Marketing Secrets For Small Business

Steve Cockrane answers:

What is Self-Publishing?
Self-publishing will be defined differently depending on who you ask. According to people who work in traditional publishing houses, authors who pay for their editing, formatting, or cover design are self-publishing their work. The book is traditionally published only if the publishing expenses are paid by the publisher. However, this often excludes marketing services.
Self-Publishing Independently
In the purest sense, self-publishing occurs when an author handles the entire book publication process, including printing, distribution, and marketing. Author execution of all details during the self-publishing process is also commonly called independent publishing.
The author either has the skill set to carry out the book publishing step, such as book formatting, or employs professionals to complete the process for them. The author largely creates his or her own self-publishing experience, rather than purchasing a company’s services.
Independent publishing requires that authors have in-depth industry knowledge, cultivated management skills, and complete commitment to their entire publishing process.
Self-Publishing with a Company
Authors who publish with the help of a self-publishing company are also self-publishing. This is because the author is financing the majority of the publishing process. There are many different self-publishing companies available to authors who want to self-publish.
Some self-publishing companies offer publishing services to authors who are unable or would rather not deal with the details of the publishing process. In this instance the author pays the self-publishing company to handle the publishing process for them. Examples of services commonly provided include ISBN assignment, book cover design, interior layout, editing, distribution and marketing. Some self-publishers are designed only to get the book printed, while others mimic traditional publishing houses providing a full set of publishing and marketing services.
The key to choosing a self-publishing company is doing your research. Generally the self-publishing company that can offer all, or most, of your publishing and marketing services adds cohesion to your final product. Choose a self-publishing company (or a person in the business) you trust, and let them guide you.
Print-on-Demand Self-Publishing
Some kinds of self-publishers specialize in print-on-demand (POD) and commonly work specifically with authors who need very small quantities of printed books. POD publishers don’t screen submissions, and primarily offer printing and design services. POD is also used by larger companies occasionally to do test marketing or while reprinting out of print books.

Steve Cockrane answers:

Can you give a little more information about what you are looking to find out? Do you want to know about web marketing, or are you directly dealing with customers?

I do have one tip: always behave professionally, especially if your name is anywhere in plain sight on your website. Take advantage of social networking by using tweets to mention sales, link to interesting (industry-related!) articles on facebook. Always carry business cards, you’ll pass them out way more than you think you will. If you carry something exotic or unusual, make yourself known to local shops that may refer their customers to you for their specialized needs, and give them a small kickback for doing so (this is as easy as putting a “who referred you?” box on your checkout page, and giving, say, 5% back to the shop as a thanks for the referral.) Network with other people who do the same thing, even if it’s not the same industry. Always be on the lookout for industry changes or news, it makes you look informed because you are!

If you have a return policy, make it clear on every page and stick to it unless you have an unusual situation – a product arriving damaged is obvious, but what about someone who wants to return something after 30/60/90 days? As long as you still carry it, I would suggest taking it back in the interest of goodwill. Let’s say the packaging is damaged by the customer – offer to refund a percentage – say 90% – then sell the product at a slightly discounted rate on your site (stating clearly that it’s opened but unused, etc.)

When it comes to ANY sales, I always give this advice: Don’t take a “no” personally. If a customer has an issue with you, or just says no, ask if they have any feedback or suggestions about your service(s). Sometimes you get silly ones, but I have gotten some really good responses over the years. Things like:

“I know it’s silly, but I only buy from sites with free shipping. Even if the price is higher, I like having to only think of one thing and not get surprised at checkout.” (easy enough to implement, too!)

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Steve Cockrane answers:

Have you tried Facebook advertisements. I put up a small ad for my business page and within a few days I had 30 new fans. Of course, you pay every time people click the ad and visit your page, so you should have a good way to convert these visitors into paying customers.

You should also keep your content interesting and fresh. There are a lot of marketing techniques you can use. Check out your local bookstore or library for books on marketing. Many of the techniques and principles can apply to a facebook page just as much as a business or a product.

Steve Cockrane answers:

Well, your final choice should be the option that best serves your needs. Since you own a Ipad your first order of business will be to subscribe to t mobile. This will be the easiest and least expensive way to own one these phones. I personally don’t agree with the hassles or extra expenses associated with unlocked devices. Now you’re eligible to own one of these phones.
Personally, I think they are both very unique and both qualify in terms of owning a recent android device. In particular, The exhibit has the gingerbread os out of the box. After doing a little research I found the added features tweaks found in gingerbread to outshine the previous and popular froyo os. In gingerbread you get great new audio enhancements, like a real graphic eq of your own vs only having sound preset’s. This is an easy sell for the audio geek and sound purist. For me that was enough, but you should check out the key features of the gingerbread os and compare for yourself. I have personally played with them both and both give a premium smartphone performance. With sidekick, you get a physical keyboard and the screen size is the same on both. The 3.5 in size is truely the smallest desirable fit especially with the virtual touch screen qwerty.
On exhibit even with my fat finger tips you will notice very minimal correction need. I also found the better response also was another bonus of the gingerbread. On exhibit the only include the samsung qwerty, but you can still add the much better gingerbread one from the android market. With exhibit you get can operate most of its features with just your thumb. The phone is sleek, simple but after you demo it you final impression will be powerful and as useful as phones that are more expensive. Size and portabilty is different because with exhibit you get the pocketable feel, but sidekick is a bit more heavy and bulky yet still nice looking in appearance.
Sidekick is a very unique phone and they both have the same 1gz proccessor inside, just different different versions of android. I really wish sidekick had been released with the gingerbread, but Im sure we’ll see and update soon. Camera and video caoturing is likable and comparable in both. I’m blown away when you hear soo much whining of pixel sizes. I CAN STILL REMEMBER WHEN A 1.3MP WAS THE KING!! Notably, the sidekick does offer that feel of using a real camera because you do get a physical camera button on the device.
On exhibit your shutter is thr onscreen variety but seemingly easy to get used to. In conclusion Samsung is at the heart of this matter and they made to very high quality devices! One of which targeted to the heavy texter, and with exhibit they seem to be going after the all around user who wants the latest in os with gingerbread and the sleeker appeal of the higher end phones without the heavy price tag. If portable, reliable and have the latest software is your thing, get the exhibit. If having a physical keyboard, and you like your camere button on the outside for more snapping ease, get the sidekick.

Steve Cockrane answers:

Try a visit to your local supermarket armed with leaflets. Walk around the car park looking for cars in the parent and toddler bays and leaflet the car. You could do the same at Toys R us, etc.

Same at school pick up time, there are likely to be a lot of parents of young children picking up at the end of the day.

Ask the people that you babysit already if they will give you a reference or written testimonial you can include on the leaflet, this will give prospective new customers a bit more confidence in your service.

Social Media is als good. Set up a business page on facebook for example, called Babysitter (and place name) use it a webpage so you can include that on your leaflet, and give a the first hour free for anyone that “likes” the page, that way you can give the number of fans to your page a boost whilst gathering data for you to do direct marketing.