Our online document and check writing services for rebates most certainly rely on the education and skill sets of our employees. The virtual business vertical changes seemingly every minute, making it difficult to simply rely on traditional education portals like Universities. No, we aren’t saying skip college, we are saying that new skill sets crop up every day in relations to online businesses, and Checkissuing is no different.
The key is transcending your business by infusing education opportunities into your staff. For most online businesses, there is a reliance on a few different factors to help influence the companies success.
- Marketing and Sales
- SEO
- Social Media
- Your Business
Your trade’s skills are clearly the top need. For us, we need to hire people who either understand the business of payroll check services or hire people who are more than willing to learn the market. You can’t sell something you don’t understand. You can’t go after SEO keywords for a business you don’t know what the keywords are. This is all pretty logical stuff. Learn these new marketing techniques.
But aside from knowing the business, you can improve upon all the other attributes by simply utilizing education resources and SEO marketing. The point is, you can use web resources to train up an employee who may have some extra time to devote to learning and running a new sector of your business. You may not need to hire outside if you have a reliable, eager and competent person waiting in the wings. Lots of employees are motivated by the prospect of growth and new opportunities and want to learn the principles of marketing. It could be a win-win for everyone.
Marketing Tactics for Small Business
How To Improve At SEO
When it comes to SEO, most small businesses rely on good listings, either local or general but that is not enough you need to use website optimization techniques. Getting people to see your website for “free” is essential to the process. Paying for ads is an expensive undertaking. SEO is no longer a secret society – so learn SEO. Google pushes the best content to the top. It prioritizes content based on relevance and user experience. They want to make sure that when people search using Google, that person finds what they were looking for. A solution, or a product, or information. Any of it, really.
LinkedIn has a course that has a free trial. For a premium SEO experience, this would be a wonderful place to start. For a free starting place, you could have your employee(s) start at Moz. They have all the information you’d ever need to learn solid SEO skills. Beyond this, it all comes down to original content and relevant product. If you have something people want, SEO will be a small extra step for someone in your company to focus on.
Marketing and Sales Tutorials
Marketing and sales are the essences of almost every business. Whether you sale and market to other businesses as a service (like Check Issuing does) or you sell to consumers, you need to know how to get it done. Most businesses think that anyone who has an extroverted personality can sell and market. This could not be further from the truth. Sales, specifically, is an art. Those who are good at selling things are highly skilled folks. Most of them have read some legitimate sales books. And some have even taken courses such as these options on Lynda.com.
Social Media Skills
Social media companies will charge you an arm and a leg. Mostly, it is not worth it. But that doesn’t mean that social media isn’t worth it. Your company absolutely must have a true presence. In this day and age, you are giving up the too much real estate to the competition if you are underexposed on social media. Social media is also an excellent place to learn about what your customers want.
There are tons of free resources that can help you improve your social media presence. You don’t need to spend a lot here. What you want to look for are tutorials on organic reach, paid Facebook and Instagram ads, viral tips and tricks, etc. You want to first decide where your business fits in on social media. You might not be a company that can get away with being a big jokester, meme factory. But you may be one that could market coupons to businesses or customers who may be looking for your service. Social media is data and demographic driven, Facebook knows who your customers are, you just have to learn how to use the filters to find them. And that’s the toughest part.
I’d also say throw in learning more about emails. Constant Contact is a large, reliable emailing service who offers a beginner’s guide to social media. You could also use them to learn more about the basics of email. If you plan to promote on social media, you might want to consider collecting emails as well (the two-headed marketing monster).
In conclusion, the web is full of learning opportunities that could be used to prop someone up that could, in turn, help your business grow online. If you feel stalled or stagnate, it is worth looking into online educational resources which may serve to benefit the greater good. Get to fulfilling that mission statement, folks!
3 Essential Business Marketing Books
I believe that if you want to be successful in business, you need to read good books. I know most of us to feel that we no longer have time to read books, well with kids and work and family. But the simple fact is, reading, even just 15 minutes a day, about your trade, can boost your business acumen. When I read business books, I immediately realize that I am more creative and more centered. It turns my business mind on, for lack of a better term.
These days, it is easy to feel like reading only articles on LinkedIn and Business Insider is enough. But it isn’t. There are still some great business books available out there. Here are 3 I’d suggest, but you can go to Amazon and find lots more highly reviewed books (I wasn’t meaning you had to go to the library!).
The Tipping Point
The Tipping Point book looks at the major changes that happen in society and offers insight into what drove those changes. A book like this one can help business owners and directors understand the value of small but powerful change. Apply consistent pressure and reap the rewards.
Some items covered include why teenage smoking got so incredibly out of control and how Sesame Street taught children to read. It covers, essentially, change and how it is achieved. It is a blueprint for achieving a success driven mind.
Contagious: Why Things Catch On
New York Times bestseller and named Best Marketing Book of 2014 by the American Marketing Association, according to its review on Amazon. The core component of the book is to learn why things become popular; why people talk about certain products and ideas more than other products and ideas. How does something become viral, per se?
The book goes beyond advertising as a marketing base and assumes the position that word of mouth is the most infectious, strongest advertising available. If you want your product or idea to shine, people liking it and selling it for you through their opinions is a huge way to achieve that.
Guerrilla Marketing In 30 Days
Guerrilla Marketing is the study of how to make the most of your marketing ventures, whether those are small strategies or robust corporate plans. This book offers a plethora of tips, methods, and ideas that will help your small business grow. The idea here is to find marketing opportunity in low or no cost arenas. Instead of paying out big bucks to advertising agencies or networks, you find the diamond in the rough plans.
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