7 Promotional Ideas Tips for Your Small Business

It is usually a huge challenge for many small businesses to differentiate themselves from their competition and capture the attention of customers. What makes the difference is how the businesses are promoted. Most small business owners probably know this already. They know how important it is to promote a business with vigor. What most however fail to fully understand is how and where to carry out the relevant promotion activities. What to advertise, how to advertise and where to advertise becomes pertinent. Even though advertising a small business can be challenging because of the characteristic low advertising budget peculiar with many small businesses, there are many routes and steps you can take that are cost-effective. Exactly where these here promotional ideas, and tips are relevant.

 

1. Create and Share Quality Sponsored Content: If you want to get your brand quickly known, think sponsored content. It is one great way to get your brand out there to make it known. What nature of content is best to sponsor? Expert marketers recommend blogs and videos sharing via the right channels. So, you can create original high quality content in blog posts or videos. Next is to work with and collaborate with reputable brands that are willing to share your content for a fee to share it.

2. Promote on Social Media: If you promote on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and the likes, you can take full advantage of their in-house marketing tools and their huge popularity to brand your small business. Presently, over 4.5 billion people worldwide are active on social media 24/7. With such a huge audience, there’s no better place at the moment to promote your small business. Most marketers know that each social media platform attracts a slightly different demographic. What that means is that you can better target your ads to reach a very wide audience at minimal costs.

3. Use Paid Search Advertising: Online paid advertising is usually very effective particularly if it is PPC, pay per click. If you invest in paid search advertising, it is possible for you to directly reach potential customers who are looking for what you are selling through the relevant keywords in your content. Therefore, even with a very low ads budget, you can target a specific audience based on location, browser, and other relevant information.

4. Market with Affiliate Programs: Affiliate marketing programs are low cost marketing strategies small business owners can take advantage of. They are excellent high-impact marketing strategies that thrive on a mutually beneficial partnership between product merchants and affiliates.  As a small business owner, you can partner with other brands, content marketers, bloggers, or social media channels to promote your products/services with a profit sharing arrangement. Affiliate programs are a great way to generate leads for your small business through social proof. Building a great brand reputation for your brand derives from there.

5. Sponsor Ads on Social Media: If you advertise online, all you want is traffic. By sponsoring ads on social media, you have the great benefit of your ads appearing in your audience’s news feed, even if they aren’t following your page. That means traffic which is good for your business. Sponsored social media ads can be very successful because, you can directly target specific demographics that are most likely to buy your products/services. That way, you get the most value from your ad spend.

6. Use Influencer Marketing: Some research findings indicate that over 60% of consumers trust influencer endorsements. What this means is that most consumers are more likely to buy a product recommended by an influencer than the one endorsed by the seller. Most consumers rely on influencer endorsements to make their buy decisions because of the trust they have on the influencer. This is why it is much better to rely on Influencers to help build the brand reputation of your business and to generate leads at a lower cost than on traditional advertising which costs higher.

7. Advertise at Your Local Chamber of Commerce: Worldwide, local chambers of commerce are places where business owners and business minded people interact closely. That makes them one great place to advertise your small business if you ask me. Through them, you can easily reach new people in your community at minimal costs. You can also build highly rewarding relationships with other local business owners particularly in your business niche. For business inquiries, many people usually like to visit the website of their local chambers of commerce. That makes the chambers a very effective way to reach new customers.

Advertising by Word of Mouth

 Advertising by word of mouth may sound old fashioned but it is still very potent, efficient and effective. There is research evidence supporting the fact that at 21 years of age, the average young person already knows at least 800 people very closely. The numbers can be staggering when you factor in that most of these people will be youths who each also knows other 800 people very closely. Just get out a word into such a group and you will be amazed how far and how fast such word will travel within the loose network. That is the power of word of mouth particularly in advertising. 


