Earlier this week I attended the Arnold Chamber of Commerce meeting for February.  Arnold is a small town of about 20,000 residents, south of Saint Louis in Missouri.

I was surprised to find so many businesses taking part in the Chamber meeting. Several people who had taken my classes were there, so it was nice to see some familiar faces from the get-go.

The meeting included a lunch served by the people at Ponderosa Restaurant and a drink (water for me).  There were a few announcements along with the opportunity to introduce the guests (me and many others).  I met some nice people and had a good time.

Apparently normally the Chamber has a guest speaker at most of their meetings, however this one backed out, so they decided to do a ‘topic’ instead, and this months topic was Marketing Your Business.  Right up my alley, or so I thought.

The first speaker was from DDI Media, a local billboard company.  She promoted her billboards and told of her pricing schedule.  No mention of  ‘marketing’ tips.

Second and third were salesmen from local newspapers.  They talked about their great subscription base and blurted out their inflated circulation numbers, all in an attempt to get more advertisers.  No mention of marketing tips.

Can you see where this is going?

Next up was supposed to be the ‘Welcome Wagon’, a company that puts (imagine this) ads in a little packet that they give out to all the people who apply for residency permits.  No mention of marketing tips.

Last was the good ‘ole Yellow Book.  This lady was even worse than the others.  She simply read from a flyer that she had handed out and told the business owners about all the great things that YB does.  She mentioned (incorrectly) Pay to Click, and Search Ads, although I guarantee I could talk circles around her about her own product.  It was funny to watch her read what she was selling when it was obvious that she didn’t know jack squat about it.

So, since there was no mention of actual marketing tips (the “topic” of the day), I’m going to simply pretend like I was asked to also speak.

“Thank you for this opportunity.  I’d like to share with you seven tips that you can go back to the office and do today that will help increase your business revenue.

1. Add your business to Google Maps.  Take the time to put in as much information as you can, including your products, services, hours and what kind of payments you take.  Add information on what you do, how well you do it, and verify your address through Google’s verification system.
2. Start asking customers to write reviews about your business on Yelp!, Mixx, and other local-based websites.  Don’t fake the reviews yourself, or ask your relatives to do it – those are too obvious.
3. Set up a blog on your website, and publish something each week (at a minimum).  Listen to your customers, and use their questions as fodder for your upcoming posts.  Blogging for business can lead to very nice ROI.
4. Get a Twitter account, and start posting daily messages about your business.  Don’t be boring, post things that people will find interesting. Link your account to your website, and set up an account through twitterfeed that automatically posts your new blogs.
5. Start tracking your website visitors.  Add Google’s analytics program to your site and learn where people are finding you.  Do you know how many people call you because of your website? …which brings me to number six…
6. Consider getting a call tracking service.  Call tracking lets you get separate phone numbers for each of your marketing campaigns.  You can then track that campaign and literally tell how well or poor it did.  Doing a direct-mail campaign? Get a phone number that only shows up on your mailer. When people call, you’ll know just how that campaign did.  And it’s not expensive.
7. And lastly, consider attending a seminar on Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  You’ll be blown away by the amount of things you can do online that can increase your bottom line beyond what you ever thought possible.  There are competitors of yours out there who haven’t heard about SEM yet, but when they do, you’ll be sorry you didn’t get to it first.

Ok sure, some of this may be self-serving in a roundabout way, but hey at least I’m giving real marketing tips.

I look forward to future Chamber meetings, and the topics they’ll cover in the future.  I could definitely use some education on things like accounting and such, so I’m sure it will benefit me in the long run.