I love social media marketing success stories about small businesses and startups operating on a tiny budget.  If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur looking to create awareness, earn interest and actually win paying customers on a budget, blogger Mary Hall’s recent interview with the founder of GoGo Gear is a must-read.

Marketing expert Mary Hall published a valuable, how-she-did-it interview for anyone starting a new company or looking for a marketing tactic that won’t break your budget.

Mary Hall spoke with Arlene Battishill, founder of GoGo Gear, a new company making stylish and protective riding gear for women motorcycle riders.

This interview is a rich case study for small businesses and startups in all industries because it provides insightful detail about the founder Arlene’s thought process.  You can peek into her personal approach as she  shared steps to building her new brand using social media and no budget.

Social Media Was New to Founder
Arlene Battishill acknowledges that she didn’t know a lot about social media.   Importantly, she did deeply understand GoGo Gear’s target customers and her new company’s mission to fill a gap in the market.  This clarity helped considerably.

She knew that her future customers, women motorcycle and scooter riders, did not believe that riding apparel could be both stylish and safe (padded for protection in case of falls).   Why?  Because as a motorcycle rider herself, she couldn’t find any protective riding jackets that were also fashionable.

Arlene kept the skepticism in mind when she began her Twitter account @LAScooterGirls three months before launching the company’s finished website and new riding apparel line.

Arlene used a business approach to Twitter.  She searched for terms that pointed to her potential customers on Twitter (“motorcycle” or “scooter”) and began following them.  She crafted a clear Twitter bio that explained exactly what the company does. In her words, “… we only have only one  click to gain their interest.”

Seth Godin, visionary author of global bestselling books like Purple Cow and Tribes, would say, GoGoGear set out to appeal to only those folks that shared their worldview:  Women motorcycle and scooter enthusiasts who want to wear stylish jackets while riding.

Women motorcycle lovers on Twitter began following @LAScooterGirls because Arlene was a real person sharing her ideas for riding apparel quietly.

• She shared openly and candidly experiences in building the brand new company.
• She was not selling or pushing her new brand.
• Arlene posted on Twitter frequently and enthusiastically.

Twitter Followers Became Referrers

When the new company’s website was launched, three months after the @LAScooterGirls Twitter community began, GoGoGear experienced a wave of support and it’s Twitter followers acted like, well, a community.  They shared the new company’s website with friends, made purchases and then shared their delight with the fashionable riding jackets on Twitter.  In other words—Arlene’s Twitter followers built buzz for the new company by referring others to GoGo Gear.

The Best (Marketing) Money We Never Spent

According to Arlene Battishill after the launch of the clothing and website,  their Twitter followers   “…started sending out RT (Retweets) to their own followers and we continued to pick up more followers. The momentum continues to this day. The “Twitter-verse” has been the most important marketing tool we’ve used and the best money we’ve never spent.”

2 Key Success Factors

Personal Approach. I think the key success factor in this new company launch success story, is the personal approach Arlene Battishill used when posting on Twitter.  She was her authentic self and she was “all in”.    She achieved the personal touch in her Twitter posts  by sharing overseas travel anecdotes as they were happening.

Commitment to Use the Marketing Tool.  The founder Tweeted non-stop for three months before the company website and product line launched.  What did she Tweet (post) about?

She frequently Tweeted about her global travel adventures involved in finding manufacturing partners in Asia.  Arlene’s Twitter followers became invested in the progress of the new apparel line and startup company because they connected with Arlene as a person first.  They followed her progress for three months and became “invested” in the new brand.

Twitter Followers to Sales

For those (few) cynics among you that may be saying, well, Twitter followers are not customers—wrong! @LAScooterGirls followers soon became customers and sent their friends and family too.  When new riding jackets were shipped to a retailer, GoGo Gear Tweeted the details.  Retailers would find a line of loyal @LAScooterGirls fans lined up to buy the new jackets right out of the box!

Follow the new company on Twitter here http://twitter.com/lascootergirls
Their Twitter handle is   @LAScooterGirls
The company’s blog is here

Social media marketing is long on hype and short on from the trenches examples of what works.  Mary Hall has prepared a terrific case study for consumer marketing with the article, read full interview here. Thanks Mary!