 
Unarguably, one of the most viable alternatives to the traditional established media outlets, that is, television, radio, newspapers and others for disseminating information is word of mouth. This is because word of mouth retains the capacity to spread information cheaply to a huge number of people in a short period of time. Before the advent of modern media outlets like newspapers, radio, television, or even the Internet, word of mouth was the only viable way to spread information effectively and efficiently to a very large audience within a short period of time. It is still that effective even at the moment.

Word of mouth is cheap, effective and it comes very naturally to most humans. Over the ages, human beings have relied more upon word of mouth to convey and preserve information than any other form of propagation. It simply comes naturally for most people. Because modern media outlets exist to make a profit for their owners, they have no choice but to charge for advertising. This at times amounts to very huge costs which most marketers can ill afford. Keeping down costs is one smart way marketers rely on to increase their profits. The main reason why word of mouth is still around with us and still helping us out in our daily lives and businesses!

If you are in business, there is no doubt you’ve heard someone say: “pass the word on fella!” That is word of mouth in information propagation. Marketers have since found out that it is historically true that for news to spread by word of mouth, it must be newsworthy. “Have you heard?” is one common phrase everyday people use everywhere they interact with themselves and others. Traditionally, the human being is a social animal and it is part of his life to habitually interact with others. That is what helps to spread word of mouth information cheaply, quickly and very widely. If you’ve ever been the subject and the butt of gossip, you’ll get to appreciate what I am driving at. The newsworthiness of any event directly controls how fast and how far it is spread. Good news or bad news, people always want to hear it particularly when it is coming from people they know and routinely interact with. That helps the spread more than any other form of pecuniary considerations including financial.

Creative Influencer Marketing Tactic: Go live

 Even though blogging is still a very popular influencer marketing technique, many marketers go creative nowadays.  Many of them decide to go live these days as an additional very effective influencer marketing technique. That is the real reason many brands are embracing it. That is why Brands now sponsor an influencer’s live feed on social platforms, including Instagram or Facebook. Livestream collaborations can take many forms -- real-time product unboxing, Q&As, fashion haul try-ons, cooking, activity and destination promotions, behind-the-scenes footage at events. In all these and for effects, brand mentions are creatively included throughout the broadcast. This option can be particularly well-suited for brands with initiatives they're not always associated with. Take for example, a food brand that has a charity they want to promote. The charity promotion draws a sympathetic and curious audience while the audience inevitably gets to see the brand promotions. It works well and the results are very good.

How to Convince New Affiliates about Daily Actions in SFI Business

To convince new affiliates about the importance of logging in at the Affiliate Center every day, tell them your own story. Tell them what logging into the Affiliate Center daily does for you and your own business. Tell them the benefits you derive by logging in daily and that they too can get the same benefits if they do same. Let them know of the following benefits derivable from logging in at the Affiliate Center every day. 


 
1. You get to know firsthand what is new in SFI through SFI news offering at the center.
2. You get urgent information about your business at the center.
3. You review the tabs therein and earn free VersaPoints.
4. You see the latest products additions at Tripleclicks.
5. You enter for Daily Grand draws at the center.
6. You get notifications/business tips about what you need to do to advance your business.
7. You see how your earnings progress at the scoreboard.
8. You get to see the overall growth of SFI worldwide.
9. You get notifications about how to enter Zebra games and Daily Grand draws.
10. You see your goals and your progress in achieving them.
11. You get to see your a2a friends’ requests and messages from a2a friends.
12. You receive mails from SFI, your upline, downline and ECAs.
13. You get to see how your PSAs and CSAs are making progress in their business.
14. You communicate with your downline from the Affiliate Center.
15. You see how much progress you are making by your VersaPoints stack up.
16. You read up a lot of literature about duplication, promotion, advertising, and your entire business.
17. You see how the medals you are earning stack up.
18. You participate in Ask SC/forums from your Affiliate Center.
19. You can track your advertising at the Affiliate Center.
20. You get to know at the Affiliate Center what auctions are going on and the time others are scheduled. 


