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Guerrilla Marketing

Sounds kinda scary, but not really. This term Guerrilla Marketing was originally meant as an unconventional way of marketing on a low budget, by relying on time, energy and imagination instead of big, expensive, mass marketing campaigns. The term has since entered vocabulary to also describe aggressive, unconventional marketing methods generically and to some people makes it sound some what scary because of that.



In order to get a better idea of this type of marketing there are some main principles used

• Guerrilla marketing is geared towards small businesses and because of this it relies on gination instead of money.
• this type of marketing is concentrated on more connections and referrals rather than being in competition with other businesses it focuses on working with them.
• Guerrilla marketing encourages using other marketing methods in conjunction for a marketing campaign.
• make use of current technology and human psychology

Guerrilla marketing is nothing to be scared of in fact as a small businesses on a low budget it is probably already incorporated into your marketing plan without you even realizing it.

here are some tactics that you may already be using or should think about using

• Get involved with your community. Attend functions tell everyone you know about your business.
• Donate a percentage of sales or items to a charity and then let the media know
• Joint Marketing with other business
• Write a tutorial or hold classes
• Mail Postcards to past customers offering a discount
• Hold a contest
• Ask for referrals maybe offer discounts or free product for referrals
• Host a home party invite all your contacts and ask them to bring friends.
• Post a flyer on any and all bulletin boards you can
• Add your tag line and url to all emails send funny jokes, and when someone sends a funny joke to you hit reply to all and let them know you thought it was funny!
• Join social networking sites on and offline. Join forums where your target market would most likely be.
• Window decals for your home and car

These are just a handful of ideas some that you are probably already implementing. A good idea to come up with your own guerrilla marketing plan is to sit down and brainstorm. Think about who your target market is, and where they are think of ways you can make your business stand out and be remembered. The more memorable the better you are only limited to your imagination that is one of the great aspects of this type of marketing.

Who Is Your Target Market?

Marketing can be as simple as you make it or as complex as you want to make it. I am trying to put things a little simpler but in doing so I think I have over looked an important step here and I am going to back track some here.

Taking the time to find your target market is a really important step to make sure you are using your marketing resources to their fullest potential. Your target market simply put are the people who are most likely to buy your product.

When trying to determine your target market it is important especially for small business with a low start up fund to narrow down their market as much as possible as your business grows than you can broaden your target market. Time to get out your pen paper remember the more specific and narrow you get the better your marketing efforts will be, and not all of these questions will apply to you, and if you have more things you can do it.

Here goes:
1. Gender male or female? You may have both but use the higher percentage here
2. Age? What is the age group of the people most likely to buy from you try to stay within a 20 year limit here.
3.Geographical location
4. What types of position if the workforce do they hold?
5. Salaries what is the approximate salary of your customer base?
6. Lifestyles ie are they people who would be likely to use a computer? Are they fast paced type people, do they have children and if so what does that say about their lifestyle etc as much as you can think of here as this may end up giving you some ideas about where you should market to these people.

These should get you started tomorrow I will discuss some market research questions to ask yourself.

A Few Xtra Tips For Viral Marketing

This is going to be a short post today just a few things I want to add to yesterdays post on viral marketing....
* you can get a free newsletter subscriber for your site through ://bravenet.com
* you can submit articles here or snatch some articles http://www.articlesnatch.com/
* And someone mentioned You Tube this can also be a great source of viral marketing especially if you have some funny or important stuff in your video give people a reason to watch it and to want to show all their friends!
Again I would love any feedback maybe you have tried some of these or maybe you have some more suggestions I would love to see them!

More On Marketing Viral Marketing

OK so I am assuming you have read my first marketing post and you have made a simple marketing plan (or maybe you really got into it and made an in depth one) If you haven't already scroll down and take a few to complete it then come back.

So what is viral marketing? It sounds a bit icky and like you might need some antibiotics after or a vaccination at some point....
Viral marketing simply put is whatever means you use to get people to spread your advertising message for you and using their contacts.
Hot mail is one of the most popular examples and for good reason there viral marketing was one of the best
They offered a free email address
When customers that received said email address sent an email at the bottom of their email it said sign up for your free email @....
So they literally used their customers mailing lists to grow themselves

So right now your probably thinking great for hot mail but how does that apply to me?

*A good way to get started is link exchange encourage people to exchange links with you so that you are putting yourself in their loop of contacts and vise versa

* Write articles for websites to use for free on their site. Everyone knows something that other people want to know make it informative and include links to your site. The more useful your content the better this will work.

* Newsletters If you don't have one its a good idea to start one and when you are having some type of special, contest etc send the newsletter out and always remind people to forward the newsletter on at the end sometimes people just need a reminder.

