Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’
March 25th, 2010 | 
Author: Usually my posts are all about computer or techie related subjects. Today I wanted to do something a little different. In a way, you could say this is still business related as this is a fantastic marketing opportunity for a small business local to the area. I live in Lawrenceville, Georgia and last year I had the honor of being a part of making a great video to promote a free, community run event. The event is detailed below. If you are local, or will visit the area any time within the next 13 weeks, starting April 4th, why not come by and ride the trolley! Also, the video my husband and I made is at the bottom of the post.
THE TROLLEY TOUR’s of the Lawrenceville Community are back.
This information is currently for local business owners, but please, if you have any suggestions as someone who rode the trolley last year, or with interest for this year, please let us know.
Come join us again this year as we ride through the streets and neighborhoods of the Lawrenceville Community. This is a positive investment in Lawrenceville community involvement. This will benefit Local Businesses, Residents and Real Estate within our community. We are putting this event together to be proactive in this economy and not only SURVIVE this economic downturn but THRIVE in it. The only way do this is to be proactive yourself. We hope you will see the positive impact this idea will have in our community. We are open to suggestion, comments and questions. Here how it works, TENATIVELY (always subject to change)!
Starting April 4th 2010 through June 27th 2010, the Trolley will run Tours on Sunday’s through Lawrenceville and Scheduled Open Houses throughout our Community. That is a total of thirteen (13) consecutive Sundays. We are very pleased to have life-long resident and Lawrenceville’s Local Honorary Historian (Awarded in 2009 by Mayor Millsaps) Mary Long as our Trolley Tour Guide. Each tour we will highlight Lawrenceville Square, the parks, historic graveyards, the businesses and some of the rich community history. We will have Realtors, Builders and Developers who will have their homes open for those Sunday’s as well. All the homes will be within the City Limits of Lawrenceville. We have two (2) Trolleys’ this year. Each Trolley holds approximately 30 people at a time. We would like to have 4 scheduled tours in that day. The tours will start at 1pm and run every hour until 5pm, the last tour starting at 4pm. We have already had several local businesses, Realtors and Developers and of course the Trolley Guy ready to make this project a GO and a WIN for the Lawrenceville Community. We have also had suggestions (which will develop) of creating events on the square specifically for the tour. This is great opportunity for your involvement in our community and to promote your business.
The actual Tour will be FREE to those riding the Trolley each Sunday. Each guest on the Trolley will get a “goody bag” with Local Business marketing materials, coupons, business cards, etc. when they get off the Trolley. This will be approximately 120 goody bags each week for 13 weeks. We will also have a banner on both sides of both Trolley’s with the “Qualified” Sponsors Logo’s displayed. Local television media and print media already want to do stories on the positive approach to this idea. So there is a possibility of your business getting additional exposure to other communities as well. As we progress with the idea there will be other ways for us to market the idea and promote it with and without cost. There are several free internet marketing and networking opportunities to get this event out to various communities.
Interested in being a sponsor?
So, you are excited now and want to know the most important thing, the cost! Are you ready? $10.00 per week! That is it! If you pay for the whole 13 weeks ($130.00) up front, than you will have the opportunity of being included in the banner display on both sides of the Trolley. The banner will be an additional expense but depending on how many “Qualified” (those who pay 13 weeks in advance) business it will be divided equally. So, that is it! We hope you are interested and would like to participate.
For more information or if you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please e-mail Rodney Camren – rodney@newlawrenceville.com or call him on 404-375-1496. We look forward to hearing from you!
Come and see what makes Lawrenceville such a wonderful city to be a part of. Come and experience NEW Lawrenceville! See our video from last year.
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So, you have created your own Facebook Fan Page and you have people taking a look and hoping to find out more about your business. Give them something to read when the land on your page. Although the wall can be full of great information you have been posting, it could also be full of comments and posts from your fans that you don’t have as much control over. Send them to the info tab instead!
You have four main sections on the info tab. The websites section can hold more than just one url. Put one on each line and add links for Twitter, LinkedIn, Kudzu and anywhere else you would like people to visit. Use the Company Overview, Mission and Products section to add more information and let people know about who you are as a company.
