated. Send holiday or New Year’s cards or e-cards to your contact list. Marketing is about keeping your business on the radar of customers—new or loyal—so that your business comes to mind when they need your services. Something as simple as wishing customers a Happy Holiday or Happy New Year is an easy way to get people to check out your website and keep your business in mind.

8. Tip or Product of the Day

Take inspiration from the 12 Days of Christmas and feature a tip or product of the day on your blog or social media feed. Fitness-related businesses like personal trainers or health centers can give an exercise of the day to fight off gaining holiday weight. Flower shops can feature a wreath or bouquet of the day featuring different holiday colors or flowers. Restaurants and bars can showcase a cocktail of the day for the holidays. You could also run a different deal or offer for each of the 12 days.

9. Go Behind the Scenes

Show customers what your business is like during the holidays with video marketing! Are you a busy baker who is making cakes and cookies? Take customers into the kitchen with a video of preparations for the holidays. People are curious by nature and giving them a sneak peek of new products or behind-the-scenes action will set you apart from your competitors!

10. Photo Opportunity with Santa or a Winter Wonderland

Last but not least, save time and money with consumer-generated content during the holidays.

Stage a photo opportunity at your store by inviting Santa to come or set up a winter wonderland for customers to post in front of. Everyone wants a picture with a gigantic polar bear so give customers the opportunity to market your business for you by having something fun to take pictures with!

Pick up some props like Santa hats or tinsel garlands and let customers go to town. Make sure to include a hashtag with your company and share, retweet, or regram customers’ photos on social media.

via ThriveHive

September brings students, sales, and new marketing ideas. Here are 10 creative marketing ideas to promote your business this September!

September Google Marketing Ideas

Consumers use your Google listing to make decisions about your business before even visiting your website, so make sure your Google My Business profile is optimized for fall.

Publish Fall-themed Google My Business Posts

With Google My Business, you can post about news, events, promotions, and products. Do you have any fall-themed products you can highlight? Are you running a back to school special? Promote them on your Google My Business profile. These posts will appear whenever your listing appears on Google.

Add Relevant Questions to your Q&A Section

You can, and should, populate your own Q&A section on Google. This helps you to get ahead of common customer questions and increase their confidence in choosing your business. Take this time to think of any questions that may be particularly relevant for fall.
Do you have student discounts?
Does your back to school package include sauna use?
Do you have the back to school supply list for my local elementary school?
What are your hours on move-in weekend?

Update Your Fall Hours on Google My Business

If you have a seasonal business, make sure to reflect any changes in your hours on your Google listing.

Run a Back to School Promotion with Google Ads

Although Google My Business certainly affords you free advertising on Google, paid ads are still the only way to guarantee top ranking for specified searches. When set up and run properly, Google Ads can give your fall promotions a significant lift.

September Marketing Themes and Ideas

1. Back to School Marketing

Any type of business can participate in the back to school season. Run student discounts, a back-to-school promotional week, or offer back-to-school themed products. If your business services a college town, this is a great time to generate buzz on social media or by partnering with student organizations for events.

For more ideas, download our free Back to School Marketing eBook.

2. Customer Loyalty Program

As September marks the start of the school year, many consumers are receptive to starting new things—like your customer loyalty program! If you don’t already have one, take the time to create a customer loyalty program to encourage repeat business and improve customer retention. It can be as easy as creating a punch card toward a free or discounted product or service or just asking customers for their email addresses.

3. National Read a Book Day

An intellectual marketing day, National Read a Book Day is a creative way for preschools, tutors, education-oriented businesses to market themselves.

What if your business isn’t related to education? That’s OK! Use this September holiday as an excuse to read a book that’s related to your industry. If you liked it, recommend it to your followers via social media or in a blog post. Tell your readers what you learned from the book or how you implemented some of the lessons.

This is also a good way to give back to your community by reading a book to children or the elderly. Volunteering is not only a nice thing to do and will make you feel good, but it’s also a bonus marketing opportunity to increase brand awareness in your local market.

