Starting a Minnesota Small Business is difficult for so many reasons, but when you miss some of these really basic steps you make it even harder for your to build long-term momentum. If you’re a Minnesota Small Business owner, or an entrepreneur that’s been hustling hard to build up their revenue, I want to make sure you’ve done these 4 Minnesota Small Business Basics that we learned launching our Minnesoata Accounting, Bookkeeping, Tax, and Payroll firm called Nuance Financial.
4 Minnesota Small Business Basics:
Claim and Verify Your Google Local Page.
The most important thing you can do is make sure that people will see that you are legitimate on Google. The easiest and more consistent way to do so is by claiming your Google Local page which is the one on Google Maps. This requires some basic steps, that Google walks you through. It requires 2 weeks for Google to mail you a verification code – and if you ever move locations to your new office it requires ANOTHER two weeks. But this will place you on Google maps and cause you to pop up when someone searches your category. But this allows you to do the most important thing – get reviews.
Get Reviews for your Google local.
Nothing can help your Minnesota Small Business better than having good google reviews – and the more you have the more business will start to come your way (assuming you are worthy of great reviews). But here is a basic way to invite your users to give you reviews.
This is the link you will use to invite your best customers – the ones who love you – to review you. We usually write a brief email asking them to please help us out and place the URL, then we will call them in person and nicely ask them to please oblige.When they click that link, the customer will be brought to that reviw page, which is VERY easy to understand.
FINAL NOTE: Do not spend as much time with your Google + page in the beginning – it’s more convoluted to get your customers to review you with.
Getting lots of quality Google Local reviews – on your Google Maps – is the number one marketing effort that small businesses should underatake.
Spend $30/month & Get a Real email address and website.
I can’t believe that this gets missed as a Minnesota Small Business Basic. This is such a simple little marketing opportunity for Minnesota Small Businesses that really costs very little. Here are the basics to this.
I recommend that you purchase a unique domain name and setup up a very simple blog through Godaddy wordpress shared hosting. The domain is $15, up front, and the hosting will be between $5-$15/month. This isn’t free, but it the cost is minimal, and it’s so important to your brand.
Then add on buy Office 365’s email package with Godaddy as well. It’s under $16/month but its a great value
4 things you get with office 365:
- An always up-to-date version of word, excel, powerpoint, and outlook.
- Exchange Email – this means that your calendars, email folders, and other changes will be synced across your phone, computer, and every point of entry. Nothing else does this as well as Office 365
- An email with your URL in it – which serves as an automatic marketing tool to everyone who gets an email from you. This Minnesota Small Business basics
Then learn to just write blog posts that are helpful – you can amp this up by reading about inbound marketing
Claim the rest of your pages online pages.
Start by making a Facebook fan page, then a Twitter handle, a linkedin profile, a Google plus page, Pinterest, Instagram, Bing, Yelp yahoo, whitepages, four square, and anything else you feel matters. Once you’ve got them all you can use hootsuite to unify your messaging between many of them.
To Conclude:
These are the Minnesota Small Business basics for Marketing that would would highly recommend for entrepreneurs to build momentum.
Hire Nuance Financial to take-over your Taxes, Accounting, Bookkeeping & Payroll
We exist to help small businesses focus on what they do best, by serving as their outsourced accountants, bookkeepers, tax advisors & payroll specialists. We are a boutique firm that’s focused on delivering a complete package with high levels of service. Please reach out to us for a cup of coffee or a free consultation, we would love to meet you or have an opportunity to add value to your Minnesota Small Business.