How Non-Profits Can Expand their Fundraising Efforts for Free

Does Google own the entire internet? Some people I know would say "yes".  No matter what you think of Google here is something every non-profit needs to know. If you have or are involved with a non-profit Google will give you $10,000 per month of free advertising!  It could go up as high as $30,000. To be eligible, you must be a 501(3) C.

Google Ad Grants is the nonprofit edition of AdWords, Google's online advertising tool. According to Google, the grants empower "nonprofit organizations, through $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords™ advertising, to promote their missions and initiatives on Google search result pages." 

It's HUGE! It means you can get FREE advertising about your non-profit anywhere on the internet that Google owns "space".  And where is that? (Yeah, you can say they own the internet).

Why would you want to do advertising?  Besides promoting your mission and initiatives, you can also push people to your website where people can donate to your organization.  With Google Ads you can target your audience by demographics so that you get in front of the exact people that you want and need.

So, what is the catch?  You have to manage the first $10,000 ($329 per day) really well. If you can prove you have good management of the tool, you will be eligible to expand your grant.  In other words, you have to know how to use AdWords and understand the process of cost per click advertising. 

• A $2.00 maximum cost-per-click (CPC)
• Only run keyword-targeted campaigns
• Only appear on Google search result pages
• Only run text ads

That might be tricky for most non-profits that don't have a full time person who can manage this for them.  A good social media manager with Google experience or certification can help you with it.  Or just drop me an email with Google Grants in the subject line and I can assist you.

To find out more, just Google “Google Adwords Grants for Non-profits”.  They provide a handy downloadable guide to assist you.

If you want to get the free report "The 7 Worst Marketing Mistakes You Can Make (and how to avoid them)" join our VIP Marketing Academy at www.fluidcommunictions.net and get free marketing tips, information and insights. 

Also join us on Facebook at facebook.com/fluidcomm and @vipmrkting on Twitter. Karen Williams is president of Fluid Communications, a marketing communications company in Northwest Indiana.

What Is Your Branding Trying To Say?

I was out the other day and decided to stop into a new bakery that opened in my neighborhood.  I was particularly excited for the young owner.  I met her a couple of months ago at an event.  She was very enthusiastic about her business. So, when I went in to her shop I expected to see a lot of strong branding.

What I encountered was a drab offering.  Not only did she not have enough product( a few cupcakes and about a dozen cookies) but the furniture in the store looked like she had gotten it from someone's basement. There was no color on the walls, her logo was only on the window glass that faced to the street, and she had run out of business cards.  Her bakery cases had no decorations inside to entice me to buy. There was little that would make me want to return. There was no brand identity at all.  Or should I say her brand identity was not good.

A UCLA study proves that 85% of all decisions are made with our eyes. That's right: the visual you have has the most impact.  And particularly food needs to be appealing.  In a sense, you need to strongly brand your products or services.

I think there are three basic branding categories that business owners have to think about:

• Marketing materials -- brochures, business cards, website 
• Business decor -- wall colors, furniture, interior design
• The way employees look and present themselves -- uniforms, identifiers, customer service 

What do you want customers to think about you? What image of your company do you want to put out there? That is your brand -- good or bad.

If your brand is not professional and congruent, attractive and attracting you will be passed over - guaranteed. To be competitive, to have a greater influence on others, to attract more business and be more successful it's essential that you develop a well-thought-out  brand.

How to get to your niche market through digital advertising

When it comes to niche marketing many people don't really take the time to understand the importance of researching and narrowing down their target market.  They just throw advertising dollars at the next "new" thing, hoping they will hit their niche.

A niche market is a specific group of people that share something in common. In the business world they are the groups of consumers that you should be focusing on because they are the ones that will most likely purchase your product or service. They are referred to as your target market.

When I was growing up, we had three television channels.  So, if you wanted to advertise on TV, you had to be on one of those channels.  It was called mass marketing.  But very few people subscribe to mass marketing these days because we have so many options to place advertising. We have cable TV -- with it's defined audiences -- radio, various print vehicles, and of course the internet.  