* FREE this word is one of the most viral words in the dictionary people love something FREE! Have a contest or giveaway (don't forget to email your contacts and tell them to pass it on!) Give away samples of your product whenever possible. If it's not feasible to give away product or service in your business then give FREE information that people want to know.

* Include a tag line and your URL for your signature on all out going emails and on forums that allow signatures. Try sending a funny joke that people will want to pass on with your signature on the bottom.

* Start an affiliate or referral program (this is a pretty in depth subject that I will get into more at a later date)

* Send a press release to local newspapers or send them articles of interest and include your contact info website etc.

These are just some ideas to get you started hopefully they will keep you busy until my next marketing post a ton more great ideas coming keep checking back . I would love to hear more ideas on viral marketing or which one's you try leave me a comment .

While writing this I realized I am in some need of links exchanges if interested let me know

Marketing Made Easier

Marketing can be a very complex thing especially for a small business owner such as myself really I just want to make jewelry but if I want my business to succeed I have to step out of my safe bead bin. Part of that is marketing and I love sharing what I learn!

So what is marketing anyway?

basically in a nutshell marketing is EVERYTHING you do to get your product or service in the in the hands of the people who want your products. Marketing is your branding, pricing, packaging, placement, advertisement and everything you do to get your product to your customer. Sounds complicated but can be broken down to make more sense of things A good way to do this is to have a marketing plan, you can get really in depth templates for marketing plans but because I like to keep things as simple as possible I am going to layout a simple plan for you so grab a pen and paper and start answering these easy questions:

1. What is your product/service? Pretty self explanatory write a description of what product/service you offer.

2. Pricing? What is your pricing on your product are you offering expensive luxury items or rock bottom bargains. Take a look at your highest priced items and your lowest to figure a rough price point.

3. Distribution? How will you get your products to your customers. Will you sell online in stores, through affiliate programs, through catalogs, home parties etc try to go into detail like what type of stores etc.

5. Target Market? Who is your target market try to be as specific as possible for example Male between the age of 18-40 athletic, middle class+ income

6. Competition? Be realistic here I am talking direct competition I wouldn't say I was in direct competition with a famous jewelry designer when I am not even in that league

9. Strengths and Weaknesses? List your strengths over your competition as well as your weaknesses.

10. Goals? One of my favorites goals are sooo important! What are your goals from your marketing strategies? Try to make these specific and something that you will be able to measure if you are reaching your goals.

11. Budget? What is your yearly budget for your marketing tactics?

12. Tactics? What are some of the marketing tactics you plan to implement ( I will be talking more about tactics in upcoming posts)

Remember as with any plan what you write is not set in stone and can be changed as you see fit. I recommend that you look back on your marketing plan at least every 6months but some people will every few months or every year. In upcoming post I will be talking more about marketing and different marketing tactics I am by no means an expert but hopefully this information will help some.

Gettin Down To Goals

Goals are important for everything in life, business, personal, family, work long term goals, short term goals they are all important. Setting goals will help keep you on track of where you want to be and how to get there. I suggest having a book specifically for goals in your book write down where you want to be in 5 years or maybe even just next year, write down what you have to do to get you there in the next 6months or 3months. Keep working towards those goals and keep checking back with your book and revising as you need to. I also make daily list (I am a list lover you can find them everywhere here) I incorporate what I need to finish for the day for example here is today's list

laundry

blog

make 10 pieces of jewelry

clean living room

spend some time in the etsy forums

work on my wholesale list

clean and organize desk

I write these list everyday because it helps keep me focused every time I can check something off of the list I feel as though I accomplished something and it gives me drive to finish something else. These list can be as indepth or as short as you like or need what ever works for you they also help to keep your day organized and a little less hectic...well sometimes it's not 100% guaranteed especially if like me you have a couple of little monsters running around no amount of list can 100% prepare you then.

Branding Your Image

When you own a small craft business you can sometimes overlook branding your products and image, it's easy to overlook with so many other important factors such as making your product photographing, and all the other million and one things involved with selling your wares. So what is branding well if your a cow run... If not no fear branding is simply making people remember your shop branding your image in their minds. OK so now how do we do this "branding". This is something I think of as a work in progress the first thing you should do is think of a big well known business as an example I am going to use Pepsi close your eyes and think what comes to your mind when you say pepsi is it there colors, lettering, packaging, slogans? This is all part of their branding My son can't read but he knows pepsi when he sees it... that is branding at it's best. I am in the process of branding my shop so I will use my steps as examples I originally started out with a name Wyred on Wire whenever I went to craft shows I always had people saying wow you make this? One day I realized that wow is the initials of my business name so my logo was born! Next I realized I needed a Slogan this was a little harder and didn't come to me right away in fact I'm not really sure when it did but here it is Jewelry to Get You Noticed... I also use another Are You Ready to Get Noticed? I wanted all colors associated with my shop to be cohesive I wanted my shop to be feminine as well as edgy so I chose pink and black not to mention I have always loved the two colors together. OK so now I have my logo my slogan I have my colors so now what in the world do I do with them? The answer everything you can! I had business cards made reflecting my logo and slogan these were made by http://smile4katie.etsy.com/ who does an amazing job. I had a banner, advertisements, earring cards and stickers made with my colors, logo and slogan, I had matching stickers made these were all made by another great designer http://wildmagic.etsy.com/ and I had shipping labels made by http://kjpatino.etsy.com/ . I am going to work on listing a picture of my packaging which uses my colors. These are all some ideas to get you started but you can take branding as far as your imagination and budget will allow. So if you haven't started yet get to it!

