Every local business is unique – don’t put up with cookie cutter solutions for your marketing. Local business marketing used to be relatively straight forward – get a great location, advertise in the yellow pages, possibly do some direct mail or local newspaper advertising, and you had all of your bases covered.  Today, that isn’t …

Successful business owners are a group who know how to get things done. They’ve built something from the ground up and have the skills to make anything happen. Knowing this, many of them will confidently strive into a new arena and say to themselves, “Hey, I could build this even better.” and immediately get to …

You have built a website and you already have your SEO working the right way. Potential customers are coming your way, but for some reason people don’t seem to be coming back to your site or engaging with you in Facebook and Twitter. Keep reading and you will find a list of five simple things …

You might have heard that Facebook is rolling out a new business page design. You need to prepare your page and customize it to ensure that you get the most out of the new design. This article will outline 8 easy steps to make sure you are ready for Facebook’s new business page design. The …

As a small business owner or manager you might be wondering: “What are the things that I need to do every day to stay on top of my marketing and continue to grow my business?” We’ve put together a simple and easy to follow checklist to help you figure out where to focus your efforts. …

What do a glass manufacturer, a toilet seat company, a phone system provider, a printing company, and a repo man all have in common?  They all decided to forego the conventional wisdom that companies who sell relatively ordinary products B2B cannot produce virally shareable videos. At ThriveHive we hear from businesses all the time who …

Creating engaging content is critical if you want to attract people to your website and keep them on the site once they get there.  This article will outline four tips to help you create relevant content that will captivate your audience. First off, let’s define what a bounce rate is to make sure we all start …

Having a big sign in a busy physical location used to be enough to attract potential customers to your business.  Today, having a good marketing footprint still follows that same principle, but the signs are online and it’s important to place those signs in multiple places on the internet.  ThriveHive has developed a free way …

Today, ThriveHive is excited to release “The Chiropractor Marketing Report”, a detailed look into the current marketing trends in the chiropractic industry based on a survey of 236 chiropractors.  You can download your free copy here. It’s probably no surprise that most chiropractors are in a constant search for patients. If you’re thinking “Yep, that’s …

What is Foursquare? Not everyone is intimately familiar with Foursquare yet, but its popularity is increasing quickly and it’s a great marketing channel for many small businesses. Foursquare is an application made primarily for smartphones that enables its users to “check in” to locations that they visit.  Users check in so that they can earn points …

It’s time to include another powerful social networking site to your list of To Do’s for your business. Are you familiar with LinkedIn? LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network used to exchange knowledge, opportunities and to share yourself and your business professionally. LinkedIn listings are also ranked very high in Google search results. If …

Email is a great way to keep in touch with your existing customers or to nurture potential buyers by sending relevant information about your products and services and to alert them to any new or special offerings your company may have. Before you even start building your email communication, you have to ask and answer the 3 W’s– …

Your website is the biggest and most visible part of your presence on the internet. Internet usage is widespread and for many it is critical in making decisions about where to shop, dine, and have fun. These days, if you don’t have a website, people cannot find your small business and what it has to …

Today, online reviews can make or break small businesses.  A ton of great reviews can drive a steady stream of customers to your door and unaddressed negative reviews can act like an anchor on your new customer generation.  For this blog post we have outlined a 6 step process for dealing with negative reviews – …

A/B Testing or Split Testing is a very powerful tool that can help you improve your website. The idea behind it is very simple and it consists of running a live experiment on your site to test and measure the results of changing a single element on a web page. In the following paragraphs we …

In today’s Internet-centric world, a solid online presence is vital to your small business. You may feel as though you’re satisfying this requirement by having a dedicated Facebook account, but simply existing on Facebook is very different from conducting the interactions necessary to gain a following and, in the best case, a large customer base. …

One of the biggest mistakes we see small businesses making every day is trying to go straight from a first contact directly to a sale.  While a straight line may seem like the shortest path to a sale, the reality is that small businesses lose tons of business by trying to skip some important steps …

If you’re like most website owners, you have an objective that you’d like your visitors to fulfill. You might be interested in having them sign up for your newsletter, or you might try to target them toward making a purchase in your e-commerce store. Ultimately, however, your final goal doesn’t matter. In order to improve …

When talking about websites, a CMS (Content Management System) is a tool that should allow you to easily make changes to your website.  The reason why you should care is because without one, you may be struggling to keep your website content up to date, and you may not be adding new content because it …

