We know how difficult the task of running a small business can be. It is usually accompanied by limited raw materials, budget, and time to do a lot of things for the growth of your business.
The best way to make the most of these resources, is by introducing a great PR strategy. This is very important for the successful management and flow of your business.
A Public Relations strategy is an active guideline, that takes you on ways to adapt your business to new markets and opportunities. It isn't just about what your brand depicts on media but also involves communication within and out of your organization.
PR is very crucial for startups and small businesses, because it helps to increase credibility without putting in excess monetary value on marketing. 
There are also affordable tools that can help your small businesses utilize and manage PR. Here are a few other benefits of PR strategies for your SMBs.
#1. Increases your budget. Every small business owner knows how important every dollar can help to ease stress in their businesses. You may not spend a lot of money trying to publicize your business, but more is spent In your time. 
A PR strategy helps to gather trust for your business brand without having to drop too many dollars for advertising. 
The more people you get to talk about your business, with journalism or recommendations, the more it keeps growing. This also increases an active flow of customers in the long run.
#2. Prevents problems for small businesses who depend on word publicity, an upset customer may decide to damage your reputation by spreading bad publicity. 
One major role of PR, is to handle every information about your business that is being spread, ensuring that the information is correct. If it is not accurate, your PR strategy should have a way to rectify such misinformation.
Negative comments can tarnish the image of your brand, and that is something you will want to avoid.
#3. Increases brand visibility. Online media is a great way to increase your small business visibility. Articles, blogs, and news are continually visible on search engines across the world. In other words, the PR content you produce can add more value as it stays on.
Sharing all relevant news and stories across owned and shared stations can maintain the high ranking of your brand on search engines. This means more customers!
#4. Creates a good brand image. You can reach out to your audience and build awareness with the help of public relations. PR can increase and support your initiatives by advertising accurately without hindering your efforts to market your business.
It can deliver and provide your clients with real and sufficient value, whether by sharing inspiring or educational tags that can attract and win their hearts.
As hard as it seems, all it takes is discipline and the right strategy.  It may sound hard, but all it takes is a good plan and hard work. In the process of making a PR campaign, try to understand the needs of your audience to enable you to provide value.
#5. Builds lasting connections. Public relations involves the building of trust, so, you need to create and build connections that will last and bring great tidings.
It might seem time-consuming, but It works. You just need to make a routine schedule that will help you keep up.
Allocate a time range to your daily or weekly routines and watch how fast you will get more customers and free publicity.
Conclusion, as a small business owner, PR strategy is not just a way to influence a story after it happens, you can also use it to write that story right from the beginning.
All you need is to understand what it takes and practice it for the successful run of your business.

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Digital marketing has completely revolutionized both the digital world and the physical world. It simply means to advertise your company, business, online store, or website through digital means. These digital sources are multiple and manifold including email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), and search engine marketing. All of these marketing strategies are highly promising and yield rewarding results.
Following are the 8 tips and tricks that can hike your small business into a brand in the upcoming time.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
 Search engine optimization (SEO) is the backbone of digital marketing. You cannot successfully take start of your online presence without being aware of the SEO. If you want to grow and progress your small business then SEO can do the magic for you. It will not only bring relevant traffic and targeted customers but also make your online presence visible. SEO can convert your visitors into your customers. You can rank on 1st page of Google by implementing SEO techniques. Hence it can be said that you cannot grow your business digitally without SEO.
 
2. Content Marketing
 Content marketing is bringing fortune to small businesses not only in present but will also give huge benefits in the future. In content marketing, customers’ interest is grabbed by relevant, genuine, high-quality content. Renowned organizations and brands vastly use content marketing as one of their marketing strategies. Small businesses and individual business setups are also utilizing content marketing. Content marketing yields a huge increase in sales, cost savings as well as loyal and regular customers. Your digital marketing strategies are incomplete without content marketing.
 
3. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
 After content marketing, there comes social media marketing. Social media marketing or SMM comes under the umbrella of internet marketing. It defines the creation and promotion of quality content on different social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Snapchat, YouTube, etc. In SMM, you achieve the targets of increased sales, loyal customers, and converting small business into a brand through various social media networks. It is made plausible through regularly publishing quality content on your social profiles, checking your conversion rates and revenues, evaluating results, and last but not least running different advertisements to remain active and connected with the audience. Social media management tools are also utilized for social media marketing. In a nutshell, all of the above-mentioned social networks, tools, and methods are collectively referred to as social media management which manages social media marketing. Your active social media presence is as important as your physical presence in your outlets.
 