Improving Pics

Today I am trying to improve my pics.This is something I am always working on... other people make it look so easy. Well I have to say I just don't think it is and If I had the money I would definitely hire a professional. When your selling online it really comes down to does that picture sell it. Unfortunately my answer is still no I keep taking and retaking but I always feel I am still lacking there needs to be something more there. I'm starting to feel I spend more time trying to get a decent picture than it took me to make the piece.

Who Knew??

Well I obviously didn't know...

They say it's good to learn something new everyday or umm something like that..

The other day I woke up to a very colorful computer screen, sure it was really pretty looked like a rainbow blew up on my computer...but I knew this could not be a good thing. I know nothing about computers and I did what I usually do in a crisis I head on over to the etsy forums and whine. People started using technical terms and basically telling me that my computer was shot. Before I burst into tears an angel in the forums asked if I had a magnet near my computer. OK I know not something a normal person would have sitting beside their monitor but leave it to me yup I had a huge magnet dish that I use to separate my metals right there. I moved the dish and it actually got much worse not better at all. So I crossed my fingers turned off computer...waited and turned it back on. Boy had I lucked out this time all was fine but it could have been a mini disaster. I know some of you are probably sitting there laughing your butt off and I am happy I could give you that laugh but my real reason for posting this is if I didn't know I'm pretty sure there is at least one other person out there that doesn't know magnets are kryptonite for computers.

Plan for Tomorrow Today Time Management Part 5

I you haven't seen the other 4 parts pls take the time to read them as they are all very important steps to take. And if you are following along yesterday you figured out where you want your business to be in a year from now. In order to get your business there you need to Manage your time effectively Everyday you need to do something to help your business get to that goal. A good habit to get into is making list. Every month make a list of priorities for that month. Every week make a list of priorities for that week, and everyday before your day ends make a list of priorities for the next day. You can either keep these in a diary, a work journal or maybe a planner that includes all of your life's priorities anywhere except a scrap piece of paper is fine.

Here is an example list

Dr. appointment

make 5 pairs of earrings

message blog feature artist

list 3 items on etsy

search for new ad spaces

ship orders

call a local gallery

write blog

read new article on latest technique

yours will be different this is an example of randoms from the top of my head. Now looking at this list I can immediately see where there is going to be some dead space or wasted time for example whenever I go to my Dr. Appointments I know that I will have at least an hour wait so while waiting I could bring some things to make some earrings (don;t forget business cards because this will definitely get you some interest) I can also bring my article to read. Also you don;'t want to make 2 trips out so don't forget to take your orders to drop off at the PO. Another big one would have to be listing on etsy yes this important but the time it takes pictures to load is wasted time...or I could take this time and contact that local gallery or message the feature artist while my pics are uploading. Now the biggest culprit on here is searching for ad space yes advertising is important but for this it means you are going online and like I have said that can be one of the biggest time killers so schedule this for the end or set kitchen timers and get off when it dings. So your list may not be anything like this but I am sure you get the point now.

Keep a look out for Time Management Part 5

A Look into The Future Time Management Part 4

So maybe you think you have no need for a business plan your not trying to get financial assistance with your business...why bother. A business plan doesn't have to be as structured if it's for your own personal goals but it will help keep you focused on where you are and where you want to be.

So go get a pen and here is an exercise for you

write down where your business stand write now. for example if you have a craft business it may go something like this. I am selling on etsy. I have my items in 1 store . etc etc you can go as much into detail with this as you like.

OK now write down where you would like to see your shop in one year be realistic. Make goals that can actually happen. ie I am selling on etsy making 20 sales a week. I have my items in 5 stores. I am doing 5 shows a year. I have 1 home party a week. etc whatever best suits you and your business.

The next step is to write down what you need to do to get you to that point. the steps within the next year that you need to make to bring you there for example. If I am going to get my items 5 stores I need to contact stores. If I am going to boost my sales I am going to have to promote. and lets not forget if I plan on selling x amount of items per week I need to create more than x amount a week.

you can make this as detailed as you like and this will help you with the part 5 of the Time Management series.

