Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

Facebook is among the top networking sites that businesses consider for marketing today. Especially small business, which are trying to find their footing, can use this social media platform for cost-effective marketing. Sadly, only a few of these businesses have been successful in making optimal use of the site's functionality to effectively market their brand. For one, these businesses do not spend enough time to explore the options that Facebook provides them. Even if they do, they fail to use them to their advantage.

Creating Your Facebook Page

Considering that Facebook attracts a number of people from different walks of life, it can be considered as a great marketing channel for different kinds businesses like restaurants, ecommerce sites, media or news sites, charities and retailers. And the first step to a successful Facebook marketing campaign is to create the right kind of business page on the site. The key things to consider for creating a Facebook business page include what you intend to achieve via Facebook, the population you are targeting, and how much time and money you intend to spend on it.

When rightly used, Facebook can help different businesses achieve different marketing goals.

How to Market Your Business on Facebook

Here are the things you should do for effectively marketing your business on this social media platform.

Make it Simple, but Effective

Do you know how easy or difficult it is for your customers to find you or like you on Facebook? The goal of having a Facebook business page is to attract as many people to like it as possible, paving way for online word-of mouth marketing. If you want your customers to like you or share your link on Facebook, the basic thing is to make the Facebook buttons and widgets easily accessible to them on your homepage.

Make use of the different plugins that Facebook has to offer, rather than just the "like" button. Use the 'share' button for a stronger impact, use the "subscribe" button if you have a newsletter and the 'recommendations' button for your blog posts, and place them to enable easy access.

Use the Facebook Plugins

There are a number of Facebook plugins that can be used to your advantage. One such feature is 'visible-to-connection', using which you can offer special discount coupons, vouchers, samples and sneak peeks of your upcoming products and events exclusively to your connections on the site. This is great not just to promote your products, but also for attracting more people to 'like' or 'subscribe' to your Facebook page.

Reward Your Fans

Getting people to visit and like your Facebook marketing page is just the first step. If you want them to stay on your page and do what you want them to do, you need to reward them with something special. The best thing to do for this is to create special promotions exclusively for your Facebook connections. The right kind of promo not only makes them loyal to you, but also encourages them to share it with their friends on the network.

Offline Promotion of Your Facebook Marketing Page

No matter how excellent your Facebook page is, you can make it a hit only when your customers know that it exists. So, use the other offline marketing tools and get your existing customers to visit your Facebook marketing page first. That way, you can easily get more 'likes' and make your page popular quickly.

What to Avoid in Facebook Marketing

Doing the right things would be good, provided you don't quash them with the wrong ones. Here are a few mistakes you should avoid for successful Facebook marketing.

Broadcasting/Selling

The first, and perhaps the biggest, mistake in Facebook marketing is selling or broadcasting. Remember that Facebook is one of the most effective tools for word-of mouth marketing. But direct selling can be a major put off and is the best tool to keep away users from your page. So interact, but don't broadcast.

Uninteresting Posts

If you want to get noticed on Facebook, you need to be interesting. But several business owners forget that when it comes to marketing on Facebook. To make your marketing campaign successful, be sure to spend time on updating your page regularly with interesting content that your audience is most likely to read and share. Then again, avoid using "filler" content and being repetitive. This will only make you predictable and boring.

Violating the T&C

Implementing the perfect Facebook-marketing plan in the right way makes the campaign powerful. But even your best laid plans can fail if you remember to do everything, but fail to understand how it actually works. So, before you get started with marketing on Facebook, it is best to spend as much time as you can to explore the site and go through the terms and conditions to avoid violating them. Otherwise, you may end up in the bad books of the site, and lose all opportunities to reach out to a huge audience through it.

Having the right mailing list is the key to success of a direct marketing campaign. But how do you create an effective mailing list? How do you find highly targeted contacts that should go into this list? That's a challenge that a number of marketers face today. But if you are successful in this challenge, you can be sure of getting the message across to the right people and get the desired results from the campaign.

Finding the right sources

A direct mailing list can be created with the help of internal and external sources.

• Internal sources include records of existing and past customers, correspondence (queries, complaints) from customers, market survey and research data, sales and warranty records.
• The external sources include websites of the prospective customers (B2B), the paid information database on the internet, yellow pages or local telephone directories, published consumer surveys, trade or industry related directories, and more.

Irrespective of the source you choose, you need to make sure that the list you create is not outdated. Also, it is a good idea to exhaust your internal sources first, before you invest in the external sources. The perfect mailing list should contain the name, title, the existing email address, website, the telephone number and the complete mailing address of the targeted prospects.

Tips for creating an effective mailing list

Once you obtain the required list of prospective contacts, here is how you can make it more effective.

Segmenting the mailing list

The first step to creating an effective mailing list is to segregate the contacts based on certain parameters.

Internal and external lists: The list of contacts you obtain from internal sources would usually be existing customers, or those who you have contacted at least once in the past. This list can be divided into three categories

• Customers who spend at least a certain amount on your products every year
• Customers who have made a purchase from your in the last six months
• Ex-customers, who have purchased your products in the past

The external lists that you buy or rent are usually segregated by the name, title, or telephone numbers. You can further segregate and structure these lists in different ways, to create a highly precise direct marketing mailing list.

