Hootsuite Goes 3D (Photo credit: Bibi)

I often get emails asking about the best ways to get into offline marketing and what process you need to go through in order to get a business up and running.

With technology being developed each day at break neck speed, it’s now easier than ever to get a business started with very little capital.

One of those pieces of technology I’ve adopted is called Hootsuite.

What Is Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is a social media tool that allows you to add various social media feeds into a dashboard that streams live and in real-time.

It gives you the ability to track both your clients and your brand names online.

The moment one of their clients mentions them to a friend or even has a little rant, Hootsuite will deliver the results in realtime allowing you to respond in real-time.

Not only will the client be impressed with the sheer speed that you’re able to respond to their customers, most are now willing to pay handsome fee and employ you to do this.

Related articles

• 6 Reasons to Schedule Your Social Media Life with HootSuite (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• Constant Contact and HootSuite Together Make Social Sharing Easier (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• New HootSuite App Makes Monitoring Your Email Marketing Even Easier (community.constantcontact.com)

Image via Wikipedia

This was a great video by Gary Vaynerchuk using a new video/screen sharing service that’s currently in beta called Spreecast.

I’d love to hear what you think about this new service. Would you consider using this?

I know it’s definitely going to be in my marketing arsenal for 2012!!!

BTW, I’m also using a service called Zemanta with my blogs. It basically grabs pictures and information from around the web that’s related to the content posted. So far so good

Related articles

• Why Gary Vaynerchuk Tells it Like it Is [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
• Friday Talk: Gary Vaynerchuk: Entrepeneur Who Uses The Web (stateofsearch.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: Meetup Cofounder Raises $100,000 From Gary Vaynerchuk And Others For A ‘Paw’-some New Startup (businessinsider.com)
• Spreecast videos can now be embedded free on any site (zdnet.com)
• Gary Vaynerchuk: Why ROI Matters for Social Media [VIDEO] (mashable.com)

It doesn’t have to be anything too fancy nor expensive. Simply look around your niche and find out how the competition are branding their businesses. Alternatively, look at the larger players in your niche to get a few ideas for logos, colours, look and feel etc.

Once you’ve done a little research, you can then send all of that research to a graphic designer. With that information, they can formulate a plan to get your branding complete from the brief you sent them.

The image above is my new brand for my offline products and it’s quite cheeky and has a non-corporate feel.

I’d like your opinions and thoughts?

https://plus.google.com/u/0/114963287855523355234

It’s called ShopSavvy it allows local business to advertise their items via smartphone to a marketplace of over 20 million users.

Link - http://shopsavvy.mobi/

In everything I write I always advise people looking start an offline business to be a close advisor to your clients first and then think about making money from the second. What do I mean?

Simply this. I like to keep up to date with the current tech and business news and will often tweet or Google+ a story I think my clients will find of interest. I even email them web links they may find interesting. Do I charge for this, not really. I’m simply keeping my clients informed and being a close advisor to anything new going on in the industry.

Be A Friend First & A Business Owner Second

I like to think that my clients are good friends (I just happen to charge for my services) and will keep them informed and up to date like I would any friend. You don’t always need to charge for every single thing.

In the long run, you’ll build a much better relationship with them and more imporatantly a bond cemented by trust. When the competition comes a knocking, they won’t even get there pinky toe through the door of your client. This client’s yours, let them ind their own

If there’s ever a device that could make us even lazier than we are at present it’s this one.

With Smart Tags you can preset certain tasks to be carried out on your NFC enabled smartphone just by passing your phone over these intelligent tags.

You can automate tasks such as turn your GPS on or off or set an alarm as you get into bed. All of this without touching a single key or interface on your phone. Kind of slick eh!

I’m guessing it will catch on with the early adopters who are gadget crazy and then trickle down to the kids. This is where I see it take traction.

Keep your eyes peeled for this coming to a store near you. I predict it’s gonna be huuuuuuge!!

These little beauties are expected to cost anywhere form $30 – $50 depending on  where you purchase. All I know is, I’ve got mine on order.

