Small Business Marketing Strategist

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How to Do a Monthly Marketing Audit

Are you planning, auditing and reviewing your marketing efforts each month?

My top-selling Marketing Planner offers a more comprehensive plan, audit and review, but I thought I would offer a condensed one for those who feel overwhelmed by marketing. So let’s keep it simple.

Step 1 : Set Your Marketing Goals for the Month

Your marketing goals and objectives need to be specific and measurable, such as:

  • Increase Instagram followers by 1,000.
  • Create a new ad campaign for Facebook to drive traffic to my website.
  • Grow email list by 500.
  • Increase overall site traffic this month by 30%.
  • Create a promotion for Valentine’s Day.
  • Launch a new product via email and social media.
  • Increase overall sales this month by 20%.
Step 2: Create a Tactical Plan

Goal: Increase Instagram followers by 1,000.

Tactical Plan: 1. Run a giveaway every Friday asking people to like and share the post and tag three people in the comments; 2. Boost one of my  Instagram posts that had a high engagement to my target market; 3. Post a fun reel showing how to use my product as reels have twice the engagement.

Step 3: Results of Goals & Plan

Goal: Increase Instagram followers by 1,000.

Result: 460 new followers.

What Worked: The giveaway brought the majority of the new followers.

What Didn’t Work: The reel brought engagement but not new followers.

What To Do Differently Next Month: Make the giveaway post a reel, and that is also the post to boost.

Step 4: Overall Marketing Review

This is where you chart your monthly results, so you can compare to last month and to next month. This should include:monthly marketing audit

  • Sales
  • Expenses
  • Profit
  • New Customers
  • Traffic
  • Email Subscribers
  • Social Media Follwers
  • Ad Spending
  • Ad Results

My 5-page Monthly Marketing Audit makes it easy to plan, review and evaluate your marketing each month. Again, you do not need this if you already have my Marketing Planner.

⭐ I need products to feature (for free) on OnlineShopLove.com so please email me a product link to attentiongetting{at}gmail.com. Photos must be high quality to be considered. Thanks!

 

 

 

© 2021 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved. Monthly Marketing Audit.

New Take on a Classic Product from Anthropologie

Even though you can get thousands of recipes for free online, hard copy recipe books still sell really well. However, I like when people take a classic product, like a recipe book and re-think it.

This deck of recipe cards for ideas for cheese boards from Anthropologie is brilliant because it answers one of the few pain points of a recipe book – you don’t have to pull out a big book and prop it open, you just pull out a card. Plus, there’s not cooking required!

Do you sell a classic product that you could re-think?


© 2021 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved.

Easy Way to Get Year End Publicity

Easy Way to Get Year End PublicityThe end of the year is always a fun time for brands to try and get some free publicity for their business by predicting a trend for 2022. For example, in early December Pantone always announces their color for 2022.

Now, 1-800-flowers followed this trend and named their plant and flower for 2022. It worked, they got a mention on Apartment Therapy, House Beautiful and PureWow, to name a few.

So try it with your own business. At very least, you can use it to get local publicity or maybe go viral on social media.

© 2022 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved.

Free Download – Holiday Sales Success Tracker

For those of you who sell online, how were your holiday sales? I know things haven’t quite wrapped up yet, but I thought I would give a free download, which will help you put the holiday season into perspective.

My Holiday Sales Success Tracker helps you record and evaluate what you sold this year compared to last year, including what was your top seller and what was even your top selling day.

It compares Black Friday this year to Black Friday last year, as well as Cyber Monday and the key selling months of October, November and December overall. You can download it for free here. It will help planning your strategy for next year.

This tracker is from my Holiday Sales Planner, but it is a sample of the type of success trackers I offer in my Marketing Planner Bundle, as well as the type of “audit” pages I offer in my Business Strategy Planner.

How’s your small business doing? Were things going well and have fallen off? Are you still struggling to get things going? What are your business goals? Feel free to ask me a question at AttentionGetting{at}gmail.com.

 

 

 

© 2021 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved.

5 Ways to Get Rid of Excess Product Inventory

Did you possibly over estimate your holiday sales and now you have excess product inventory that you need to get rid of? Here are 5 things to try:

  1. Do a flash sale for people looking for those after-Christmas deals; but they expect a big discount – at least 40% off.
  2. Offer the products to a monthly subscription box service at the wholesale price.
  3. If possible, repurpose the products into another product.
  4. Package them into a Mystery Box (a hot trend).
  5. Offer as a free gift with purchase of another item.

 

An inventory audit is just one of the business audits I cover in my Strategic Business Planner. I also include pages for doing a brand audit, customer audit, competitive audit, cost audit, sales channel audit, traffic audit, product audit and pricing audit.

 

 

 

© 2021 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved. 5 Easy Ways to Get Rid of Excess Product Inventory.

How a Product Collaboration Can Quickly Expand Your Market

You can easily broaden your market if you partner on a product with another non-competitive business.

For example, if you’re an illustrator or artist why not offer some of your designs to a ceramics seller. This holiday plate from Anthropologie is a good example. Not only do you split the profits, but your art is now exposed to their customers and vice versa. Twice the marketing power!

 

 

 

© 2022 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved.

