In the business world, it’s not always as simple as buying a radio or television ad and bringing in the sales. Sometimes, you have to get a little more creative and get out there to reach your customers. Guerrilla marketing is a method of marketing that aims to get people’s attention by using out of the ordinary marketing techniques. Here are three guerrilla marketing techniques that you can try out for yourself.

Have a Contest

One of the most effective strategies that you can try is to have a contest. When you have a contest with an attractive prize up for grabs, you can generate some serious interest. Many people will go out of their way for the chance to win something that you are offering. You could promote the contest through your social media profiles if you want an inexpensive way to get the word out. The contest could be for something as simple as “Liking” your Facebook page or for guessing a number. The details of the contest aren’t that important, but being able to drum up interest for your business is critical.

Tracking Your Prospects

One of the best ways to reach customers is to keep track of who you are interacting with. For example, you could have a form on your website that makes it possible for people to sign up for a newsletter or mailing list. You could have a guest book in your brick-and-mortar store. Even having your sales people simply get contact information from customers they are interacting with can be a great way to track who you’re dealing with. This list of people represents individuals who are already interested in what you have to offer. You can then send out special offers to these people and many of them will end up buying as a result.

Start a Grassroots Campaign

If you can pull it off, this is one of the most effective guerrilla marketing techniques. With this approach, you make it look as though a grassroots movement is swelling up in relation to your products or services. Creating fan pages or communities and getting other people to interact can be one way to get this started. Some companies have made viral videos on YouTube to help with this process. If people see that you’re trying to manipulate the perception about your products, then this will not end well. However, if you can make it work, you could benefit greatly from the exposure.

Jennie is a marketing consultant, author and part time blogger.  She recommends visiting http://www.dentalmarketing.net/dental-advertising-design/ for performance based dental advertising postcard design. To begin elevating your dental marketing efforts to new heights, view their website today.

Portray a “Big Company Image” for Your Small Business

Marketing expenses for your small business can take up a big portion of your budget if you don’t look for creative ways to promote yourself. If wisely used, email signatures can turn out to be a highly effective marketing tool for your small business and it can also give a highly professional look to your business. It is very important for you to learn how to create a professional email signature for all your business emails.

Why A Proper Business Email Signature is Important

As a small business you need as many low-cost marketing tools as you can find. Luckily there are now a number of marketing tools and apps available in the market, most of them free of cost. These marketing tools include QR codes, Google Places, and several social media marketing opportunities. Business email signatures can be added to this list of free marketing tools that provides everyone with a chance to reach you easily.

Having a professional email signature for your small business can often portray the image of you as a large business. The email signature allows you to convey some part of your personality which you should try to keep professional. It is an easy way to connect to your clients and potential customers on a large scale without spending any big bucks.

How to Create a Business Email Signature

Creating a business email signature is an easy, three-step process. Here is what you have to do:

• Create a signature on a word processing document as you wish to make it appear. Anything you want in your signature should be included there.
• Sign in to your business email account and check “Tools”, “Options” or “Preferences” sections for “Personal E-mail Signature” option.
• Paste your signature from the document to the area provided and save it.

Now you have an email signature for your emails. Before sending it to a professional connection, check it by sending it to yourself. Also send it to a few friends and family members to check how it appears on their emails.

You can also take help from a number of email signature designing companies available online especially if you are planning to include image or graphics.

What Should be Included in Your Signature

Before you start creating a signature, you should know some basic business email signature etiquettes about what should or shouldn’t be included in the signature to keep it effective and professional. Here is a list of what you should definitely add to your signature:

• Your name  and your company’s full name
• your phone number
• your email address
• website URL
• links to social media profiles of your business

A company logo, graphic or picture can also be added to your signature, but only if it is very necessary. Graphics take a lot of time to load, are usually considered as unsafe content and remain hidden. If you wish to include the image, make sure to optimize it first.

You can also send link to your Skype and IM but only if you want all the people to contact you through it. Remember, email signatures are for everyone you ever contact.

Some Do’s and Don’ts of Email Signatures

Here is a list of few things you may consider when making an email signature:

• Keep the lines to a minimum number; usually the standard is four lines.
• You can add more information in one line by using colons (::) or pipe (|) to separate the information.
• Keep the text format simple. You can add a little color to promote your brand but keep it to minimum.
• Add only ONE preferred phone number and email address.
• Only add those social profile links that are strictly business-related.
• Don’t include your mailing address. Not everyone needs to know that.
• Don’t include a vCard. It may be okay for the first time but gets irritating in repeated communications. Also, not everyone will actually know what it is.
• Avoid using a quote. It might be perceived differently by everyone.
• Avoid legal disclaimers if not absolutely necessary.
• Update your signature on your mobile devices if you use them for sending emails regularly.
• Take care of HTML formatting and check it with as many people as you can.
• Re-confirm the necessary things you are obliged to include in your email signature by government standards or you can be fined a charge.
• Don’t add your complete work profile or a list of contact numbers. It is not your resume.
• Use proper punctuation and capitalizations. Remember, you are a professional, not a three-years old.
• Only add a professional made logo, not anything vague. It portrays your company image to your connections at the first glance.
• Make sure the signature looks complete even without the graphic you have added, in case it does not open due to security.

