KFDConsulting

Using Mobile Credit Card Payments : Small Business & Artists

kimberly — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:51:26 +0000

Using a mobile payment system has made my small business a Commercial Entity, so that means it can def make yours one too. After using Square for almost 2 years for both a small business and musicians I recommend it..I actually usually end up recommending it daily along with a ten minute Q&A with a lot of customers & entrepreneurs that have never used/seen it before so…

Here’s the 45-sec pro & con list gospel of this mobile payment system that I share now:

PRO’s:

⭕Accept all cards at the same rate of 2.75% – including American Express
⭕No FEES ( statement, swipe, insurance, etc)
⭕No machines – card swipers are free or can be bought for $10 at Walgreens, Staples and Apple stores
⭕Instant updated account information can be exported in one-click as a CSV file (compatible with most accounting software)
⭕Minimal to no customer or maintenance service needed
⭕ Works on Android, iPhone and iPad
⭕ Email or text customers their receipt with map that contains location of purchase and product description or photos

CON’s

⭕Small – make sure to have a couple swipers
⭕Asking people their emails can be socially awkward sometimes ( like is that hotdaddy13@aol with one or 2 T’s?)

Benefits Of Creating An Instagram Account For Your Business

kimberly — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:58:58 +0000

New social content sharing sites are growing exponentially and creating an easy way to share your favorite content with your niche market. Accounts with these sites are free but if there’s no intention of updating them regularly do not proceed…but if you intend to utilize them Instagram is a great one to begin with.

To install Instagram do so using your Android, iPhone or iPad. Search for and install the Instagram app. Once you have created an account for your business do the following to get up and running:

- Choose a profile picture that immediately identifies your brand
- Put your website in your bio description
- Add at least 5 photos
- Search and find at least 20 people or other businesses that inspire or relate to your business and follow them
- Share that you have an Instagram account via your Facebook page, Twitter and email list
- Add a call out banner with your username to your website

How to easily maintain your Instagram profile:
- Take daily pictures of items your customers are interested in. Think things you sell, not food you’re eating (unless you are a caterer or restaurant)!
TIP: Set a daily alarm or email alert to help you to remember to post daily
- Comment and like on others photos daily
- If posting an item that is for sale include price

Bonus Tips:
-Save the photos from your Instagram and include them as weekly blog posts on your website. Share this content on your social sites to drive traffic to your main site.
-Use the hash tag of your location in your Instagram photo descriptions. Many tourists and locals search for the city they’re in to find things to do!

Need to do this for your business but don’t want to? Email me!

Utilize Social Media To Gain Accolades & Traffic

kimberly — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 04:20:14 +0000

It’s important to reach out to your customer or fan base when they can help you gain accolades and awards. If you need votes for a poll or contest for your business or bands alert your base in the following ways:

Twitter
Facebook
Eblast

These are the places your base goes to communicate with you. It’s essential to make sure you clearly explain to them what you need them to do and provide an easy to follow link. You can expect to recieve a greater outcome by taking these simple steps. A way to track the success of your solicitation of votes is to create a unique and trackable bit.ly link.

A quick way to gain traffic to back up your accolades is to CREATE Unique Content that is popular to current conditions. For example: A video of a Rihanna Rude Boy Cover by a local band delivered to their current fanbase will deliver a few hundred fews, but a video of the same cover set to current popular content will deliver that plus thousands more hits from searches. A video like the one below features an artists’ cover set to a photo slideshow of a popular Facebook celebrity received almost 40,000 views in less than a month! Think how good that number looks in a one sheet including your YouTube video views. That’s something that can be used in a marketing pitch!

Tip:It’s important to include links to your website in the video description so those who stumble upon it and want to learn more about you may click it to do so.

Lucy Pop Salon Launches Customer Friendly Site

kimberly — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:06:06 +0000

Check out the new lucypopsalon.com just recently launched for their grand opening in Nashville! Lucy Pop is a forward thinking salon that wanted a clean site for their customers to visit, not only to get their address and hours, but to enjoy personal content from the stylists themselves. They understand that they provide intimate services and that their clients look to them to be taste makers.

