Why do you invest your dollars in marketing your company? If you’re like most small business owners it’s because you want to get more customers. But are your marketing efforts paying off? If you want to be more efficient, profitable and successful with your marketing dollars then it’s critical you understand what you need to measure and how to measure it.

We love all of our clients, but one that is especially dear to our hearts is The Hignell Companies, a full service property management company. We’ve been helping Hignell with small business marketing for many years now and have developed a trusting relationship with the decision makers of the company. Back in 2010 or so, the team decided that the marketing for the apartment rental properties Hignell manages needed some new life of its own. When we found that the URL LivinginChico.com was available, we snatched it up and Living in Chico, a local apartment rental site launched by The Hignell Companies was born!

If you’re a company, organization, or individual marketer, and you want to grow your business and have a company that promotes passion and provision you have to fascinate people. The risk you have to take is being willing to get real with who you are as a company. You don’t even have to wait to get started. Figure out the uniqueness of your company, and communicate from that authentic place, and you’ll create a fascination that acts as a natural magnet to attract more customers.

If you’ve seen the movie “Field of Dreams,” you know the infamous quote, “If you build it they will come.” Kevin Costner’s character is able to figure out what that means by asking some strategic questions. If you want your business to stay in the marketing game and get more customers, you need to build a buyer persona framework to reference, so you can clarify who your customers are.

Do you know how to truly motivate people to buy your product or service? The key is to speak their language. In order to do this, you need to understand who you are communicating to and how to communicate better. It’s not about them, it’s about you, and what you need to learn to help the consumer find the product or service they want or need – your product or service. The catch is, sometimes they aren’t aware they can get what you have to offer because you aren’t speaking to them.

Amazing leaders in history have always understood that their role as a leader is to contribute to the world and to others. They know and they’ve worked at knowing who they are and what they can contribute – you can’t be a great leader without knowing that, especially if you want to have a successful small business.

Among the more notable business leaders in recent history are Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump…and Michael Scott? The thing is, you can be in a position of leadership and not lead well. This is the fault of Michael Scott. You know the one. The manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company on the hit show “The Office.” As much as we might like – err put up with – Michael Scott as a person (or as much as he likes himself!) he sucks as a leader.

[Photo courtesy of: memeblender.com]

Inspiration. It’s an abstract word that comes in many forms. The value from it comes when you motivate your customers to want your product or service and they continue to talk about it. Inspiration is often planned, but many times it comes in the form of spontaneous “aha!” moments. These moments don’t have to come to you through careful consideration, but can happen in your passion and provision company by deciding today to take 3 easy steps to become more inspirational to your customers and have a successful small business.

Sometimes your best just isn’t good enough when you’re trying to get new customers. That’s when you need some momentum to push you forward into the realm of closing customers before they lose interest and turn to your competitors. But how do you do this?

Maybe you think you're doing a really great job at this inbound marketing thing. You’re attracting people to your company website by blogging 3 times a week, actively posting on social media platforms, and you think your keyword strategy is accurate. You’ve even started converting some of your website visitors with your stellar calls-to-action that entice them to click and fill out the form to download the helpful content your staff has created. But then these leads seem to vanish into thin air and you’re left wondering how you can hold onto them and close them as customers. Keep reading to learn three key things that you should be doing.

If being an inbound marketer and content creator has taught me anything, it’s that the only constant is change. As technology gets smarter and people get braver, new strategies are tried. They might fail and that’s okay because that’s how we learn. But they also might succeed, and then you must adapt. In order to survive and thrive in the inbound marketing world you have to know how to write. If you really want to have a successful small business, then you also need to learn how to blog effectively.

I’m no fortune teller, so what I’m sharing with you is purely based on research I’ve done and my own predictions. But whether I’m right or wrong doesn’t really matter, because the points below will help your blog either way.

The end of the year brings with it top 10 lists, reflections and resolutions. After the busyness of the holiday season, which is also my favorite time of year, I enjoy taking a step back, a deep breath, and thinking about what I learned in the previous year and what my goals are for the next. Notice how I said goals, not resolutions. I’ve come to believe that resolutions are so often broken they have negative connotation and aren’t worthy making, but setting personal goals or goal within your small business, are something you can keep attaining, even when you fall behind.