So how do you reach your market?  Well, as you know, more and more people are on the internet.  So, wouldn't you like to be on the internet?  That means that you can actually find the people more likely to purchase your service or product.  How? You can actually target your customers WHEN they are ready to buy. 

By using keywords your ad can pop up when people are searching for a product or service like yours.  Based on keywords, ads are placed on websites, blogs, or other niche websites your market is viewing. 

This year Google opened up display advertising real estate for small businesses. Before this, only Fortune 500 companies could develop display campaigns and place on sites like national news, entertainment, and blogs as well as heavily trafficked local sites.   Wouldn't it be great if your potential customer was on the ESPN site and your pizza parlor showed up on the site?  And because it is targeted to your geographic area, you don't waste money advertising to someone out of your marketing area.

Advanced targeting options like “remarketing” can bring interested prospects back to your website, increase conversions and profit, keeps your business top-of-mind and help these interested prospects complete a transaction.

Remarketing is the process of your ad “following” the person throughout the internet.  This technique boosts conversions by 48 – 50% or more. You are probably familiar with this.  Have you ever been to a shopping site online and then every time you go to another site you see the same product or a product “you might like” on a totally unrelated site?  That’s re-marketing.

This type of advertising can be tracked for effectiveness as well.  Google makes it so simple to track your conversions and sales all the way back to every keyword in your campaign. 

Drive sales with your words

Getting the word out about your company can help drive sales.  You already know that.  But with the advent of the internet there are other options other than print advertising.  If you think just putting up a website and leaving it alone is good enough you're wrong, too.  Here are some things to think about:

1. First of all, YES, you need a website.  That is the basic online strategy.   (I'll tell you later about a company who has NO website).  By the way, what is it about entrepreneurs and small businesses who don't have one?  Ok, thats another blog.  Let's continue...

2. E-mail marketing. Stay connected with your customers.  If you are a part of my VIP Marketing Academy you get an email from me once per week, sometimes twice.  I personally think that is enough, unless you are promoting something special.  I personally think it shows you care about your clients/customers. Share some "special" information with them not given out to the masses.

3. Content distribution.  Everyone is saying that if you don't have any content out there you are missing out.  Content is basically articles about some aspect of your business. It positions you as an expert.  For, example, when I am finished with this blog, I could turn it into an article and submit it to SubmitYourArticles.com, EzineArticles.com or GoArticles.com. Not only are will the articles be listed in these directories, but they will distribute them to other social media sites --sometimes for a fee.  I currently have an article listed in SubmitYourArticles.com on the six tips of how to shine at expos and fairs (see earlier blog post).

4.  A blog. This is a blog.  I am authoring some information that will be picked up by search engines (I hope) and distributed throughout the world.  You don't have to be a member of my VIP Marketing Academy to see it.  But I will use it to promote my VIP Marketing Academy.

I'm only going to mention these four this time because I don't want you to get overwhelmed.  So, here is your homework:

You don't have to do all of these right away.  Choose TWO

1.  Think about what you would want to tell your customers on each of the platforms
2.  Decide how many times you want to send information out if you decide to do a blog, submit articles or do e-mailing.

HINT:  You don't have to write everything from scratch.  Once you get information about your product or service, you can re-purpose it and use it in all four categories.  If you are not a writer, then I suggest you get a content strategist to help you.  Or....you can e-mail us and we will walk you through it.

Bring in Customers with Sales Promotions

My niche marketing video

I have been sending out some niche marketing tips to my mailing list over the last week or so.  But I have also been tweaking my social media sites, editing my landing page for my website and creating a fan page for Facebook when I realized that it IS overwhelming.  I know I have said it to you before -- in fact my website says it, but for those of you who don't like doing this type of stuff, I'm sorry.  Advertising, messaging, content creation is changing daily.  It is hard to keep up for people who make their living doing this type of work so I know it is hard for you.

I'll be coming out with some new downloads for you.  I hope they will help you get to where you need to go.  (And yes, I know the screen capture makes me look a little weird)

Take a look at my video where I have come to a conclusion about my business.  Although I was leaning in that direction anyway, I just confirmed it in my mind.

