How to Google+ Circles Can Grow Your Business

The main purpose of joining social media sites, such as Google+, is to grow your network, gain exposure, and generate customers for your business.

Google+ circles are great when it comes to creating brand awareness and building an audience for your online marketing presence. Circles are similar to “Likes” on Facebook and “Followers” on Twitter; it is used to build a network of people who are interested in your business, products, or services.

However, many people find that Google+ circles are more “user-friendly” than other platforms like Facebook. For instance, its “drag and drop” feature makes it quick and simple to add people into your circles.

Not only that, but you can create many different circles in Google+ and only add relevant people to each circle. As a business owner, it is recommended that you create separate circles for your business prospects, clients, employees, family – or any other segment that relates to your needs.

This makes sharing information a lot easier as it can be tailored only to those groups who have an interest in what you are sharing.

You can also create specific marketing campaigns to target specific circles.  The nice thing is that if you offer different types of products and services, you can create individual circles based around those specific things; allowing you to target even further.

Keep in mind that social media is about more than “selling” your products and services. It creates a way for you to “build relationships” with your target audience, which will in turn create more loyal customers over time.

By sharing helpful and interesting information with them, such as tips, videos, or photos, you can quickly build trust and authority status.

With good, valuable content, it won’t take long to find more people to join your circles because the people in your circles will recommend it to their friends, family, and other associates. Although it takes time to manage, growing Google+ circles is not hard for most people.

Due to the explosive growth of Google+, businesses can no longer ignore this amazing digital tool. With more than 170 users, it is a very powerful way to generate more exposure for your brand.

QR Codes Are Free Marketing!

QR code

You may have seen or heard about QR codes, but weren’t sure how they worked, what they were for and how they could benefit your small business. QR codes stand for “Quick Response” codes and are a matrix barcode similar to a barcode that’s on most every retail product these days, but holds much more data and information. Bar codes hold up to 20 digits, but QR codes are 2-D matrices that can hold thousands of letters and numbers of data.

Smart phones – whether iPhone, Android or Google branded devices – read QR codes and use the data to access a mobile website, mobile offer or other digital content. Companies and small businesses are using QR codes to link to sign up pages for mobile text lists, mobile coupon offers and mobile app downloads or contest pages on mobile websites or to send people to their Facebook page or to a mobile app or other download site.

QR codes have been used effectively for over a decade in Japan – their country of origin – by many different types of businesses. QR codes differ from other aspects of mobile marketing because they need to be placed somewhere that they can be easily scanned by mobile devices.

QR codes are perfect marketing tools for small businesses because they are free to create and use. Some of the places that businesses use QR codes are:

  • On marketing materials like flyers and brochures – these can link to a specific page on your mobile website or a specific offerQR code
  • On business cards – on the front if there’s room, if not on the back – and links to a specific offer or opt-in page
  • On sales receipts – offering a discount on the next purchase when customers opt-in to your email text list or other promotion
  • On restaurant menus – particularly take-out menus – that can link to a page where people can order takeout or delivery on the go
  • On vehicles – your company car, personal car, cars of friends and family – that link to your mobile website or a mobile opt-in offer
  • On flyers – posting flyers on phone poles, bulletin boards or car windshields with codes that link to offers
  • On packaging – these can link to information pages about the products or instant coupons to encourage purchase

QR codes are time savers because they allow your customers and potential customers to have instant access to your company’s mobile website, text opt-in page or mobile offers while on the go with a quick snap. Busy people won’t call a number and they may forget your website url, but they appreciate the instant gratification of clicking and getting information and access they want – when they want it and are in the mood to receive your message.

Because they cost virtually nothing to implement, there’s no reason not to try to integrate QR codes into every small business marketing strategy. QR codes are exciting, because there’s really no limit to what you can offer to your customers and potential customers using this low-cost flexible marketing tool.

Getting a Shopping Cart

E-commerce can be extremely complicated and expensive. There are countless decisions to make, and each one seems to add expense. In general you need three separate services; the merchant account, the gateway, and the shopping cart.

Merchant Account:

The merchant account allows you to process credit cards.

Gateway:

For the gateway, you’d want to use Authorize (click here for details). Authorize works with virtually all shopping carts and merchant accounts. The gateway connects your merchant account to your shopping cart securely.