Business Email Signature Examples

Some worst and best business email signatures are added below for your review:

The Best Ones:

And the Worst Ones:

Summary

After taking a look at the above samples, you can well understand how your signature can create your image in the mind of your contacts. Your email signature should be professional; it should not scream “small business”. It is advisable to get it created by a professional design company. A little investment on email signatures can prove to be a great marketing strategy.

Gone are the days when you could just name your small business on your instinct; a lot more thought goes into naming a business nowadays. A name is the most important element of any business branding strategy. Coming up with a company name idea is not a straightforward task; a company name can easily make or break a business.

It is necessary for entrepreneurs to pick good small business names carefully. Your name says a lot about your business and may have a number of different perceptions associated with it. Before you start selecting the name of your company, it is very important to understand your target audience. The demographics and psychographics of your audience play a very important role in making your business name a success.

Attributes of a Winning Business Name

Following are some attributes that your business name should essentially have in order to make it appealing and successful:

• The name should be short, easy to spell and memorable. It should be easy for people to remember or name and recall it at the slightest cue.
• The name should have a positive meaning for your customer, both literally and emotionally.
• It should be easy to visualize an image when you hear the name. Visual cognition is the most important factor that helps in making a name memorable.
• A name should be aesthetically pleasing to everyone. It should generally hold a positive perception in your target audience’s minds.
• It should be unique. It should help you from distinguishing your business from other industries and all your competitors in the same industry.
• A good business name has to portray an image of your business, the way you want it. It should say something about your business purpose or function. It can also be a portrayal of your business benefits,
• A business name should not be technical. It should be understandable by all of your target audience easily.
• A business name should be suggestive of your business functions or industry
• A business name should be transferable in two manners; across product categories and across geographic boundaries. Your business name should not restrict you to a particular product category for future expansions. If you plan to operate globally in the future, your name should be understandable and likeable across different cultures and countries.
• The business name should be available, legally and competitively. If you are planning to have an online business or a website, it should also be available for domain names and URLs. Make sure it is search-engines friendly if you want it to be looked up frequently on search engines like Google Places.
• The name should be flexible such that it could be updated over the time; avoid using years or dates or technological names that get obsolete quickly.

Once you consider all these attributes in your business name, you are likely to come up with a name which will be perfect for your small business. However, taking note of so many things while coming up with a name might seem overwhelming to you.

How to Select the Perfect Name

For those wondering how to pick a good business name, here is a step by step process you can follow to get some small business name ideas in a helpful manner:

1.Know Your Naming Objective

Your company name has to convey a distinguishing feature about your business. Determine the objective of your name first. You have to analyze what is the first distinctive image you want your customers to have about your business.

2.Search for a Name

At the initial stage you can note down as any name as you like. You can ask your friends, family, employees and potential customers about any likely idea for a business name that they find suitable. Any random name you find meaningful and appealing at this stage can be noted for further screening. With a business name, you never know how a different, unique idea could be monumental; look at Apple.

You can name your business on the name of a person, place, animal, occasion, fruits or any other thing that exists, if it somehow acts as a metaphor for your business. You can also select your name based on an adjective quality of your business that you want to portray as the most important one.

Your name can also coin a new, meaningful name that is not an actual word; Intel is short for intelligent electronics. You can compound two or more different words or prefixes and suffixes to create a new unique business name.

3.Hire a Professional Name Generator

Naming your business is one of the most important decisions that need to be taken when starting a business; a name is for lifetime. This is one aspect for which it is highly advisable to get help from professional naming experts though it may be a bit costly.

A number of different small business name generators like WordLab, are now working online, helping small businesses to select good names for their business at relatively reasonable prices. Selecting a name is a complex process and you should invest on it in a considerable manner initially to avoid any legal dilemma in the future.

4.Check the Availability

Screen all the name s you are considering to check whether they are available legally and competitively. Check with that trademark authorities to ensure your business name does not infringe any other business’s trademark. This can create a lot of legal complications for you in the future and can cost you a lot more than hiring a trademark attorney initially.

5.Test Your Name

Once you have narrowed down your list of names to two or three best names, you can see which one suits your business functions better. You can also check it with a focus group of your potential customers to check whether their perception of the name matches your initial naming objective and whether it evokes positive connotations for your audience.

You should also check how well it suits the aesthetical needs of your customers. If you are planning to advertise on telephone or radio, see how it sounds first. You can ask your family and friends for suggestions.

A good company name should also fit well with your company logo, any jingle or slogan you are planning to create and is available for a domain name.

6.Choose the Best One

Once you have checked for all the attributes that a good name should have, select the one that matches your needs perfectly and fulfills all requirements of a good business name. This is now your business identity so start promoting it in a positive manner at every possible occasion.

Summary

Selecting a name for your small business is one of the most difficult and crucial decision entrepreneurs will have to face when starting a new business. A name is a very important marketing tool, the very first aspect of your business that your audience encounters and can leave a very strong image in their minds.

A lot of thought is essential before you come up with a name for your company. There are certain attributes that a name should have and then there are legal restrictions that need to be handled before you can finally select a name.

You can take help of as many people as possible but hiring a professional naming company is still advisable when it comes to naming your business. Also, test your business name with as many people as possible before getting it registered.