Last week, I mentioned a blog
that asked why more small and rural businesses didn’t have blogs, and I started wondering the same thing myself.
Then this week, I also saw the results of a national survey commissioned by Microsoft Office Live Small Business and Elance Inc. Fewer than half of the small-business owners interviewed have a web site. This was true despite the fact that almost two-thirds of business owners believed that having a Web presence was important to the success of their business.
Not surprisingly, the survey says that lack of budget, time and technical expertise were among the top reasons for not having a Web site.
(1) Time
(2) Money and
(3) Know-how
have always been big obstacles for any small business owner. We’re often trying to do it all ourselves, and obviously there are choices to be made. Tasks that generate income now are higher priorities than tasks that require us to spend money for some vague benefit in the future.
But there’s more to it than those three obstacles. Because we will move heaven and earth if we think we really need to. And I know that many rural business owners spent money on websites at some point because I still see those sites on the web, even though the information is outdated, and their graphic designer has either long left town or is no longer doing sites on the side.
Over the years, it’s been easy for rural business owners in particular to shrug off the need for online promotion. Those who created a website in the early years of the internet often found that few to no local customers ever looked at their site. Giving hundreds if not thousands of dollars to technical experts to create a website that didn’t help your business grow is clearly not an experience that needs to be repeated.
In my area, what seems to determine whether a business has an up-to-date website or not is whether the business appeals to local customers or out-of-town visitors. If it’s a tourist business or one that hopes to attract visitors, they are more likely to have a website or blog. If their business focuses on local customers, they are far less likely to have their own site.
Why doesn’t a business need a website for their local customers?
(4) Everybody already knows.
Is there any reason to post hours on the door? Probably not, because after all these years, everybody knows your hours. Any reason to list the brands you carry in your store on a website? No. You guessed it. Everybody already knows.
There was a time when families that lived in a rural community also worked there, went to church there and sent their children to school there. Communication was very effective and fast. Today it is more common for spouses to head in different directions for work - perhaps to different adjoining counties - and not always know what’s happening downtown or anywhere else. Word just doesn’t travel as fast or as smoothly as it used to. Things change too quickly to keep up.
Business owners can not assume that ‘everybody knows‘ anymore.
A local business has been closed several times when I’ve tried to visit it over the last few weeks. When I finally caught the store open I asked the business owner what was wrong. Nothing, she said. Business had just been so slow, she decided to close several days a week. She said assumed everybody knew.
Whether it’s your menu, your hours or your specials for the week, you probably make assumptions too.
What is it that you think everybody already knows about your business?
But what is it that everybody might not know?
Here’s another example of collaborative marketing, this time among a community of sellers on Etsy, a popular site for handmade art and crafts. Last week I featured two collaborative marketing efforts among potters.
To provide a support system for its individual sellers, Etsy has created Teams. Etsy Teams are groups of Etsy artist members who organize to network, share skills, and promote their Etsy shops in collaborative ways.
Etsy Teams can form around anything they have in common - a geographic location, their art or craft medium, or any other shared interest.
There are now nearly 500 Etsy Teams, demonstrating that Etsy is not just a marketplace of individuals, but a community of like minded artists interested in collaborative marketing.
Different teams come together to promote their members in different ways, including the development of joint websites.
Here’s a link to one of those websites, created by The Amazing Carolina Etsians, The ACE Team, organized by Etsy sellers who live in beautiful North Carolina (my home state).
Many small business owners believe they don’t need a press kit - that because of their small size or rural location, they won’t be asked to provide facts about themselves and their business.
You always have a choice. You can write the story of your business and describe your products yourself, the way you would like to present them. Or, you can depend on someone else to piece the information together and hope they present you and your business accurately.
The purpose of a Press Kit is to describe your business and promote it. What information you choose to include in a press kit - in a portfolio or online - should achieve that purpose. You might choose to include:
• Your business card
• Contact Information sheet with
* Your Name
* Business Name
* Storefront and/or Mailing Address
* Business Phone Number
* After Hours Phone Number
* Website URL
* Your email address
* Specific Location, and directions if you’re hard to find
• A small bio about yourself and your business
• Copies of printed materials - brochures, flyers, postcards
• A list of your services or products
• Samples
• A current press release about your business
• Photocopies or ‘clips’ of prior articles or press coverage
• Photos, DVDs or CDs, or state how to get digital versions of the photos
• An introductory coupon or discount offer
• A small promotional gift with your business name and contact info on it, like a key chain, a refrigerator magnet, or a pen.
You can also create a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ sheet with a list of questions you’d like a reporter to ask you in an interview, and a short answer to convey the type of response you would give. This level of preparation is often appreciated by those sent to interview you and will usually result in an article that emphasizes what is most important to your business and your sales.
You can even put this information online as a ‘Press Room’ or ‘Media’ section on your website. Visit other websites for businesses in your region or your niche to see how they provide information to the press.
Here are some resources you might find helpful in creating a press kit for your small business, or reviewing how ‘up to date’ it is if you already have one:
Entrepreneur Magazine
The Voice of Small Business
Five Reasons for Creating a Press Kit
How To Make A Musician’s Press Kit
How To Create An Artist Press Kit
So, what’s in YOUR press kit?
In doing research today on marketing for rural businesses, I came across a surprising article. The article is called ‘Using A Portfolio: How To Market Your Business By Hand,’ and discusses the old-fashioned art - or should I say never out of fashion art - of putting together a physical folder or portfolio as a way to market your business.
A Business Portfolio holds your ‘business profile’ - your contact information, brochures, samples or anything else that can introduce you and what your business offers. It is one way to communicate who you are. Portfolios can be used when meeting with new potential clients or when you’re networking with other small business owners. They are especially helpful to provide to local reporters or writers interested in articles about your business, or professionals you contract for support services. Of course, the contents of a physical portfolio can be put online too.
You can give new clients and contacts your business card only, and perhaps they will visit your website. Websites are wonderful, but a new contact has to remember to check out your website at a later time. If you provide your portfolio at the time you meet them, you have the advantage of immediacy of the moment. Your new acquaintance literally holds your business in their hands. They can look at your portfolio immediately and then make the decision to visit your website or not, based on their level of interest. That’s a risk, but also one of the reasons not to give a full portfolio to everyone you meet.
A business portfolio contains information about your business appropriate for those who have serious interest in it, and should be provided only to those you believe to be your target audience or who can help you reach your target audience. Portfolios take time to compile, and make use of printed materials that you’ve paid to prepare or reproduce. They shouldn’t be handed out casually, like a business card or brochure.
If you’re interested in learning more about putting together a portfolio for your rural business, you can get more tips about how to do it here.
How can you draw more visitors to your business when you’re in a remote rural location?
Increase your pulling power. Join with other similar rural businesses and promote yourselves as a group. Instead of just one rural business located ‘way out in nowhere,’ you can become a destination worthy of a planned day trip.
Collaborative Marketing is working together with others to sell what you make. It’s a concept that farmers have traditionally used more than artists and crafts artisans. But wherever there is common ground - a common market or a common product - there is an opportunity to achieve more together.
My area of western North Carolina is known for handmade arts and crafts, and it’s not surprising that some of our best artisans have linked together to attract visitors to their out-of-the-way rural locations. Two groups of potters have agreed to work together to market the the crafts they produce, and organized themselves by their geographical locations. Some of the studios represent the work of one artist, while other studios showcase multiple artists. With so many studios geographically close to one another, it becomes quite natural to market them as a group. And it also makes it easy for visitors who love handcrafted pottery of all kinds to see all the studios while enjoying the beautiful mountain landscape.
Each of the groups has created a website with a detailed map that lists all the artists and their studio locations, along with photographic samples of each artist’s work and links to their individual websites. Print brochures with the same information are available and waiting to be discovered by those visitors already in our area and looking for interesting things to do. Attractive and consistent signage at each studio location allows visitors to casually - but confidently - meander their way through the curvy mountain roads.
Here are links to each group for you to take a look at their collaborative marketing efforts:
Potters of the Roan is a guild of emerging and professional potters living and working in the Appalachian mountains of Western North Carolina.
The Penland Potters is a group of seven clay studios located within a three mile radius of the Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.
Are you ready to make this kind of shift in your thinking, and include some type of collaborative marketing in your promotional arsenal? It’s a tough question but one you must think about thoroughly before you join together with others. You are still an independent business, but interdependent in some ways. Finding businesses that share common ground is the first step, and then you can organize your marketing efforts around a common theme.
Would collaborative marketing work for your rural business?
