​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

Have you ever gone into a brick-and-mortar store and been frustrated by the experience? Maybe the aisles were too narrow or the line at the checkstand was too long. Or perhaps the music was too loud or the staff just unhelpful. As shoppers, we understand that these negative customer experiences impact sales. But as small businesses are we looking at our web presence in the same light? If not, we should and here's why. 

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

Last year's statistics on blogging are pretty compelling. Blog posts continue to be among the top performing web pages for both business-to-business (B2B) companies and those businesses that target consumers (B2C).  

Don't take our word for it. Review the blogging statistics infographic from Gate 39 Media, a financial services marketing and technology agency . It's worth a look. And be sure to review the additional resources and tips below the infographic on how to get your small business blog started.

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

Artificial intelligence and marketing automations are not just for enterprise and Fortune 500 companies. There are several time- and cost-saving applications that can help small businesses run more efficiently and scale some of their marketing operations.

​While not a complete list by any stretch, here’s a look at our three favorite, free, marketing automation “hacks” for small business owners. 

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

Halloween has always been great for small business and larger retailers and this year is will be scarily similar. Americans plan to spend $87 on average per person on the holiday according to the National Retail Federation.  The organization also claims that Americans are expected to spend $9.0 billion in total, slightly down on last year's $9.1 billion. And according to Statista, "45 percent of Americans will shop at a discount store this year while just under a quarter will make their Halloween purchases online. When it comes to how people will celebrate, 70 percent will hand out candy, 50 percent will decorate and 48 percent will dress in costume." 

Take a look at Halloween shopping stats presented as fun-sized eye-candy by Statista: 

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

We see it alot. The small business with a neglected web presence where updates to content on the site are made from time-to-time to include new products or services, or add or remove a team member, but a real content audit and review for search engine optimization (SEO) is rarely considered. Sadly, SEO is probably the single most important marketing tactic small businesses can adopt. If you're a small business serving your local community, wouldn't you want to show up as a top result when potential new customers are looking for your products or services online? 

If you're not yet convinced that SEO is worth the investment of time and budget, consider this slew of stats collected by the folks at Milkwhale:

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

Brands of all sizes and stripes are finding that they can achieve better brand engagement and greater marketing success with peer-generated, authentic content than they can with more conventional, multimillion dollar campaigns.

There are a couple of reasons for the fun phenomenon. According to a 2016 survey conducted by Olapic, a visual content strategy agency, 76 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations over ads. Also, user-generated content (UGC) is much less expensive to produce and a much more efficient way of reaching customers today where they live and play - online and on social media. UGC marketing strategies rely on visual content that consumers create themselves – a much more affordable option than traditional advertising. Well, if you can inspire them to create it that is.

​So let's get to it. Here are some great examples of brands inspiring fun and engaging user-generated content:

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

A great website homepage is built with intent and designed to serve different audiences. Think about how and why visitors may come to your website. There will be those seeking to find a solution to their problem, hoping your product or service does the trick. But there will be visitors who are still researching and gathering information as well. Your homepage will also need to help job seekers, vendors, and potential business partners find their way around, too.

A great homepage incorporates elements that will attract traffic, educate a variety of visitors, and invite conversions. These elements move visitors from "just looking" to completing their desired task and submitting a contact form and becoming a lead.  Or if you're selling online, these elements will help shoppers with completing a sale and becoming a customer.

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

Your website is not just a digital billboard for your business, nor is it simply your online calling card. It can be an amazingly nimble marketing tool for discovering key insights about your prospects, leads, customers and can be leveraged to attract, retain, and delight visitors at every stage of the buyer's journey. But how do you begin to gain important insights about your website content? We've found a great infographic guide for that.

Growth, in and of itself, is always the sign of a healthy business. In theory, you should be a little bit larger (and stronger, and more successful) today than you were yesterday. At a certain point the results of all of your efforts begin to generate their own momentum, growing into something that is ultimately much more powerful, and closer to your long-term objectives, than when you started.

Along those lines, one key thing to consider is: growing too quickly is often just as disastrous for a company as not growing at all. Unfortunately, many people don't realize that until it's far too late. But both slow growth and rapid growth lead to a massive number of small business failures every year. The good news, both are also easily avoidable with the right perspective.