4. Pay Per Click (PPC)
 Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a form of digital marketing strategy in which search engine advertising is used to get clicks on your websites. These clicks are not attained organically but rather through ads. You pay for every click on your add which brings traffic to your website. If you well manage your PPC campaign then you can get huge revenues from it and the PPC fee will be worth such big revenues. For instance, your PPC fee is 5$ a click but you are getting 100$ sales from it then it is worth paying. PPC is advantageous for brands, small businesses, one-person shops, searchers, advertisers, and also search engines.
 
5. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
 Search engine marketing is a significant form of marketing strategy if small businesses are diving into a highly competitive marketplace and need to make their place. In search engine marketing, you buy paid advertisements to advertise and promote your business. These paid advertisements are shown on different search engine pages. Its key strength lies in the fact that it targets relevant customers who remain ready to buy the product as soon they see the advertisement of their required product.
6. Email Marketing
 Email marketing is a substantial method of connecting with customers and clients personally. Personalized contact develops affiliation with customers and brings them back. Small businesses cannot invest big in Facebook and Google paid promotions rather they can save the huge costs by investing their time in email marketing.
 
7. Video Marketing
 Video marketing is a great source of marketing for small businesses as it engages visitors and customers on the website. Brands invest hugely in video marketing and consequently get profitable revenues. Smaller businesses often ignore the benefits of video marketing and thus take a long time to make their marketplace. Small businesses don’t need to high invest in professional software rather they can create quality, creative and relevant content in the comfort of their home. A few minutes of video with engaging content can change the fortune of your small business.
8. Remember your marketing objectives
 Before taking the start of digital marketing strategies for your small business, determine your marketing objectives. The primary goals of companies with small business setups must be clear and simple in the beginning. Currently, enormous amount of small business owners think that digital marketing strategies helped them in reaching their target sales and customers.
 Conclusion
 In short, small businesses need an extensive digital marketing strategy to grow, promote and progress their business into a leading brand. Their marketing strategy largely assisted them in increasing their conversion rate, hike their web traffic, increased revenues and customer engagement. 

​Businesses large and small are constantly looking for ways to stand out. In an increasingly competitive digital market, that can be a particularly difficult task. One proven method is creating and maintaining a content strategy, a process by which a company builds its digital footprint. A pillar to any content strategy is a business blog—a place for the various content to live.
 
However, a strong content strategy is much more than simply posting on a business blog. It is a planned, measured, coordinated approach to growing your brand and your company. Aside from the obvious benefit of making a company more reputable, a content strategy complete with a business blog can be just the tool for accessing new customers and growing your brand. Here are some of the key benefits.
 
1. Increase SEO
 
You have probably heard of SEO, or search engine optimization. The term gets thrown around as if it is something only experts or large brands can utilize. The reality is that companies of all sizes can use it to their advantage.
 
A strong content strategy will include relevant keywords that are frequently searched for, and the more valuable the content the higher it will rank in Google searches. SEO is not a short-term strategy, but rather a long-term initiative that will put your content in front of more customers.
 
2. Become a subject matter expert
 
Have something to say on a topic? A strong content strategy will enable you to stake a claim as the foremost subject matter expert in your industry. When people are curious where to turn to get answers, your brand will be seen as a reputable source. Your business blog will function as a primary resource for your industry.
 
3. Develop a brand voice
 
Brands take on a personality of their own—if their marketing is effective. With a business blog, you have the opportunity to harness and control your brand’s voice. What is your company’s story? How do you want customers to see you? A trusted expert? A fun, exciting escape? Once you know the voice of your brand, use a business blog to explore it and develop it for long-term brand consistency.