Shopping Cart

The shopping cart is your tool for displaying, categorizing, pricing, and selling your products. It’s the database driven dynamic website for handling online orders. It is a, generally, a fully functioning stand alone website.

Cost Saving Options

Embedded Shopping Cart:

Most of these shopping carts are similar in that you are creating a site for selling your products. There’s another solution that I prefer for small carts, it’s called Wazala (click here for details). The way it works is your cart opens in a new shadow box (where the content is in the middle and the background is grayed out). This eliminates the need to create a whole new site for your shopping cart. It’s closer to having your shopping cart embedded in your current site.

Here are some examples of a couple sites I’ve used Wazala for:
www.SpiceAndChili.com
www.PuppyPosh.com

Sage Payment Solutions

Depending on the size and scope of the shopping cart, sometimes Sage (click here for details) can work as the merchant account, gateway and shopping cart. Sometimes (depending on the cart) it can also just work as the merchant account and gateway.

PayPal and/or Google Wallet

These act as both a gateway and merchant account, although they’re not true merchant accounts. They charge the customer (the customers bill says PayPal or Google Checkout) and then pass the money on to you. This can add a level of complication for those who don’t use PayPal or Google Wallet. Generally the fees are a little steeper, however you don’t have the monthly costs, so it depends on your sales volume.

Example: If you have a gateway and a merchant account it wouldn’t be unusual to pay $40/mo for those two services. If you are only doing $1000 in sales that represents 4% of your sales, so paying 2.9 instead of 1.9 on a given transaction, may not be your biggest concern. In fact, in this example, your break even would be $4,000.

The drawbacks to PayPal and Google Wallet, is they don’t make your company look very big. Anyone can get a PayPal account. Additionally, it will take a couple days longer to get your money through these services.

Consumer Focused Mobile Marketing Drives Profits

A recently released survey by Web.com on small business mobile usage revealed that 84% of small businesses that use mobile marketing have seen an increase in business. But before you jump blindly into mobile marketing, you need to craft a strategy that will most effectively leverage your resources to increase profits.

To know how to effectively reach your target consumers, you need to understand their wants and needs. If you have regular customers, you can ask them what they would like to see on your mobile website, if they are interested in mobile offers and what they feel your business is lacking in terms of marketing.

Another good way to analyze your mobile marketing needs is to see how browsers of your full website navigate your site. You can use free tools such as Google Analytics to see which links are most often clicked on or try a low cost ($9/month) service such as CrazyEgg.com. CrazyEgg creates a heatmap of your site that will show you what parts of your site people hover on and click on, even if they are not links.

Even if you only sign up for an analytics service for one month, this should give you an idea of what people are looking at on your full site – this should give you some ideas of what to include on your mobile website. If you offer discounts or disclose pricing on your website and see heavy activity there, this can be an indication that mobile coupons and offers would be greeted eagerly.

By looking at what areas of your full site generate the most action, you can refine your mobile marketing strategy to be most efficient. For instance, restaurant websites may see a lot of action on their online menu or delivery/takeout options. Dry cleaners may see more action on their price list areas. Based on the analysis, you can design your mobile website interface to get the consumer quickly to their area of interest.

Equally as important, you can eliminate from your mobile marketing program, the portions of your full website that aren’t seeing any action. This will streamline your marketing approach. As well as considering your standard website browsing activity, think about what people ask when they are in your establishment and what they want to know when they call. Your mobile web presence should be designed to provide all of the information people seek via all of your communication channels. Here’s what you are likely to find:

  • Callers may ask your days/hours of operation
  • Callers may ask about special events
  • Callers may ask about discounts or promotions
  • Callers may ask about your inventory/menu/services
  • Callers may ask for directions or landmarks to find your establishment

Once you’ve accumulated all of the input, you can devise a mobile marketing strategy that will meet all these needs using an easy-to-navigate format that will get them the information they need with the least clicks and least hassle possible.

When you meet the needs of potential customers by giving them a positive mobile web experience, you greatly increase the odds of them transacting with you. And if you don’t meet those needs, the results will be less in your favor. If your mobile website doesn’t load correctly or rapidly, 33% of mobile web users will immediately click off of your website and look to your competition and 57% of people will not recommend your business due to an unfavorable web experience.

So by all means, establish a mobile marketing plan for your small business, but be sure to do your pre-work rather than jumping in blindly – remember the customer is what matters!