As small business owners with limited resources, there’s often a feeling that we need to build everything ourselves. Paying someone else to do something you could do yourself may not seem money-conscious, but time is literally money and yours is already in short supply.  There are a ton of online companies focused on providing inexpensive, …

The Internet has changed the way a business can reach its customers. There are always new tools and ways to establish your online presence. However many small businesses focus only on active marketing such as online ads and e-mail campaigns. These marketing activities are very important and should always be part of your ongoing marketing efforts, …

Google is very secretive about the core algorithms that power its search engine.  That doesn’t mean it’s all guess work when it comes to figuring out best practices for having your site rank properly in Google.  Google wants good search results too, so they will tell you directly some of the do’s and don’ts.  Here’s …

A landing page is probably the best the way to turn an anonymous potential buyer of your product or service into either a lead that you can contact or a direct sale.  Landing pages are relatively straight forward as a concept, but it is amazing how frequently landing pages are sub optimized or omitted altogether. …

First, let’s recap part one of Small Business Marketing 101. We already discussed the importance of marketing orientation and market research. We also explained how to slice the market into different segments and how focusing on a market segment can translate to success. It is through the proper use of tracking and lead capture forms …

For many small, local businesses, advertising on Google seems complicated, expensive and intimidating. There’s a lot to learn, and besides, there’s an entire industry built on nothing but managing Google ads for other companies! It seems so much easier to just stick with the Yellow Pages or the local paper, but with more and more …

QR codes are everywhere these days. For those not in the know, a QR or “quick response” code is a two-dimensional barcode that can be read by mobile phones equipped with a camera and the appropriate software. I use Google Goggles for Android (it’s now available for iPhone users as well). QR codes have practical …

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business and it is important to understand the theory behind it. This blog post will outline the basics and explain how small businesses can effectively apply the right marketing process to positively impact their bottom line. Many of the insights of these article come from …

“I don’t have time to create more content” is one of the most common concerns that we hear when the subject of blogging regularly arises.  Generating content on a regular basis can seem daunting, but there are some tricks that can help to streamline the process.  Below are 10 tactics that will help you to …

You have your keyword list that you keep in the back of your mind when writing content for your website, but do you really have a good sense of how Google “sees” your website?  Word clouds can be the perfect tool to help you get a quick and intuitive understanding of how your content appears …

How to Measure Offline Marketing You already monitor your web traffic, but is that really enough to understand all of your marketing? Many businesses, particularly local businesses, rely on offline marketing that can be difficult to track with just web traffic information.  Postcards, flyers, billboards, radio spots, door hangers, and other “traditional” ads frequently result …

Why should your business have a blog? Many small and medium sized businesses wonder whether starting a blog is a good idea for them. A blog is a great way to attract customers and to reconnect with your existing ones. On top of this it will add dynamism to your website making it a source …

What percentage of your web traffic gave you their contact information last month?  If you’re a typical small business with a sales process (not ecommerce), your traffic-to-lead conversion percentage is very small.  You can dramatically increase that conversion rate by offering something in return for web visitors’ contact information. Give a little – get a …

Over 750 million people are on Facebook at the time of writing this article.  There are users all over the world, in every age group, with every imaginable hobby and interest.  If your business has customers they are probably on Facebook; but should your business be on Facebook?  Below is a 4 step process that …

If you offer a great product or service and want people to line up outside your door, this article will give you a formula to accomplish that goal. Many companies struggle to find the right marketing mix for their business, which usually translates into frustration and wasted money. By following the 3 steps below, you …

Morgan Cohen’s passion for homes led him to start a Boston area home inspection business in 2005.  Today, with a little help from Yelp, he has reached the point where he so busy that he is turning away business.  Morgan is getting 5-10 calls a week generated by his Yelp listing and he simply can’t handle …

Good news, U.S. small businesses are on the move again, that is if marketing budgets are any indication. In three separate surveys (Forrester Research, Ad-ology, Network Solutions) almost half of small business owners are increasing their marketing spend this year. A lot of that spend is happening online.  Fifty percent of those surveyed are spending more on their …

Does your business rely heavily on word of mouth?  Today the online version of word of mouth is reviews.  If your business doesn’t have any online reviews (check your online reviews here), it’s the offline equivalent of not having any word of mouth. Many small businesses struggle to get customer reviews, but the online shoe company Zappos has mastered …