​  The basis of marketing is about associating with your audience at the right place and time. Today, the internet is one of the most accessible resources available across the world, which means you are going to meet vastly greater numbers online.
This brings us to digital marketing. Digital marketing is any form of online marketing, encompassing all marketing tools or strategies that can be used on the internet. There are several channels in which a business or individual can use digital marketing to reach new and existing audience. A few different types of digital marketing available to businesses include, search engine optimization, social media marketing, pay per click (PPC), email marketing and sponsored content.
As digital marketing has become commonplace, many individuals expect companies to be using some form of social media or online means of contact. Although some companies may see this as an issue, it is also a great opportunity. As there are a vast array of options available to market digitally online, companies can experiment with a variety of different tactics using online resources. Furthermore, as this marketing is digital and online, there are many different analytical tools or software that can be used in combination with your digital marketing, which enables companies to keep accurate return on investment figures to be able to determine which marketing tools are more effective.
In combination with being able to track and determine effective marketing through digital marketing, there are also new tools available to businesses known as merchant services. This term is a broad term to cover different financial services that can be used online. The term is most used in the form of payment processing, which is when merchant service providers allow a business to process and accept a transaction securely online.  These payments are made using a customer’s debit or credit card.  A merchant service provider operates as an intermediary between the bank, customer and business receiving the funds.
There are several benefits for a business to use merchant service providers. One of the major benefits being that it allows payments to be accepted internationally, meaning your business can operate globally. Other reasons may include that card processing fees are usually cheaper than those of processing cheques and cash flow can be more accurately projected as funds will clear to the business bank account on a set day. Merchant services have become almost a necessity for many businesses that sell products as there is an increasing number of customers using card or electronic payment rather than cash. 

    While during the current pandemic, everybody is very aware of their surroundings. And if you are operating a small business during these times of stay home orders, state lock downs and business closures, you know these are very challenging times to say the least.
  Now there are several ways you can make sure your business survives the pandemic. All business should take action now to create lasting, positive effects once a sense of "Normalcy" resumes.
    Use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all other social media channels to let the world know, that you are open for business. Offer discounts to incentivize people to buy now. A lot of people are hurting financially, and would definitely appreciate an affordable discount on goods and services. If you do not sell online, you should still promote offers online. Use creative design messaging to look like coupons or vouchers. You also want to implement location hashtags, before you upload designs to social media.
     Take this time to also update your business profile, and your header images. Make sure you post daily, so you can stay TOP-of -Mind in awareness to your customers. Consider a cadence of posting which entertains, and educates your target reader. Americans are on mobile devices more than ever now, take advantage of that captive audience.
    One last thing I would like to add, Now is the perfect time to establish your own You Tube channel. Practice doing short videos in front of your computer, then teach yourself how to edit the videos. Youtube would be a great way for you to establish yourself, as an expert in your field. 
  That's all for now, stay say safe from this Covid-19 virus, WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS!!

  Of course you already know, Facebook has well over a billion monthly active users. It is the largest and most powerful social media platform in the world. Now taking advantage of this, can be a difficult challenge. For 2020, It is very important to take advantage of this platform, it is the best investment for building your brand, and bringing more customers to your business. 
   There are a lot of ways to target your ads on Facebook. As an initial strategy, targeting audiences using categories like age, gender or interests can yield great results. To get the most out of your campaigns, it is best to build custom audiences based on which types of users produce the most profit for your company. To speed up the custom audience targeting, you can upload a list of your leads or customer email addresses. Now there are several advantages to this sort of database marketing. You can effectively use the database to turn facebook into a retargeting platform. This is a smart way to reinforce your overall marketing strategy.
  You can also create a "lookalike" audience that targets users with similar profile characteristics to the ones in your database. When you create "lookalike" audience, you choose a source audience( which is a custom audience created with information pulled from your web pixel, fans of your page, or even an app). Then the ad is delivered to an audience of people who are similar to them.
   Now "Video Ads" are another strategy, and these can run in News feeds and Stories, and can also appear as in-stream ads in longer FB videos. Video ads show your product or service in action, and allows you to make more of an emotional connection with people you are targeting. 
   Lastly, I want to tell you about "Dynamic Ads", these ads allow you to promote targeted services or products. These ads will be relevant to the audience most likely interested in them. For example, if someone has visited a product page, or placed a product in their their shopping cart on their website, but then abandoned the purchase, "Dynamic Ads"  will place that exact product in their News Feed. This reminds customer to complete purchase, and can be a very effective Facebook strategy. There is a lot of Facebook content online, during these tough times it would be good to study the Facebook Advertising platform, and see how you can use it as a competitive advantage for your business. CHEERS!!!!!!

