I was doing some online research today and got lost in this really great website full of small business marketing information. You really can get lost in all the information. I purchased one of the products from his store on article marketing, and I can tell you, I learned a few great tips just by scanning it. This guy (Charlie Cook) really knows his stuff and has a lot of valuable information to share. If you have about an hour to wander around a website for some great marketing tips and ideas, it’s worth a visit!

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Are you aware of how beneficial press releases are to your marketing efforts?

Anytime something newsworthy happens in your business, you should write a press release about it. Whether it’s a new service offering, a new office location, a promotion, an award, anything people didn’t know about yesterday could make for a good press release. You can go ahead and submit your release to local media outlets, but more importantly, spread it on the Internet.

Whenever you write a press release, it should be submitted online. Why? Well, each time you have a press release that links back to your site, that helps your SEO. Not every press release that gets submitted online will be picked up by anyone, in fact, it’s kind of rare. The biggest benefit is the boost to your SEO.

When writing a press release, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, you need a great headline. I often spend more time coming up with a headline than I do writing the content of a piece. If the headline stinks, it doesn’t matter what’s in the rest of the press release, it won’t get read.

It’s important to include a link to your site near the top of the press release, and that’s also where the main newsiness (nice word, eh?) of the piece should be, in case it gets chopped up. You should have a quote in there somewhere, so if it does get picked up by someone, they don’t necessarily have to call you for a comment. At the end of the press release, it’s good to have some ‘About’ information about your company or yourself, but it’s not totally necessary.

After reading ‘Publicity Hound’, Joan Stewart’s newsletter yesterday, I discovered a mega cool tool for press release analysis: Press Release Grader. You can copy and paste your PR in there and it will tell you how well you’ve scored for marketing purposes. The last one I wrote got a 90% which is cool. It also gives feedback on how to improve it. What a great tool!

If you suck at writing aren’t great at writing,  outsource the task. I write a lot of press releases, and can pump them out pretty efficiently. Another option is to give it your best shot, then send it to an editor to polish it up. I heart Angela Smith of Accu-Asisst for this task.

So, what’s happened in your business lately that merits a press release? It’s GREAT free marketing for the bootstrapping entrepreneur.

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So, you might be wondering why my logo is adorned with balloons, presents  and a birthday cake. Just so happens, June is a big month for Mann Made Time. We’re celebrating two years in business and it’s my birthday month - one more year in my twenties…reason to celebrate, right?

After two years in business, I have really been able to find out which services I love the most and the ones I prefer to outsource to my team members. My biggest love is writing, and I’ve been lucky enough to be doing more and more of it for my awesome clients. I’m toning up my marketing message to attract more copywriting projects and that excites me.

When you first start your business, nailing down a target market and niche can seem very overwhelming and a lot of people don’t believe they should focus their marketing on any one place. In a sense, that’s a good idea. Offer a bunch of services (ONLY ones you’re great at) and then decide where your biggest strengths lay and which things you enjoy doing the most. Then carve out your niche and decide on a target market. If you started your business with a target market that you don’t feel the love for after some time has passed, change things up. There’s no rule saying that you have to target the same bunch forever. There’s no rule saying you can’t upgrade your skills and find yourself a niche you really love.

Your business is your business. You’ll get out of it what you put into it. If you’re doing work you love for people you truly enjoy working with you’ll be more motivated and success will come easier. You’re the boss. Do you look forward to the work you have on your plate when you wake up each morning? For a time, I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing. Now, it’s like Dr. Phil says. If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. I feel privileged to provide the services people pay me well to do. It really doesn’t feel like work and what could be better than that?!

Oh. And happy birthday to me!!!

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If you read my blog regularly, you know I have a deep love of the Food Network. Because I have two little ones in my house, I rarely get to watch anymore, except at night when they don’t need to be watching Max and Ruby. Although the best cooking shows aren’t on then, the more interesting ones are including my very mostest favorite one - Kitchen Nightmares. I think I’ve developed a crush on the show’s star (the very intense Gordon Ramsay) but that’s beside the point. I come away from each one hour episode with a new business lesson that can be applied to my virtual assistant business.

Last night’s episode had Ramsay trying to rescue Lela’s , a “fine dining” restaurant that served instant mashed potatoes and frozen vegetables. Not so fine, right? The restaurant was only eight months old and failing desperately. There were problems with staff members stealing, being loud and rowdy in the kitchen while diners could hear, a lack of leadership from the owner, and a very bad menu without one single fresh item on it. After his initial tasting of the restaurant’s  dishes (many of which were not available that day) and comments on the multiple spelling errors on the menu, he went to scout out the neighborhood to poll locals.

Many hadn’t ever visited the restaurant because it was out of their price range, and everyone wanted a place where they could just feel comfortable and eat good food at a good price.

He quickly found out that a “fine dining” restaurant was not going to fly in a neighborhood made up of either homeless people or young people without much of an expendable income. When he looked at the other restaurants in the community, the one thing missing was a place where people could just order a burger or another casual and affordable meal. He completely changed the look, feel, and menu of Lela’s. People loved it.

Are you trying to sell your service or product to a demographic that will never buy in? Or are you offering the same service to the same target market as fifteen other companies? You need to either niche yourself or differentiate. Take a look at your target market. What are their pain points? What do they need that nobody else is offering them? Can you provide this service?

Turns out that Lela’s was  in too deep a hole to get out of, even with the experience, charm and good looks of Gordon Ramsay. That doesn’t mean this approach wouldn’t have worked, I believe it would have. You have to give your audience what they want. Even if it’s the lowly cheeseburger. Just make it the best damn cheeseburger anyone has ever tasted. If that’s what people want, why bother trying to perfect your lobster bisque recipe?

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We are all familiar with the story. Winter is coming and the little industrial ants are busy hunting and gathering food for the long cold months of being holed up in their hill. Their minds are focused on one thing - getting food. It’s what they need to sustain themselves and no matter how well they stock their little ant cupboards, they keep going and going until they’re forced to stop. Through the winter months, they’ll have lots of little ant snacks to enjoy while watching Grey’s Entomology on their little ant TVs.

Meanwhile, the ‘live in the moment’ grasshopper has a full belly and doesn’t feel the need to prepare for the winter. He’s out dancing and hopping…in the grass…poking fun at the busy little ants and wondering why they don’t just relax a bit.

Some entrepreneurs are ants, and some are grasshoppers. If you think of leads as food - fuel you need to thrive - this will make much more sense. A business that depends on leads must never stop generating them. Even if you don’t feel hungry for new business today, things can be dramatically different tomorrow. Winter could be just around the corner.

Are you marketing your business even when you have a full roster of clients? Or are you waiting for the day when the snow flies and you’re starving?

In the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, the hospitable ants took the grasshopper in, gave him something to eat and I think they had a big party or something. Unfortunately, this is business, and I don’t know many business ants that would share their hard earned leads with a hungry  business grasshopper.

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