Having good content for your website is a must. It draws customers in and you capture their attention. You may want to convey the bigger story of your business and the community you serve. Tell the story of your company and the people you work with on a daily basis to capture attention. Consumers will love hearing about your story. However, do you have excuses as to why you won’t tell your story? FGmarket’s marketing tip of the week focuses on avoiding the excuses and telling a story.

Excuse: My business is too small – No business is too small to generate content. Your business maybe small, but it might sell some truly amazing products with exquisite customer service. Everyone should know about your store. There are many small stores out there that only have a few employees but are very well-known.

Excuse: I’m too busy – If you’re too busy, than maybe you don’t want as many customers as you could have. It seriously only takes a 30 minutes out of your day or maybe an hour to blog, tweet, be active in other social media, and even Pinterest. What’s more important than finding new customers? Having good content helps you gain more customers, build trust, and develop relationships.

Excuse: There’s nothing exciting about my business – Your story isn’t boring to everyone. Someone out there shares your passion, and your customers definitely do. If the story truly is somewhat uninteresting, get creative with it and try to focus on an interesting part of the story, There are many ways that you can market something that is uninteresting to interesting.

Excuse: I can’t write well – Creating good content isn’t all about writing. You can do this in other forms as well by using pictures. Use Pinterest and Instagram to your advantage. Tell your story through pictures or even through video.

Excuse: No one reads or sees it – There’s your problem. If you think no one reads it, you’re not in the right frame of mind. Who are you writing for? You’re writing for the Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week – Telling Your Story” »

There are many forms of social media. Connect with your customers through these platforms. You get to know them and find out what they like. This helps you grow your business as well as let your customers gain a better experience when they shop with you. Do you have a Facebook page, Twitter account or Pinterest account? How do you use those to help grow you business? FGmarket’s marketing tip will focus on the power of Pinterest.

1. Open a Pinterest account – First things first, open a Pinterest account. Brand it with your company logo and connect it to your Facebook and Twitter account if you’d like.
2. Your domains should match – Make sure your domains match. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest should all have the same user names.
3. Organize your boards – With Pinterest, you have various boards. Make sure you organize your boards that fits your business. If you sell home decor, maybe create boards for the living room, bedroom or kitchen. A florist should create boards that display wedding flowers, event flowers or floral arrangements. Also, consider leaving the price off the first few pins you do just to get people pinning your stuff. Once you gain an audience, start posting the price.
4. Include the Pinterest button – Don’t forget to include the Pinterest button on your website. Also, include your Pinterest user name on your business cards or promotional products. This lets people know that you have a Pinterest account and they will know to follow you.
5. Ask to be repinned – If you have a great relationship with some of your customers, ask them to repin some of your pins to get started. This will help you gain exposure and new followers.
6. What do your followers like best – You will pin various products and photos. Once you do that, people will start repinning your items if they like it. If you notice they repin more of certain items, start pinning more of that. Also, notice when your customers are on. Are they on Pinterest more during the weekends or weeknight? Find this out and try to pin during those times.
7. Give them a description – With each pin, you will give each photo a description. Make sure it’s catchy, cute and has keywords. When people search, and you have the right keywords in yours, your photo will pop up and direct them back to you.
8. Gift registration or contests – Pinterest is becoming a great place to house gift registrations. Your customers can get on your website, pin what they like with a hashtag on the photo caption, like your company name and your contest and gift registration is all set. Whoever gets the most items repinned or what not will when one item off their board. It’s an easy contest and will definitely get you more followers.
9. Take great photos – People are attracted to great photos. Yes, you can use the photos from the manufacturing websites, however, it’s not personal. So, consider teaming up with a photographer. Your products get promoted and you can even include the photographer’s name so they get promoted as well.
10. Monitor it just like everything else – People can leave comments on your pins. Make sure to watch your Pinterest boards so you can converse with your Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week – The Power of Pinterest” »

There are many social media platforms available at your disposal. You can have a Facebook business page or a Twitter account, as well as others, to keep in contact with your customers. Are you using them both effectively? This week’s marketing tip will focus on if you’re using Twitter to the best of your ability and how you can improve on your technique so you are reaching the customers you need to be reaching out to.

When to tweet – Find out when the best time to tweet to your customers. Your target market may work 8-5 so they aren’t on Twitter updating their statuses or checking on what’s going on out in Twitterland. If that’s your target market, it may be best to tweet to them later at night and especially on the weekends. How are they going to know what’s going on in your store if they aren’t even seeing your tweets due to you not tweeting on the right day.

What time to tweet – Along with what days your customers are on, what time do they get on Twitter as well? Is it 10-2, 8-5, when is the best time to tweet to your customers? The whole point is about your target market seeing your tweets. Ask your customers when they normally get on and if they are seeing your tweets, this is the best way to find out if you’re actually interacting with them.

Are you getting retweets – First off, a retweet is someone tweeting your tweet. You get more exposure that way. So, how do you get them? The easiest way is to just ask! Sure, having great content within your tweet helps as well, but asking them with even an incentive will get you exposure.

How long to make tweets – Well, you only get 140 characters per tweet. However, just keep it short and simple. Get to the point and don’t draw it out. That’s the whole point of Twitter. Short and simple is the way to go for your customers that are on the go.

Should you link up – You can include links within your tweets. If you have an interesting link or a special and promotion going on in your store; link to it. It gives it a Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week – Twitter” »

Lets face it, social media absolutely should be a part of your marketing plan. It’s definitely a big way to reach your customers and potential clients. However, you can under and overdo it on your social media pages. You may or may not be reaching the people you need to reach. Like everything else in your store, you need to have a plan. How do you intend to reach those potential customers and get them into your store? So, FGmarket has a few tips on setting up a plan for your store.

An article appeared in June 2012 Gifts & Decorative Accessories on social media and some tips on making sure you are properly using your social media pages. Do you think your store is using your pages appropriately? How do you even do that? Well, here are a few tips.

1. Who do you want to reach through social media? What is your target market? You can definitely reach a wide variety of people through social media. So, are you reaching the people you need for your store? Yes, some may focus on having great number of fans or followers, but are you reaching the fans that will actually come into your store and spend money? Once you figure out who you are trying to reach, it’s definitely a must to develop some sort of strategy.
2. What sites do you use? Of course, there are many sites out there that you can choose for your social media strategy. You need to find a site that fits with your strategy and reaches your demographics. How can you use your Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus or even your Pinterest pages to your advantage? Can you use it for contests, giveaways, social media customer service, promotions or just a place for potential customers to learn more about your company?
3. Have you integrated social media into your marketing plan? Social media is such an important part of marketing now, so it must be within your plan. How do you plan to use social media to help grow your business? What are your goals?
4. How well are you doing? Like everything else, you want the ability to track how well you are doing with social media? How would you even know if your strategies were working? Monitor different reports and know how well your store is influencing your potential clients? Are you even reaching them? Pay attention to certain patterns and you may see upcoming developments that you didn’t expect. Being prepared is always a good thing.
5. Ask for help. If you’re not familiar with social media, enlist help. There are many bloggers, websites and even consultants that can help you with social media. Continue reading “Social Media in Your Store” »