Mary Hall blogs at Huffington Post and at the wildly popular blog, The Recessionista here.  You can follow Mary on Twitter here.

Ready to put BtoB social media marketing to work for your small business to increase leads and sales like IBM?  See my earlier post here about how IBM has generated millions in sales based on social media and blogs by sales folks and others.

Here’s a quick next-steps checklist to help you get started:

1.    Identify people in your company to create exceptional content. IBM suggests that subject matter experts are the best. (Usually not sales people.) Business buyers and prospects want from-the-trenches technical help to make buying decisions.  Here are some content ideas:

• Develop easy-to-locate information that answers questions quickly for your crazy-busy prospects.

• Include information that helps a prospect ‘fill in’ her business case to her boss to purchase your products and services.

• Create valuable case studies about niche problems you can solve better than anyone else.  This 1-2-3 format works for many small BtoB companies I’ve worked with: problem, solution, result.

Impact Interactions has built online communities for BtoB companies for 10 years.  Their research shows senior executives use information from online BtoB communities to build business cases for purchasing upgrades and new solutions.

• Write a short story that explains clearly to new website visitors, prospects how to use your products or services.  Get help to make it into a how-to video that shines like IndustrialInterface.com

2.     Determine the keywords or industry terms that are most popular with your prospects for online searching.  Then use these terms to monitor websites where your prospects are discussing their issues and questions.
 Click here for a keyword tool I created. Copyblogger has great articles on choosing keywords for blogs that apply for websites too.

3.    Share your how-to and informational content on the social media websites frequented by your prospects.

DemandGenReport.com’s survey titled “Transforming the BtoB Buying Process,” showed that 90 percent of BtoB buyers said “blogs impacted their research during the “Solution Analysis” phase and 3 in 4 respondents said social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Delicious were utilized during the early Analysis phases.”

4. Launch a company blog that’s updated at least weekly.

• Prepare a plan and assign someone to monitor websites where your industry, your competitors and your products are being discussed.

5.  Choose your metrics to track success.  Create a list of metrics that will best help your business to measure and evaluate social media efforts. For IBM it is: number of leads created, lead value, win revenue and win rate.

• If you’re just starting, your metrics might include:  number of new visitors to website, number of pieces of content downloaded, number of new enewsletter subscribers, number of leads generated, number of returning visitors to website, or new sales.

• Or any other data points that let you know how social media is helping you to grow your business!

Have any ideas to get results from social media like IBM?  Let me know in the comments below.

Photo: iStock.

Is your small business looking for proven B2B social media marketing tactics that generate leads and sales?   Read on!  You may like this business-to-business marketing case study.  IBM shares their experiences with social media roles for subject matter experts, sales reps, and results metrics. Clark Fredricksen at eMarketer uncovers valuable social media best practices from Ed Linde II, who is in charge of Internet presence at IBM.

According to Linde, IBM’s social media efforts have uncovered millions of dollars in sales.

I think the aha fact shared here is the four classic metrics IBM uses to track social media leads: number of leads created, lead value, win revenue and win rate.  These basic metrics sound a lot like traditional marketing measurements to me.

B2B Social Media Marketing Excerpts, Tips from IBM interview:

Who in the business should participate in social media?
Experts are best to lead social media marketing in the B2B space.  Not sales reps. Use your subject-matter experts with established authority on key topics.  They have credibility in their area to help buyers that are looking for more information in order to make informed decisions on equipment purchases.

Note:  According to IndustrialInterface, a BtoB startup using social media marketing to grow, it’s all about sharing on social media—not talking about your products and services. Brian Jones, co-founder at IndustrialInterface.com says, “Internet users can smell marketing speak a mile away…Social media marketing is all about people sharing with other people.”

Sales Reps (Do) Blog
Sales reps use individual blogs to deepen relationships with their own customers.   Many IBM sales reps have blogs with RSS feeds that are connected to LinkedIn and Twitter.  Sales reps’ customers can follow them and have an individual relationship.