I’ll be testing it out and relaying the result back to my clients

Follow These Simple Steps

Step 1

Sign up for Google Alerts and register the keywords of the businesses you want to keep track of,  I.e. “mike’s pizza house”

Step 2

Sign up and register for a separate Gmail account and set up filters for the different alerts.

Step 3

Start receiving alerts on the local businesses you’re tracking.

Step 4

Contact them with the information and explain the services you have to offer when it comes to managing social media, press releases and content creation for their blogs (if they have one).

I’ve just tried it using files stored in my Dropbox folder and it printed a few notes I’d written on my mobile frpm the station. When I returned home, my files were sitting in a nice neat pile in my printer tray.

Mobile > Cloud > Chrome > Printer

You can sync this with any printer in the world and connect it to multiple devices. The best part, it’s totally free!

Once you’ve installed this yourself, have a play around with it and get used to using it. Once you’re confident, simply email or call your local offline clients and tell them about this new service.

Offer to give them a free presentation when it’s convenient. They’ll love you for it and you’ll receive a Gold Star 

Always try to seek out new tools to help your clients and arrange a time to help them install whatever it is you’re showing. This also allows you to market your services again, but in a more discreet manner!

Action Steps:

1. You’ll need the latest version of Google Chrome on your computer – Install Here

2. Once installed, click on the small spanner button in the top right hand corner.

3. Then click on “Options”

4. Then click “Under The Bonnet”

5. Then scroll to Enable Google Cloud print and follow the instructions.

6. Wallah! If you don’t have it already, install Dropbox on your computer and on your smartphone for free HERE.

7. In your apps menu on your phone, search for Cloud Print and then install for free.

Note: It’s a free service but it will print out ads. To remove the ads you’ll need to pay a small fee. Your choice.

8. Congratulations, you’ve just installed an app that allows you to print out documents from your phone to any printer in the world. The receiving printer would need to be synced with the service, but that’s super easy if you just follow the Google Cloud instructions.

I’d love to hear your comments and experience with using this.

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It’s extremely hard to get your foot through the door, especially when the potential client has never met you before. I believe the odds will be stacked in your favour if you bring in more business using this free offer:

Step 1 – Actually have a meal at the restaurant you’re trying to do business with. Yep, all the other courses tell you to send emails and cold call. Trust me, nothing gets your foot through the door better than actually BECOMING THEIR CUSTOMER.

Step 2 – At the end of the evening, as a throw away line, commend them on the great meal and tell them you’ve just started your own offline consultancy.

Step 3 – Suggest to them that you have an idea that will bring a fresh set of customers and ask them if they’re interested. They always say “Yes”.

Step 4 – Explain the technique of giving free meals away on their slow days to salon owners. Nine times out of ten, the salon owner will talk about their evening to every client they serve.

Step 5 – Referrals from a person you know are much stronger than any form of advertising I know.

Step 6 – Restaurant owner asks each “new customer” how they heard about the restaurant.

Step 7 – Over a few weeks, call the restaurant owner and ask them how they got on and would they like you to invite more salon owners.

Step 8 – You now have a solid relationship, you’ve lowered the barriers to entry. Congratulations, you’ve got a new client on your books.

Please try this out and tell me how you got on. I’ve been doing this now for a few weeks and have managed to pick up 5 new clients.

If you like this post. Please tweet and share the experience

I thought long and hard about writing it since I knew I’d come under a lot flack and negativity about what I was saying and my new approach.

Take a look at the video “by Google” below….

A month ago, I started advising my offline clients to change the way they marketed their business online. In essence, I wanted them to become more social and actually get out there and talk with their clients. Whether it was on Twitter, Facebook or even through their blog.

They can see now why I was so concerned and thanked me for pointing them in a new direction.

This post isn’t to gloat (even though I knew I was right) he he, it’s simply to inform you to inform your clients to become more social.

The days of spending $$$ on SEO are going to decrease and social media and media buying (which includes Pay Per Click) will rise to the top of the scale.

Please inform your clients when you can. It’ll give them a jump over their competitors and a Gold star for you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts?