As the world gets into the competitive spirit this August, Google is challenging small business owners to brush up on their digital marketing skills. For the next two weeks, the Google Small Business team is unveiling a #SmallBizGames digital marketing challenge each day, with each designed to help small businesses get online and ready for the upcoming holiday season.

To further help small business owners, Google Small Business Advisors are standing by as #SmallBizGames coaches, ready and willing to provide tips, support, and advice for each challenge.

Starting Line Challenge: Get a custom domain name for your business.
Services like Google Domains help you register a custom URL for your business quickly and easily.

Ready-Set-Go Challenge: Make sure your business can be found on Google.
Set up a Google My Business account and update your business info including summer hours, photos, and business location.  (more…)

By Steve Robinson
Director of National Organizations, Constant Contact

You’ve probably noticed that a lot more videos are popping up online, especially on social media. That’s because more people are watching videos and there’s no signs of it slowing down. Facebook reports that viewers are watching 100 million hours of video every day. Meanwhile, the number of people watching YouTube videos has increased 40 percent year over year since March 2014.

This means there’s a huge opportunity for small businesses to use video to engage customers and attract new ones. Videos are also a great way to tell your story in less than two minutes, which is especially appealing to those of you who don’t relish the idea of writing content. And when you pair video with email marketing, you’ll see click-through rates (CTR) soar. In fact, analysts at Forrester Research reported that including video in an email leads to a 200-300% increase in CTR. If you’re curious about how to effectively use video to market your small business, here is everything you need to get rolling.

Setting the Stage: Cameras and Action

Who needs big studios, big budgets and temperamental actors when you already have everything you need to create a great video. Let’s start with the tools. For the video aficionados out there, or former high school A/V experts, you probably know that you can record a video on a DSLR or a camcorder and transfer and edit the footage for online use. If you don’t know how to do that, whip out your smartphone. Most smartphones record in High Definition, giving even novice users high quality videos. You can take the smartphone video up a notch and use apps like 8mm (Nexvio, Inc.) and Paper Camera (JFDP Labs), that let you choose distinctive filters to give your videos an array of stylistic options.  (more…)

Back-to-school season is almost here and with it comes $68 billion in anticipated spend from consumers (National Retail Federation). As shoppers make their buying decisions, business reviews are one of the key factors that influence their purchase. In fact, 3 out of 4 consumers say it’s important to read reviews before visiting a business (Digital Impact Report 2016).

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Communicate your proximity
By Deborah Sweeney

Local marketing has, thankfully, evolved past direct mailers and physical signage as efforts have shifted towards building an online presence. However, local marketing campaigns still woefully neglect mobile users — despite the fact that mobile use now accounts for more total online engagement than both desktops and laptops!

Twenty percent of local business surveyed by ReachLocal still lacked a mobile-ready version of their site, and only about 15 percent of businesses even planned to use mobile, in-app marketing in 2016. That’s a shame. Why?

If your local business is not targeting mobile users, you are losing out on a lot of potential customers.

People don’t shop like they did five or 10 years ago, and modern consumer behavior is served served well by local, mobile marketing for a few reasons.

Locally based mobile campaigns foster exploration

The biggest change to consumer buying habits is, easily, the emergence of exploration and research. The overall cost of exploring before purchase is a lot lower, thanks to the Internet. Today’s consumers don’t have to seek out and ask for recommendations; they just spend some time online and read reviews.  (more…)