Best Trending Hashtags Instagram

best trending hashtags instagramWant to know the best trending hashtags Instagram or on Tiktok? Well it depends on the day. But it is a great opportunity for your small business to get seen.

In fact, a really great hashtag strategy for you to jump to the front is by starting your own trending hashtag based on anything that is going on in the world, in pop culture, top searches and more.

How to Find Potentially Trending Hashtags

Start by taking a look at the day’s news:

  • Is there a new #royalbaby born
  • Has a certain celebrity done something special i.e. #britneyswedding
  • Is it the anniversary of something historic i.e. #dday77thanniversary
  • Is it a fun national day i.e. #happynationaldogday

How about is there a question someone wants answered? Questions are particularly popular hashtags on Tiktok as people like to search for “how to” videos:

  • How to make banana bread? #howtomakebananabread #bananabreadhack #bestbananabread
  • Why is a tomato a fruit? #tomatofruitorvegetable
  • Where can I get free stuff on my birthday? #freestuff #mybirthday #birthdaydeals
Other Ways to Find Trending Hashtags

Another awesome way to find trending hashtags is to set up an account with Google Trends.

Every day you will get an email whereby Google Trends will tell you yesterday’s hot searched topics. Likely, these searches stick around for a few days, maybe even weeks, so you can quickly turn into a hashtag that might start trending or already is.

They might be bizarre, but they are what people are looking for. Some examples of popular Google searches:

  • Golf hats for big heads #golfhats #largegolfhats #oversizedgolfhats
  • Easy undo for medium length hair #easyupdos #promhair #hairstylesprom
  • Run rule in college baseball #runrule #collegebaseballrules
More Hashtags Articles
Hashtag PDFs

©2021 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved. Best Trending Hashtags Instagram

 

What is Social Media Marketing?

what is social media marketingWhat is social media marketing? I get asked this a lot. It really is a marketing tactic that only started less than 20 years ago, when Facebook started. Now we have Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, YouTube and TikTok.

These social media platforms are free to use and to post to. They all have audiences in the millions, so that makes them very attractive for small businesses.

What is Social Media Used For?

But business was never social media’s original purpose. The original intent was for people to be able to communicate and share information with friends and family. However, business has taken over. Every business has set up a profile on at least one if not all of these social media platforms. They post content daily promoting their business, and they advertise on these platforms as well.

Each of these social media sites has a different format, and a different audience, but the goal for small business is to use social media to get infront of their customers.

Social Media Marketing Tipswhat is social media marketing

To be successful on social media, especially if you are a small business, is to just focus on the platforms where your customers lie. Otherwise it will become too time consuming for you.

For example, Facebook tends to have a audience of people ages 35 to 60. Instagram is more for 18 to 35, and Tiktok is quite young at 12 to 25.

Social Media Marketing Ideas for Small Business

The key to making social media attract attention for your small business, is to not just post your products. What you want to do is post content that interests them, as well as answer questions.

For example, if you sell jewelry, post a graphic that features various ways to organize your jewelry, as this is a top Google search.

Alternatively, post pieces of your jewelry as part of an entire outfit, using the popular hashtag #ootd (stands for outfit of the day).what is social media marketing

Social Media Examples

If you need some good examples of how businesses use social media, here are some of my favorites:

Social Media Marketing PDFs
Social Media Marketing Articles

©2021 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved. What is Social Media Marketing?

Online Home Bakery Marketing Plan

If you’re an online or home bakery looking to get more traffic to your business, my Online Home Bakery Marketing Plan is really all you need!

My 12-Month Online Bakery Marketing Plan gives you hundred of tactics to do each month focusing on advertising, publicity, content marketing, social media, promotions, email marketing and so much more.

There are over 300 creative tactics in all. Here are just a few example tactics from the January page (you get all 12 months in the plan):

Bakery Marketing Plan Tactic: Publicity

Submit an email pitch to your newspaper’s food editor asking them to mention your shop in honor of National Baking Month (January), for a story about local bakeries that sell online.

Bakery Marketing Plan Tactic: Social Media
online bakery marketing plan

Sample page. Click to download all 12 months.

Post a cake with icing that reads, “Happy New Year” on Jan 1st #cakesofinstagram #cakestagram #cakedesign #cakeart #instacake.

Bakery Marketing Plan Tactic: Social Media

Post a carousel or reel of a favorite baking tool or accessory every day for #NationalBakingMonth (January).

Bakery Marketing Plan Tactic: Email

Change up your email opt-in incentive to include a free one-page printable calendar for the new year clearly labeled with your shop name and url as a frequent reminder, even marketing dates for holidays and what appropriate baked good gift they could send to someone.

Bakery Marketing Plan Tactic: Sales

Ask a few local coffee shops or food trucks if they will carry your baked goods, even if just for National Baking Month (January).

Bakery Marketing Plan Tactic: Content Marketing
online bakery home marketing plan

Click to download.

Write a short article on “Great Food Gifts to Send to a Friend” with a byline that mentions your bakery name and website url, and submit it to Buzzfeed.

I hope you enjoyed these online bakery marketing plan ideas. Start marketing your online or home bakery business! Download the plan today!

GB OliverIf you’re a small business and you need more marketing advice, be sure to see my products and services. Be sure to also read: 101 Promotional Ideas for Your Small Business. 

© 2022 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved. Online Home Bakery Marketing Plan.

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