Lucy Pop can now easily update their portfolio and blog by logging into their WordPress site from their computer or their mobile devices!

Create Web Content That Generates Instant Sales

kimberly — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:32:12 +0000

Customers that like your brand or service are happy to buy from you if they are aware of what you have. With millions of choices of products to buy it’s important to share yours in a n engaging way.

The Goodbuy of The Day is a daily blog post created for a vintage shop. The posts are scheduled and then feed to Facebook and Twitter daily as well. The shop has seen multiple items sell from this tool almost weekly! Do you have a product or service tip that you could provide daily that could increase your sales?

Economically Put Your New Business Online

kimberly — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:37:44 +0000

As if getting a new business started isn’t hard enough, all new (and old) business need to make sure they include adding their web presence to their to-do list. Of course this is another added expense, but you can keep cost low by not making your site complicated and utilizing free web tools, such as Google Maps and social networking sites.

Recently, a new wedding chapel caught on quickly and found themselves on the prime-time news before they could establish their web presence. They needed an economical and quick solution, so we built them a simple WordPress site, to which they could easily add/edit content to.

The site included:

Eye catching graphics and content featured on homepage
Social networking links
Contact form
Sub-page navigation for a clean look
Embedded video
Search Engine Optimization, including blog posts created using keywords and links
Set up of Google Analytics
and more

A Free Google Maps page was also created and optimized. It is important to utilize your Google Maps business page because it’s where a majority of people will find you. The chapel’s page was created using keywords and adding rich content , such as the news story on the chapel and the chapel’s logo.

The Rhinestone Wedding Chapel’s Google Map page stands out much better than it’s competitors by using a clean and bright graphic. Some of the other chapels have pictures that appear as a Google street map view photo or fuzzy image pulled in from another website.

Other steps to increase the business page effectiveness are to:

Get multiple positive reviews
Add a coupon
Add more videos and professional photos

In 2 weeks, this business went from having no web presence to being searchable on both search engines and google maps. The business now has a self-sustainable and optimized website, and it is up to them how often they will update and add rich content. They also have the freedom to edit the information on it as they would like.

A simple but powerful site like this, along with the creation of content and web tools will only run between $500 -$1200. It is a great initial investment in your business, and when your business and web traffic begin to exponentially grow you can then decide if you want to pay out $1000′s for a more robust site that will essentially operate in the same manner.

It is also important to think about setting up an email client and Facebook page to keep connected with your customers, items such as these are done on a case by case basis, for more information contact us here.

Adding A Facebook Like Button To Your Website

kimberly — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:31:47 +0000

With Facebook being the number one network people are sharing information on it’s important to integrate it into any site. Facebook has made it very easy by providing a code creator which will make a “Like” button for any URL. To make one you can find the information here:

Visit the Facebook developers guide here.

Enter your url, click get code and add it to your site!

Facebook also offers valuable tracking information about your like button under facebook.com/insights

Music Sales Down in Most Formats except Gospel

kimberly — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:30:21 +0000

Saw this in the newspaper.

Adding a Google Maps QR Code To Promotional Tools

kimberly — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 02:23:40 +0000

Being a small biz owner I try to put my digital marketing skills to use and maximize the efficiency of anything I can – especially if it’s FREE.

Both iPhone and Android have many FREE QR applications so it made sense to screen shot the FREE QR code that Google Maps now provides local businesses with for free and add it to a grassroots flyer campaign.

Hopes are that those hanging out at the local bar or walking by the flyer have their smart phone on them, are interested and grab the QR code.

The QR code will show all the info for the business listed on the Google Maps page, for those who don’t have a QR reader hopefully they’ll go old school and rip off a tab!

Even if you don’t have a Google Maps QR code there are some great QR creator and tracking tools available, such as http://www.qreatebuzz.com, now on to figuring out how to track the Google map QR codes…

Grow Your Lists: Make The Incentive Bigger and Make It Fun

kimberly — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 18:32:40 +0000

In this single promotion a digital marketing campaign was planned around a free content download and a humorous Twitter account. The content would not only include a free song but a recipe from the Twitterer “Granny”.

This promotion offered a chance for a fan to become highly engaged and increased it chances of being shared.