How to Listen for Leads
The Listening for Leads program consists of IBM employees that are volunteer “seekers” who monitor particular social media sites.  They listen to online conversations and determine whether there’s a potential sales opportunity.  “Seeking” is not a full time job.

”Seekers” visit government agency sites where RFPs (request for proposals) are posted, and there are discussions about proposals. In the tech space, they frequent blogs or discussion boards about the new Intel chip for servers.

“Seekers” listen for clues (leads) that someone is in a buying mode:

• “I’m about to issue a RFP. Does anyone have a sample RFP that I can use?
• “I’m looking to replace my old server”
• “Does anyone have any recommendations on what kind of storage device will work in this in type of situation?”

Then “seekers” try to get these leads to a telephone rep that qualifies and validates the lead then passes it to a sales rep.

Events are Tweeted
IBM uses Twitter to inform customers about Webinars, podcasts, virtual trade shows or physical trade shows and to advertise some promotions. Individual reps keep their customers updated about interesting news and events via their own Twitter accounts.

Right Keywords are Key

Key to B2B social media success: knowing what the right keywords are so that you can search the various blogs and other sites where people are talking about your products.  Using Google tools that filter the conversations that are happening within blogs or on Twitter will help you locate the best websites.

In my next post, I’ll suggest next steps for business-to-business owners and marketers looking to use the IBM approach.

Have any thoughts on the IBM social media successes?  Share them below in comments.

Photo: iStock

You can read more of the IBM interview here.

Related posts you might enjoy:

How to Use Social Media to Get People Listening

5 Social Media Tips from IndustrialInterface.com

Business owners and startups are often looking for ways to increase visibility, stand out, and get known.   Social media marketing can level the playing field for small businesses working to get known online—even on a tight budget.  However, gaining recognition and visibility is still a steep hill to climb for many small businesses.

Here’s a from-the-trenches success story of how a small, startup organic skin care company named Four Truffles won an award for its “Do Good” work.  Four Truffles and its founder, Ana Soriano, were recognized along with three others with the “Do Good” award from Ladies Home Journal.

Full disclosure, I’ve been working with Ana Soriano and Four Truffles for several months.

Small is the New Big

Take note small business owners!  Size is not a barrier when it comes to winning recognition for your products and good works.

In addition to Four Truffles, three other companies received the LHJ Do Good Award: Lands End, Avon Products, Inc., and HERSHEY’S.  Three established companies with large staffs.  FourTruffles is a young startup with a tiny staff, but a big vision for giving back to the community and the LHJ editors recognized their work!

Small Company, Big Commitment

Ana Soriano founded Four Truffles a year ago with two key goals as her mission:

1) Expand her philanthropic work of empowering women
2) Develop eco-friendly skin care products that meet high performance targets

Before launching Four Truffles, Ana traveled to several countries researching eco-friendly ingredient sources.  Four Truffles makes organic skin care products using sustainable ingredients that also give back to the communities where they originate.

Giving Back from Day One

From the beginning Four Truffles has donated 10 percent of all profits to its charities.  Also the company sources all ingredients and most packaging from global communities where women are the primary workers.

Extending the volunteer work she does in her Southern California home community, Ana made it her mission to develop Four Truffles in way that helps to empower women globally.  She found the Women Cooperatives in Morocco to source the Ecocert certified Argan Oil used in the company’s body butters, body smoothers, body wash, and other luscious products.

The Women Cooperatives are the caretakers of the endangered Moroccan forests where the Argan trees grow.  The Cooperatives provide a structure for the local women to support their families in a sustainable way.   You can read more about Four Truffles’ sustainable sourcing here.

Get Social to Get Known

The Four Truffles team makes the time to participate in social media.   Not always an easy task for a small team growing a new brand.  They post as often as they can on the Four Truffles Blog.  They are active on Facebook, Twitter and ImagineThis TV.

They collaborate with their online partners like, BeautyFix to create fun giveaways.