A New Place To Sell Your Crafts

As you all know I have been selling on etsy for awhile now and I am a huge fan of etsy but....I like anybody with a art/craft business just want to get my product seen so when I heard about this offer I had to check it out. http://icraft.ca/ Is a new site where you can list your crafts for sale it's just a baby but as an incentive to join it is offering no registration fees and no listing fees for one year if you join and list at least one item by March 31! Yes you heard me right I did say 1yr free. This may be a baby site now but so was etsy at one time and they look as though they are heading in the right direction. I don't know about you but if it takes off I want to be able to have that free listing for a year! Oh don't worry you will still be able to find me on etsy but I now have another shop http://icraft.ca.wyredonwire/ . I only have a couple of things listed at the moment but that's OK I know I now have a free year.

Get Down To Business Time Management Part 3

Set a time for your business hours whenever that time is most convenient for you and your lifestyle. This is very important even if its 2hrs in the morning and 6hrs at night no matter what those hours are it is important that you set aside 8-12hrs a day depending on your needs and where your business it at. It's also important to not let distractions get in the way of your work schedule. If you had a boss that could fire would you do it is a good rule to live by until you get settled into a routine that works for you.

When you have a home based business, it can be difficult to get friends and family members to respect the fact that you are working and running a business. If you don't have a regular 'day job', you become the one who is called on for favors in the middle of the work day. And Just maybe like myself you find it hard to say NO. Such a small word it only has two letters but I find it hard to spit out. But the fact of the matter is when you are running a business especially in the beginning stages you need that time more than anyone in fact you need more time than anyone. So time to grow a backbone (saying this to myself as well) and say No, explain to friends and family that you may not have to go to a job but you still have lots of work to do let them know your working hours, offer to help them during your "time off" or at the end of your work day. After awhile of you not giving in they will start to respect this.

Like myself you may also have children who need your attention and are continuously distracting you. If they are older children sit them down and explain to them that you have to work during your set hours but after that your attention is there's. If they are younger this will not work and it will be a little harder for you but there are ways around this and that where setting your hours right will come in handy for example maybe you could get one hour in before they wake up, another during nap time and maybe set up an activity that does not require your full attention in the afternoon, If possible have them help you with little things, and finish off the rest your hours after they are in bed only you know what your lifestyle is these are just some tips to get you thinking.

TIP*** During your set business hours do not take personal phone calls they are the number one distracter in my books

Keep an eye out for Time Management Part 4

Find your Space Time Management part 2

If you are working from home you need to have a work area whether you have an actual office or you have space set up in a spare room, living room or your bedroom. Ideally we would all like to have an office... well sometimes life is not ideal and we need to make the best with what we have. where ever your space is it needs to be set up in a manner that is most productive for you if you have to spend time searching on your desk or through your supplies to get what you need that is valuable time that could have been spent progressing your business. First you need to make sure your space is just that Your space! That means get rid of anything that is not business related kids toys, dog toys, etc gone. Now you need to organize what is related to your busines in a way that will make things easier for you. For example if it is easier for you to create if you can see your supplies then you need to purchase clear containers. This does not have to be expensive first utilize things that you may already have around the house if you have to purchase check out your local dollar stores.

If you have lots of paperwork in your business you may have to purchase a file cabinet (I know I need a couple of them). While you are getting your space organized its time to organize all that paperwork. I have come across a few methods and the one I like the best is

D.R.A.F.T.

DISCARD: Trash it. If it will never be retrieved again, don't file it. Realize that files are an information and resource "holding" place, not a dead storage place

REFER: If someone else needs this information give it up do not hold onto things you don't need.

ACT: Act on it now. Don't procrastinate. Do routine paperwork immediately. If not, the time needed to tackle your paperwork later on can snowball!

FILE: File it in your files. Forget about letting it all sit there. With a proper filing system, important documents can be filed, and found easily

TABLE: Table it. If you need it at some time in the near future, other than today, place it in a simple follow-up system for easy, quick access. You can keep a special basket for paperwork such as this but be careful when coosing what goes into this it can add up quickly.

Organizing your space and keeping your space organized can be one of the most difficult task because chances are it has been out of hand for awhile and become a habit. Getting organized could take all day maybe two but once your space is organized it will only take a little work to keep it that way and it will help make your days much more productive.

Effective time management is a habit, just like brushing your teeth or walking the dog. It’s only when you consistently practice good time management skills that you begin to see positive results. It doesn't happen overnight, especially if you have deep-rooted habits to replace.

If you have any questions or advice I would love to hear them. I think together we can change our habits and make our lifes easier. I hope this has helped you some and be on the look out for part 3 of the time management series. I still have lots more to share with you!