   So, how many people really paid attention to accounting in college. What do you do? When you are a small business, and can't afford an accountant. There are several iterations of accounting software out there. However, it is a good idea to find software, that serves more than one purpose. It can be difficult to know where to start, figuring out which solutions offer the features you need. You also have to decide whether the software is geared toward startups, or better for an enterprise solution.
   How do you identify which solution is best for your business. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Identify your needs
2. Be honest about your budget.
3. Research for features that meet your needs.
4. Pick a solution that will help scale your company.
 
   Be realistic about the solution that's best for your business. Cause you definitely don't want to have to switch software in 6 months, so it is very important to find which accounting software is best for your business. And one thing to remember, is if you are running a subscription based business model, make sure you find a software solution that can send out recurring invoices.

   You know you need to focus on bagging the right customers for your business, you just are not quite sure if you are doing it right. You probably do not even know if the current marketing you are doing is helping your business at all. Here are some of the current things you should be focusing on.

1. Reach a targeted audience with solid messaging.
2. Set yourself apart from your competitors.
3. Set and maintain a marketing budget.
4. Develop a cohesive Marketing Strategy  model.
5. Track your performance and ROI.

As a small business owner, you must be able to reach potential customers that are in proximity to your location. A lot of businesses are trying to be like Fortune 500  companies, when they need to just focus on a Hyper-local level in their neighborhood.  Customers today want the same things customers wanted a generation ago. They are looking for products and services to solve their problems and personalized service. These are the things small businesses excel at and that set them apart from bigger competitors. 
   If you are a small business owner, ask around your community if you can leave marketing collateral with your branding on it. Offer to do the same for them in return. I personally am always looking at local community message boards, and rack cards, with with branding from local businesses in the area. 

    Customer testimonials are very important in establishing trust, and integrity for your business. It adds content to your site, and helps your business look more valuable to potential customers. Testimonials not only help you market your services, they're an opportunity to connect with your audience on an emotional level. There are neurological studies which all confirm that people rely on emotions-not logic- to make decisions.
  At the heart of your testimonials are stories, characters who had a problem or unfulfilled desire, and and found the solution in your business. Stories are scientifically proven to tap into our brains in a unique way.
   Customer testimonials are an essential part of building your online business. They help greatly with the conversion rate of visitors to your business website. A lot people don't realize how hard it can be to persuade someone to open their wallet, testimonials are the most important thing that helps potential customers mitigate as much risk as possible. They make people feel more comfortable making a purchase if they know people have made the same purchase for similar reasons.
    One good way to get those testimonials and positive reviews started, is to offer customers, and potential buyers a discount to write something about their buying experience with your business. It can be tempting to have people write fake reviews about your business, however most times this will backfire.  Shoppers are getting better and better at discerning businesses with fake reviews, so please do not go down that road. Good luck with that Holiday traffic this year. Make sure to keep your business Top-of -Mind in your customers heads.

    LinkedIn has to be the best platform for establishing a B2B client base. This platform is a great way to target your ideal customer. I normally focus my efforts on Facebook and Instagram, now that I am becoming more familiar with the B2B marketing landscape, I have found that LinkedIn is a better way to go. Even the Freemium version is great, because you can attract followers and build brand awareness by posting content on your free profile.
   Success for any business really depends on their customer base, and potential supplier base. LinkedIn offers connection to both. Any business can raise and develop its brand awareness, while also taking advantage of advanced search. Also, very professional talent throughout the world uses LinkedIn, and the platform makes it incredibly simple to connect with potential employers.
    As with any social media network, it can be used to deliver traffic to your website and any landing pages you have created. A professional LinkedIn company page is an outlet that can help engage shareable content that your audience finds relevant and beneficial. It is superb at educating potential clients and building a repository of businesses to keep a dialogue with. 
   After the first of year, I will be upgrading to their premium service. It is a must because cold calling potential clients is getting harder and harder every year. It is not that I am giving up calling people over the phone, however it is important to always look for other ways to find potential clients.
    
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