In fact, the ImagineThis website is where Four Truffles learned about the Do Good Awards opportunity!  They took the time to prepare the application, reach out to the charities they support to request recommendations, and prepared a thoughtful post-interview follow up to the LHJ editors.  The process was a big investment of time.  But it certainly paid off!

Branding Opportunities

As a winner of the LHJ Do Good Award, Four Truffles can use the Do Good Award logo for two years on their website and packaging. They will be featured along with Avon, HERSHEY’S and Lands End, in the July 2010 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Self Nominate!
What can your small company do?  Keep your eyes open for recognition opportunities such as the LHJ Do Good Award.  When you find them, invest the time to apply.  If giving back to the community is part of your mission, make sure others know about it.

Have your own Big Image/Giving Back success story? Post it in the comments below.

These are the nonprofits that FourTruffles supports:

Bridges of Hope South Africa

Paul Carlson Partnership

Palos Verdes Jr. Women’s Club

Here’s how Henry DeVries answered the $64 million question “how do I find  the time to create great ongoing content?”

“One secret that worked for me was to contact authors through a service called profsnet.com. Authors hunger for book promotion and welcome attention from bloggers. Often I praise the book and summarize a few tips from the book. You can freely use promotional materials like book flaps and Amazon descriptions to round out your post about the book. I only mention books I like and see no need to waste energy on books I don’t like.

There are two kinds of thinking in this world: abundance mentality and scarcity mentality. Abundance thinkers will only talk about what they want, like and wish for others. For instance, according to the book The Secret, Mother Teresa would happily come to peace rallies but turn down invitations to anti-war rallies.

Monday: Washing and Pasta

Another trick for coming up with content is to buy out the time like our grandmothers bought out the time for tasks. Monday was wash day, Tuesday was mopping. Wednesday was changing the linens. And so on. Every week there was a day for doing something. At our house the menu is set for Monday through Friday: Monday is pasta, Tuesday is stir fry, Wednesday is chili, Thursday is soup, and Friday is fish (usually a wild Alaskan salmon, yum).  With two working parents who share chores, having a plan makes sense. So for my business, Monday is marketing day. On Mondays I blog and write book content. Fridays are also my writing days, but for longer pieces. Failing to plan, as the old adage goes, is planning to fail. Plan to succeed by having a day dedicated to creating content.

Need Inspiration?
Ah, but where does inspiration come from? The answer is R & D: rob and duplicate. Rob and duplicate ideas from other publications. I keep files of ideas I pull from newspapers and magazines. For those online only people, I like websites for Business Week, Forbes and Inc. These give me the seeds of ideas that I can comment on or use to create my own spin.

Thanks Henry!  You can read more of Henry’s ideas at his website, Marketing with a Book

If a social media marketing program is a part of your small business growth plan, here are a few basics that will set you up for success.  First, you’ll want a regular supply of fresh how to articles, and other original content published on your website or business blog.

Exceptional content is important because it helps customers find your business when searching online, more bloggers will link to great content (boosting your search rankings) and it encourages ‘sharing’ of valuable links back to your site.

Image purchased at iStock.com

These basics will help you clear the decks and set your company up to become a team of social media marketing ninjas.

1. Ask your web developer to add a ‘content management system’ (CMS) capability to your company website.  Content management makes it easy for non-technical people to add/update information and content on your website.   It should be as easy as creating a Word document.

WordPress (not just for blogs) and Drupal software are my personal ‘content management’ favorites.  I can’t program HTML on a bet, but I create and post website content without waiting for my web developer on a Drupal site.  It’s as easy as publishing on this WordPress blog!   You can read more about content management system options for small businesses here.

2. Make a list of topics that you are excited to write, blog, video and talk about.

3.  Pull together a selection of good quality content you’ve previously created that you can ‘repurpose’ into shorter blog posts or how to articles, PowerPoint presentations, audio Podcasts or online videos.

3.  Assign responsibility to the team members in your small business that will create new content.

4. Compile a list of partners, suppliers, and/or raving fan customers who are willing to help you produce exceptional content.   They can be guest authors or co-authors of ‘how to’ articles, case studies or short (1-3 minute) online videos.