4. Labor Day

Labor Day is a national holiday in September. Offices and banks are closed and schools are off for the long weekend. Labor Day is a good opportunity to attract new customers visiting your town for the weekend or invite existing customers back after the summer. If you have a customer loyalty program, send an email newsletter out to your email list offering incentives to returning customers.

5. NFL Opening Night

Nothing says fall like football! Opening night for the NFL falls in September. Celebrate the season opener with creative marketing for your business.

Here are some ideas:

• Engage customers in-store and on social media by asking what their favorite teams are.
• Decorate your store, restaurant, or studio in team colors.
• Host a football-themed party—include pictures with hashtags on social media.

6. Grandparents Day

Grandparents Day is the first Sunday after Labor Day. Celebrate our older generations with specials and discounts for grandparents.

7. National LGBT Awareness Day

Market your business for this day by showing your support for equal rights on social media. Get involved in local events or hang a sign or flag in your shop window to let customers know that your business is LGBT-friendly.

8. First Day of Fall/Autumn Equinox

The first day of Fall is coming sooner than you think. September 23rd is the Autumn Equinox, which means that there are the same number of daylight and nighttime hours. This celestial holiday marks the official end of the Summer season.

9. Fall Inspired Decor

Put away the Summer decorations and start decorating your business for the fall. The end of September is the time to visit a local farm to pick up corn stalks and hay bales to decorate the outside of your brick and mortar location. Take pictures and show off your new decor on social media, remembering to include fall hashtags to increase engagement and reach of your posts. You may even want to upload photos of your fall-themed decorations and products to your Google My Business profile.

10. Host an Instagram Giveaway

Once you have your fall decor up and running and your loyal customers following you on social media, now’s the time to take advantage of it! Think of a new product or service that you’d like to offer and get organized. Follow these tips on how to run an Instagram contest or giveaway to get started.

via ThriveHive

August is a great time to round up your summer marketing efforts to prepare and plan for the fall. But without any major holidays, a lot of business owners struggle trying to figure out what to write about on their blog and what to post on social media. If you need some ideas for your marketing, social media, and blog content, we’ve got the answers! Here are some fresh ideas to round out your summer marketing in August!

1. Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

Your Google My Business profile appears in Google Maps search results as well as local results for regular Google searches. It’s also the Knowledge Panel that displays on the right-hand side of a results page when someone searches your business. Make sure your Google My Business profile is optimized for August with:

• Summer-themed Google posts
• Questions and answers about relevant topics (Do you serve dairy-free ice cream?)
• Updated summer hours
• Photos of your summer-themed or seasonal products/services

2. Family Fun Month

August signifies the last few weeks of summer before children return to school. Encourage family relationship building by promoting family activities throughout the month of August that are related to your business. Hold special family-appropriate events at your business throughout the month to support families spending fun time together. If you maintain a blog, compile a list of ideas for local family-friendly places to bond.

3. National Golf Month

Improve business relations by inviting clients to the course to play a round of golf. Golf is a notoriously great way to connect and create potential business leads for any industry. Golf is a sport that can be fun for any skill set, so regardless of your level of expertise, it can be an enjoyable time.

This is a perfect holiday for fitness establishments as they can use it to motivate their members to get outside and get active. One idea to take advantage of this national holiday is to give away free branded golf accessories, like golf balls or tees. Not only does this indirectly advertise your business when customers use them, but it’s a nice way to give back to your customers with a useful gift.

4. Simplify Your Life Week (August 1st-7th)

The beginning of fall is a hectic time with the start of a new school year. Simplify Your Life Week is a perfect time to get your business organized for the upcoming chaos. For starters, use this time to get your business in check and your workplace organized in preparation for fall. In addition, there are a variety of businesses that would benefit from promoting their services during the time.