See you next time. 

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Beware of junky information

Let me tell you, "junky" is a nice term. I have been in a marketing/advertising reading and writing marathon for the last three weeks.  I've been in what I call the "vortex" of developing my presence on the web so that I can share information with you, my dear audience and followers.  

Most everyone who writes on the subject about building traffic to your website will tell you you have to have lots and lots of content (blogs, stories and photos about your product and services), get listed on lots of site directories and social media.

There are a lot people who will tell you that you can do this quickly and easily.  They may even charge for a single format that will do this.  From what I can see, it ain't so.  Not that there aren't ways to get some of it done through individual sites but in general, you have to take time and go out there an enter information yourself.

One of the sites for content contribution is SubmitYourArticle.com  This site will take your articles and blast it out to other content publishing websites worldwide.  What this does is builds traffic back to your website.  In the coming weeks, I will put together an e-book with everything I have learned and give it to you.

My goal is to provide you with great information that will help you develop your small business into a powerhouse.  Saying, that, I found a really great article for you to look at this week:

http://www.wix.com/blog/2013/11/how-to-make-sure-your-business-is-found-on-google/

How to get MORE for you business doing LESS

I can't really tell you how to do that. If I really knew how to do that I would be rich.  But I do know that you can become more efficient with your marketing.  There is no better time in history to be able to get more done than today.  With all of the technology that is available you can reach more people and it will cost you PENNIES or even FRACTIONS OF PENNIES on the dollar than it did just 10 years ago.

Remember when direct mail was all the rage? You could get your message and name in front of thousands of households. Compare that to digital advertising where you get can get millions of impressions for the same cost.

Now, you would think telling small businesses and entrepreneurs about this and helping them to find other marketing ideas would be an easy sell, right?  Wrong.  For some reason a lot of business owners are overwhelmed with the idea of doing marketing that will grow their business --even though you show them how to save TONS of dollars and reach the people they need to reach.  

My friend Tracie Davis (the Marketing Guru) and I (The Marketing Ninja Master)  have decided that there are businesses out there that need help so badly that we are going to GIVE information away.  That's right, give it away.

 So, stay tuned to find out what we -- as entrepreneurs ourselves -- are going to do in the very near future.

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6 tips to shine at expos and fairs

It's fair and expo season!  I love going to fairs and expos.  They are not just informative and fun, but I get to evaluate the businesses on their expo and fair acumen.  It never fails.  I can find at least ten businesses that just don't know how to really promote themselves at these events.  And it has nothing to do with size of the company. 

Every company -- big or small -- should still put its best face forward. So, taking the positive approach, I have developed a six point list I call, "Six Ways to Shine at Expos and Fairs": 

• Be personable. You would be surprised how many people at booths just sit there. The don't smile. Step from behind the table and engage people that walk by. Make eye contact, smile,and speak. Offer literature, samples or demonstrate your product or service.  

• Be informed. If you can't discuss the benefits and merits of your product or service, you should not be at the booth or table. Don't send Martha in accounting just because she volunteered, leave her at the office if she doesn't have the answers.

• Be well-fed. Don’t eat at your booth. It’s not very enticing to go to a booth where people have greasy fingers, a paper plate of half-eaten food and crumbs on the table. Eat your meal in the designated eating area.  Hopefully this is far away from your booth.

• Be on time. Make sure you set-up during the appropriate time so that you can be fresh and ready to engage the attendees when the fair or expo begins. If you aren’t there at the beginning, you are losing money. You will get the most for your booth fee if you are there on time and stay until it is over.

• Be identified. Your marketing materials should be well-produced, have no misspellings, and include your contact information. Have a table cloth, sign and/or stand up banner with your company or organization name that can be seen from several feet away. If you wear a uniform, be clean and pressed — even if it is a tee-shirt.

• Be organized. Have your materials, samples, exhibit ready for people to pick-up, taste, or view.

I'll be seeing you!