Archive for November, 2008
Creating writing direction and blogging
How many times have you thought about writing a blog article to help promote your business, sat down at your computer, and could thing of nothing to write? You are not alone, many business owners just like you suffer from the same writing challenges.
In addition to business blogging I am active with two local chamber of commerce groups (Gresham and East Portland). These groups have 100+ and 30+ (respectfully) people attending on a weekly bases. Several chamber members have had me help them set up a blog site and most are very successful; but some tell me they’ve avoided starting a blog because they didn’t feel they had enough time or matieral to make it worth while.
Being one who listens to my customers and an entrepreneur, I’ve taken input from my fellow chamber members, friends and blogging customers and have created a new online business networking website: PortlandBusinessCommunity.com.
A picture is worth a thousand words…
When doing our small business planning and building our business advertising program, our natural tendency is to fall back on the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. We hire graphic designers to create business logos, pretty brochures, and beautiful websites (with lots of animation and cool looking stuff). Certainly graphics help, but more often than not they become our crutch.
Almost all forms of marketing is devoted to an active audience and on the internet carry very little long term recognition. Static small business advertising on the internet loses search engine value and falls further down the list and away from the consumer. A new online marketing method must be adopted to help draw consumers in from other interest channels and maintain high search engine visibility.
Life Happens?
As business owners or managers of departments, we will always face higher priorities when deciding to market our business. The reasons for not taking time today will be great reasons. Obviously anyone in your shoes would have made the same decision to hold off on marketing right now and instead deal with the fires. “Life happens” is almost a curse when it comes to marketing. Believing this means you’ve won half the battle.
On my story blog site, Bashful Bill struggles with life, take a look at the lesson he learned:
“I’m letting all the distractions of work creep into my life because I don’t really want to write in the first place. I would rather dig up a broken sprinkler pipe than market and build my business. Maybe that is why I had to let Paul and Jose go.”