 
These are just a few of the direct benefits you get from logging in at the Affiliate Center daily which can help you convince new affiliates to do same. In fact new affiliates must be made to understand that the engine room for each SFI affiliate is the Affiliate Center. That center also serves as a virtual Business Office where you run your entire business. Not logging in there is akin to not going to your office daily. The importance of logging in at the Affiliate Center everyday can therefore not be over emphasized for any new affiliate who is sufficiently serious about his/her business.

How Best to Allocate Your Time for SFI and TripleClicks

If I have one hour to spend on this business every day, I allocate 50% of the time to SFI and 50% to TripleClicks. This is almost habitual with me now since I joined SFI about four years ago.

Coming to the second leg of the question, I personally spend the time I have for both departments in doing these 4 things.
- 50% of the time on marketing/promotion.
- 20% of the time for training myself and my affiliates.
- 20% of the time for communicating.
- 10% of the time for sundry activities like Trivia Games.

These percentages work very well for my highly-disciplined schedule and I think they will work very well too for any serious affiliate who wants to succeed in the business.

Why Become an ECA in SFI Business

Yes there are very many advantages of becoming an ECA, E-Commerce Associate, in TripleClicks, some of which are listed below.

1. You can create your own online store to display your own products for sale at TripleClicks store.

2. You can decide on the prices you sell your products.

3. Your storefront can be easily and readily available to millions of visitors worldwide because TripleClicks is a very high ranking website on the Internet.

4. You can earn valuable VersaPoints to advance your SFI business if you make sales in your ECA.

5. You will have full access to a FREE high-ranking webpage to host your store.

6. You will have total control of your e-commerce business for you to run.

7. You can manage your marketing and promotion activities yourself as you deem fit.

8. You stand to earn profits and take losses yourself just like the real business person you are.

9. You have access to excellent marketing tools and training provided FREE by SFI/TripleClicks.

10. You are rest assured that your store is hosted in one of the most secure sites on the web.

11. Your downline and all your sponsored affiliates can learn from you, buy from you and your store can motivate them to set up their own.

12. Your ECA business can in very significant ways help grow your SFI pool commission and overall income.

These benefits may be endless with some intangible but highly satisfying.

How to Come up With Good Content for SFI Weekly Newsletters

In SFI business, Newsletters could be highly informative to your downline if well-written and structured. Since you have been in SFI business for some time, you must know what is important to you to grow the business. These are the things your newsletter must contain to make it rich. Specifically, I will like to recommend the following as specific content in your newsletter.

 

1. Latest SFI and TripleClicks news.
2. Current affiliate tips.
3. New additions to Eager Zebra games.
4. New products debuting at TripleClicks.
5. Winning Ask SC answers for the week.
6. Trending and popular forum posts.
7. New SFI milestones.
8. New additions and challenges in SFI.
9. Recent members’ testimonials.
10. Duplication and promotion tips.
11. Hot items at TripleClicks.
12. Team members’ contests updates (if any.)
13. Team members’ achievements and recognitions.
14. New ECAs updates.
15. Members’ cooperative updates (if any.)

 

If you are able to incorporate all of or some of these things in your weekly newsletter, it is bound to be rich in content and highly rewarding to your downline. 

Best of luck!!!

What you can do With One Hour a Day in SFI

If you know what you are doing, an hour a day is an extremely valuable and sufficient time to do a lot in SFI. Many affiliates may do many different things depending on their own priorities in the business. From my own experience, I always advise my affiliates to do the following everyday no matter how pressing their time is.

1. Log in to your site and perform all the “To-Do” tasks on your Dashboard to earn VersaPoints.
2. Read the recent/latest news from SFI.
3. Go to your “Hit Tracking” page and check on the performance of your ads.
4. Read your mails and respond where necessary.
5. Check out the latest additions at TripleClicks.
6. Do a bit of products promotion.
7. Enter for the day’s Daily Grand contest.

The foregoing are the tasks I routinely do which I believe you too can successfully do within an hour each day to promote and grow your SFI business. Good luck!!!