Now is the perfect time to plan your marketing and take advantage of the spike in buyer traffic that typically takes place around the holidays and the beginning of the New Year. This is a great opportunity to implement the latest best practices for marketing your business, yourself and your listings, including taking advantage of all BizBuySell has to offer.
How to optimize your marketing and generate more leads in the new year:
1. Update your website and follow the latest SEO best practices.
Your website should include up-to-date information. Google ranks active websites with fresh content higher in search results compared to idle inactive sites. Include current information about you and your team, your expertise, your listings, as well as blog articles with helpful tips and the latest industry news. All websites should be mobile-friendly with responsive design for viewing on a phone, tablet or desktop computers. A great resource for the latest best practices is Google’s SEO Starter Guide that can be found at support.google.com/webmasters.
To enable your listings to appear on your site, login to BrokerWorks, go to the menu and select Networking Tools > Enable Listings on Your Site, then copy and paste the code between the <body></body> tags in the HTML source of your web page. Contact BizBuySell if you need assistance.
2. Optimize your social media to promote yourself and your listings.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter all have benefits and advantages for promoting your your listings and attracting new leads. Yet, many fail to optimize their accounts with the latest new tools and features. While Facebook has by far the broadest reach worldwide, YouTube and Instagram have grown and exponentially. LinkedIn is still considered the top social network for B2B marketing.
If you’re a BrokerWorks member, you can share your listings two ways, login to BrokerWorks: 1) Choose My Listings > Manage My Listings > Listing Actions > Share Listing; 2) Choose Networking Tools > Listing Distribution > Distribution Partner > LinkedIn > Verify.
3. Be more visible online.
Business directories, social networks, news articles or blogs are a great way to increase visibility and help customers find you. Professional directories, such as BizBuySell’s broker directory, IBBA’s broker directory, your local business broker or real estate association further increase your visibility. Other powerful directories include Google My Business, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, The Better Business Bureau, The Business Journals, Yellow Pages, and Foursquare.
4. Make your BrokerWorks profile the best it can be.
Are you making the most of your BrokerWorks profile? This is where buyers and sellers get their first impression of you. In fact, if they search you in Google, oftentimes, one of the first things they see is your BizBuySell profile. Broker profiles should be well-written and complete, including your picture; company logo, tagline and website; experience and background; expertise and services offered; and professional affiliation.
5. Upgrade to BrokerWorks Premium or BrokerWorks Elite.
Depending on your local market, you may need added visibility to get recognized by buyers and sellers. BrokerWorks Elite offers top placement in up to 10 counties of the broker directory search results, gives you exclusive placement in rotation on BizBuySell’s home page, newsletters and business-for-sale search results, and includes one ShowcasePlus Email credit per month. BrokerWorks Premium offers enhanced placement in up to 5 counties of the broker directory search results, gives exclusive placement in rotation on the business-for-sale search results, and includes one Showcase Plus Email credit per month. Visit BizBuySell to learn more about upgrading your membership to BrokerWorks Elite.
6. Create great business-for-sale ads.
One of the biggest obstacles to getting qualified leads is an incomplete or poorly written business-for-sale ad. Even if confidentiality is an issue, there are creative ways to overcome this. Your ads should not only be well-written, but also include all the pertinent information to attract qualified buyers, including key financials, great ad titles and descriptions, as well as visually appealing photos. Indicate seller financing, if available. To attract additional leads, consider adding a second category – it’s free! For more tips on writing a great business-for-sale ad, read our article, The 8 Most Important Attributes of a Business for Sale Listing.
7. Consider listing upgrades when appropriate.
For competitive markets, high value listings, or listings that need to sell quickly, you can benefit from powerful upgrades that generate more leads. Diamond ads are large, eye-catching ads that appear at the top of search results, include one BuyerBlast email each month and provide an additional reinforcement ad that appears further down the search results. Showcase Choice allows you to rotate multiple listings above basic ads in the search results as often as you desire. Showcase Plus Email lets you move a single ad ahead of basic ads, plus send one BuyerBlast email and receive a buyer prospect list. For more details about listing upgrades, login to your BrokerWorks and select “Marketing Tools”.
Follow these 7 steps and get off to a great start for the New Year. If you have any questions or need assistance, don’t hesitate to call us at (888) 777-9893 or email us at BizBuySell Client Services.