Not sure how to do this? Log into your account and go to your page. Click on the Edit Page link that shows up underneath your page image. From the next page, click on Edit from the Wall settings. From here you can determine default landing page. You can also determine the default view for the wall and which posts will show (only your Page posts, Just Fans, or both Fans and Page posts).
Feel free to share a link to your Facebook Page below. How do you have your Facebook Page set up to encourage peiople to become a fan?
If you are a reader of this blog, you probably know by now that I am a lover of all things Google! There are so many free tools, applications and services they provide that really help out a small business owner. One such tool is the ability to set up a Google Profile. Now, lets say someone meets you at a networking event. Maybe you were out of cards (heaven forbid! 
) or some how the contact loses your business card. He might just remember your name though. So, if he goes out to Google and types in your name, do you think he could find you? If your company name is the same as your personal name, then he might be in luck. However, if like me, the company name is different, it could be a needle in a haystack, or could it?
If I go out to Google and type in “Megan Walker” (my own name), here is what comes up:
Forget about the search results for websites, there is also a section near the bottom that will highlight profiles. So, if the person I met doesn’t remember my company name, but remembered my own name, he can easily get to me that way. Below is how my profile will look to someone searching online. Notice on the right I have many different links set up. All of them will lead back to Purple Star Consulting, in various different ways.
If you don’t already have a profile, you can simply click here: www.google.com/profiles Setting up a profile is easy. You can choose how much information to share, upload a photograph, add links and more. Try to keep things consistent. If you use a photograph of yourself for your Twitter or Facebook account, use the same one here for easy recognition. Add links to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, your website and your blog page in particular.
Have fun, and get to it! Feel free to share your new profile link below. Mine is www.google.com/profiles/purplestarconsulting
Last year I did a post to highlight some of the great things about Constant Contact. I still use the e-mail marketing tool and love preparing and getting ready to send out a new newsletter. Don’t do it as often as I would like, but I think it takes time to put something together that’s worth reading. Meeting new people and generating new contacts also takes time. Make it easy for people visiting your website to be able to sign up for your different newsletters.
If you haven’t already, go ahead and sign up for an account. Once logged in, click on the Contacts tab along the top. Then click on Join My Mailing List. This gives you various options, but the first one allows you to create a signup box for your website. Click to start the wizard to generate the HTML needed for the signup.
The first screen allows you to select the type of sign up you want. It gives you the option to have an online form, a button, or basic text links. Click through each of them to find one that you like the look of. Click the next button.
Next, select the different colors, fonts and text style you want to use. You can also select the words that will be used to make your signup box standout and attract visitors to actually enter their e-mail address and request your newsletter. Click the Preview button to see how it will look. When you are done, click the next button.
Finally, you are given the HTML code to add the box to your website. It also gives you the option to e-mail this directly to someone if you wish. This could be to your web designer if you have one. Make it easy for people to sign up for your newsletter. Get your signup box added today!
We recently posted about how to create a Facebook Fan Page. Well, while we are on a roll, let’s go ahead and show you how to create your own Fan Box for your website. First of all, log into your facebook account and go to your Facebook Page. Click on the Edit Page link at the top of your page.
This will take you to a page full of all of your FB Page settings. Scroll down and look on the right hand side for the following section. Click on Promote with a Fan Box.
You will see a preview of how your Fan Box will look, depending on the different settings you choose.
For my fan box, I like to include the stream of comments and wall postings. This allows people to see the sort of things you are talking about, the ability to see if it’s worth becoming your fan I suppose! You can also include your fans, and the facebook logo. Finally, select where you want to put your fan box. For your own website, click on Other. The code will be listed below that. Copy the code.
Here is what you can do with the code:
- Send the code to your web designer and tell them where you would like it on your website.
- If you have access to your own pages and are comfortable modifying the code, paste it in directly where you would like to see the Facebook Fan Box
- If you have WordPress, simply log in, go to Appearance on the left navigation, click on Widgets, and use a Text Widget and simply paste the code in there.
Any questions? Let us know below!