In particular, interior designers and personal organizers should promote this time to their clients. Send out an email newsletter with your top organizing tips, or write a blogpost doing the same. Another way to take advantage of this week is to post on social media a daily organizing tip. Encourage your clients to step back and take a look around them, so they won’t be overwhelmed and bogged down later on (like when back to school season is underway.)

Related: Free Summer Marketing Guide

4. Friendship Day (August 2nd)

One of the best ways to find business is from your current customers! Take advantage of their raving reviews and referrals on National Friendship Day. Hold a promotion for customers that bring in their friends on this day. Offer incentives to both parties for participating, whether it’s a discount or a freebie, anything offer is enticing.

5. National Relaxation Day (August 15th)

Spas and salons can use this holiday to offer special beauty treatment deals to unwind from daily stress. Other types of businesses can offer special relaxing promotions on this day as well. For example, restaurants can give out free drinks, while fitness centers can hold special yoga and meditation classes. If you work at a spa or yoga center, partner up with other companies to arrange for a day of in-office relaxation. This will help you improve the reach of your company and get new clients!

Although you can take advantage of this day to engage customers, it’s also important to allow your staff to relax as well. Close up shop early after promoting relaxation to allow employees to enjoy some hard-earned rest.

Motivate your social media followers to take a step back from the daily chaos and take some time to themselves as well. Whether this means using your services or not, customers will appreciate the personal approach in encouraging taking time to rest.

6. World Humanitarian Day (August 19th)

The purpose of World Humanitarian Day is to recognize those that lost their lives working for humanitarian causes. Use this day to not only donate your time or money to an important charity, but to encourage your customers to do the same. Pay it forward to your local community, and share with your customers how they can contribute as well. Post on social media about your favorite cause and why it’s important to you. The day is all about giving back, so there’s no limit to your effort.

7. Senior Citizens Day (August 21st)

While some businesses offer year-round discounts to senior citizens, senior citizens deserve their own special day. Honor the older folks with discounted or free services, they deserve it! Contact local senior centers and find out if you can sponsor an event or stop by with catering or manicures to brighten up someone’s day.  It’s important to remember that when marketing for an event targeted at this demographic, try to stick to offline marketing, as most senior citizens don’t use social media. (Or check out our post on How to Market to an Older Demographic)

8. State Fair Season

Many state fairs are held in August, stretching through the early fall. These are a great way to market your business and services by setting up a booth. Thousands of people flock to state fairs, sometimes from across the country! If your state fair is coming up soon, find out how you can make an appearance.

While there are many fairs taking place in August (Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming), many are scheduled later on for the fall so use this time instead to get on the list of vendors and plan your approach.

9. Plan for Labor Day

Start gearing up for Labor Day toward the end of the month. Labor Day is a big end-of-summer holiday that many businesses take advantage of. It’s important to participate in the frenzy with sales during this time. Start marketing for your specific promotions at the end of August to increase excitement and ensure that everyone knows to support your business then.

Need help creating promotions for Labor Day? Try running an Instagram giveaway or contest promoting an in-store special or new product.

10. Back to School

Like Labor Day, Back to School sales are an American tradition. Even if you think your business isn’t directly student- or school-related, there are still plenty of ways to get in on the action. For example, salons can offer special deals for back to school haircuts. Of course, this time is especially crucial for childcare centers or extracurricular academic institutions to prepare for the start of the year. Businesses offering after school activities can offer early bird registration for their classes.

It’s important to remember not to exclude parents in your marketing efforts. Although a new school year is a big and exciting change for children, their parents are affected in the change of schedule as well. Once kids are back in school, parents have more time for themselves during the day. Salons and spas can offer deals on beauty treatments parents might need after a long summer with the kids. Personal trainers or fitness centers can offer discount packages on their exercise services. Healthcare businesses, like dentists or nutritionists, can promote healthy lunch ideas.

One way to engage parents is to reach out to current customers who might have been busy over the summer and offer them a returning client special. This is a great way to show customer appreciation and retain existing customers.