Geographic: One of the most common ways to segment a mailing list is to define the area that you intend to target. This is especially when the product or service you are offering is available only for customers in a particular region. Geographical segmentation can be done according to state, city, zip code or specific areas within a certain radius.

Demographic: In case of B2C marketing, where you target individual consumers, you can segment your mailing list according to their demographics. The parameters you can consider for demographic segmentation include:

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Marital status
• Ownership of home, vehicle and other consumer durables
• Profession or job
• Spending habits
• Status of insurance
• Interests and preferences in brands
• Leisure and vacation activities

While age, gender and income may be commonly used parameters, you can add customized parameters to filter out the best prospects, depending on the kind of product or service you are promoting.

B2B segmentation

In case of B2B mailing list segmentation, you can consider parameters such as the type of business, size of the company and the workforce, yearly expenditure, frequency of purchase, average order size, purchasing location etc of the businesses you want to target.

By segmenting the mailing list, you make it easier to filter out the most profitable prospects and can also create customized content to make the campaign target-based and more effective.

Validating the list

The next step is to validate the segmented lists for accuracy. This includes:

• Removal of duplicate or multiple entries of contacts, usually mentioned in different ways
• Updating the incomplete addresses, or removing incomplete contact details if needed
• Verifying the validity of the available information (checking if the prospect actually resides in the same house, and has the same mobile or phone number etc)

The final mailing list should be further refined with updated information about the prospective customers, and the replies you receive from them. The existing mailing list should also be updated regularly, with a new list of prospective contacts you receive from the sales team and from other sources.

Follow rules and regulations

The basic rule for creating and managing direct mailing lists is to ensure adherence to the law and regulations that govern usage of personal data. So, once you have the data of the prospects you wish to target, ensure that it is used properly. This includes being transparent about how and why the data is being used, and allowing individuals and firms access any data about them that you hold. Also, the legislations and the regulations must be kept in mind if you wish to commission your direct mailing list to other organizations.

It is necessary in certain small business functions to use a vehicle. Not all business is done over the phone or by customers simply walking into your store. In many instances, a vehicle is needed to accomplish and complete business actions and transactions.

However, how do you determine if you need to purchase a small business vehicle and which car or automobile should you use?

Needs of the Small Business

First, you need to ascertain the needs of your small business. Using a bit of logic will help you put your small business into a category of "need." "helpful," or "unnecessary."

Obviously, if your small business is a taxi service or some form of delivery service, a vehicle will be a requirement as a business function. However, say you own a donut shop chain in your city. If you deliver donuts to clients, or say you use only one location to make and bake your donuts and need to deliver the goods to other chain stores, a vehicle is necessary.

Here are some other examples where a small business vehicle might be necessary to fulfill your business functions.

• Sales travel: Does your business require you or your sales team to travel in order to meet and make presentations to prospective clients? This could be a case where a company car would be useful. However, using personal vehicles and reimbursing per mile instead may be a better option financially. Consider how many miles a car is driven per year, and whether a sales employee is willing to apply his or her own car for that use.
• Deliver goods: Do you deliver your products to clients? Or perhaps you a courier to deliver items from one place to another. A small business vehicle like a delivery truck with your company brand or logo may be ideal for everyday business use.
• Business items: Perhaps you operate a small catering company. You will need a certain kind of small business vehicle that can transport your service items to an event.
• Client transportation: A taxi or limo service is a good example of this. This is definitely a case for a small business vehicle, or even a fleet, that can operate under a business auto insurance policy.
• Advertising: Perhaps you just want to help get your business name in front of more people. A company car may not be suitable for this sole purpose, but a personal vehicle could do the trick with a tax advantage to the owner.

Cost of the Automobile

The cost of the company car could be a barrier for some small businesses. However, if you can afford buying this capital asset, then look at the other cost details for a company car.

• Buying or Leasing: Purchasing a new or used automobile will increase your assists on your balance sheet. You'll also get the advantage of deducting depreciation expense from that asset each year. Leasing a vehicle does not give you any ownership benefit, but the cost of the lease is a fully deductible expense.
• Insurance: Consider what types of small business vehicle insurance you will need, including liability, collision, and comprehensive coverage all under a commercial auto policy.
• Custom painting/interior: Will your small business vehicle need a makeover to display your brand name? Perhaps you want a custom paint job for the car or renovate the interior to accommodate guests, products, or what ever else your intend to use the company car for.

Image and Branding

If you company car can help improve your business branding and name recognition, the ROI may be worth the cost of the car. Some types of small businesses will benefit from a car with a name and logo painted on it, especially if seen in the course of doing business, such as deliveries, catering setups, etc.

Who's Driving?

The last thing to consider about a small business vehicle is who will be driving. Be sure any drivers of your company car have a clean driving record. You don't want the hassle and extra expense of dealing with accidents, especially if your company driver is at fault.