5.  A weekly schedule for creating and publishing your company’s ongoing content on your website and/or business blog.
6.   Arrange for someone to be responsible to review Google Alerts and track online mentions of your company, your products/services, your competitors and your key customers.  Reviewing the topics being discussed online in your industry will provide fresh insights for creating content.

7.  A regular schedule that you follow for talking to two or three customers a week just to see what’s keeping them awake at night.   This keeps your content topics sharp and up to date.

8.   Identify the specific marketing or other functions that are not delivering positive results and  eliminate them.  In order to add social media marketing that require your time and attention you’ll benefit from letting go of other activities that aren’t paying off.

Good luck with setting up your social media marketing basics!  If you’ve got other key items you’ve found are needed, post them below in the comments.

Related posts:

1. How an Online Customer Community is Different Than Your Company Website

2. Danny Brown’s Discussing Social Media with Lisa Hoffman

As a small business owner you’re wearing a ton of hats—entrepreneur, chief sales person, accountant, product developer, customer service rep, and more.   If you’d like to jump on the social media marketing bandwagon, great!  Social media marketing is really the way business gets done now. It’s time to put on your publisher’s hat.

Before you fire off a bunch of clever Tweets or set up one of the latest Facebook pages, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got a plan to develop lots of original, exceptional how to articles, white papers, online videos and other content.  Content that’s going to set you apart from your competitors.

Do yourself a favor.  Figure out what tasks and functions aren’t paying off.  Evaluate everything you and your team are doing—include marketing and every other function.  If a program or task isn’t producing new prospects and leads, delivering happiness to your customers, or producing revenue—either outsource it or eliminate it. Be brutal.

Free up your time and your team’s time and energy for creating exceptional content that demonstrates your unique competitive advantage..  Social media marketing can’t be phoned in.  She with the best content and the best interaction online wins.

During my time in corporate America, I experienced repeatedly how new programs and initiatives failed because the senior team didn’t (have the guts to) eliminate non-productive, non-revenue producing tasks from their staffs.  Executives simply piled on new programs/tasks and rarely considered what functions could be eliminated.

This is the beauty of a small company, you’re more nimble and you can quickly discard what’s not working and invest your time and energy in a new role:  exceptional content publisher.

What tasks have you seen successfully eliminated in order to find the time for social media marketing?  Or successfully outsourced/delegated? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Five BtoB Social Media Marketing Tips from IndustrialInterface.com’s Brian Jones

2. Junta42 Content Marketing Blog:  37 Reasons to Blog

Tony Hseih (pronounced Shay), an investor, CEO, serial entrepreneur, and author shared wow insights about growing businesses, building a killer company culture, hiring and working with (the best) employees and the greatest non-marketing   non-advertising) strategy ever.

Tony Hseih’s new book Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose will be out on June 7, 2010.  In the book he’s sharing his insights, success and mistakes.  And Tony wants other businesses to avoid the mistakes he’s made.

Here are highlights from Tony’s speech at the HBS Business Growth Summit that I think can benefit small all business owners:

Early on in Zappos’ life as a start up company, the management team decided they were a “customer service company that happens to sell shoes and clothing.” All decisions were then  based on how do we create the best customer experience possible? No lip service here.  Zappos went from zero to over a billion dollars in sales in less than 10 years.

Where Do You Invest Capital?

How to invest your capital:  Zappos decided to invest its capital in other functional areas than marketing.  No big advertising campaigns.  Here are some investment examples if you’re interested in building a lifelong relationship with your customers like Tony is:

• Customer service call centers with staffed with employees that genuinely share Zappos values. Keys: several interviews.

• Operating warehouses around the clock to provide faster deliveries, improved service.

• Free shipping for both purchases and returns.

• Surprising customers occasionally with overnight delivery at no extra charge.

• Sending all employees—regardless of job function—to customer service training and having all employees spend 2 weeks in a call center.

• Being willing to fire employees who are not a culture fit, even if they do everything else about their job well.

• Asking themselves,” what are the stories our customers will tell their friends?’ and how do we make those stories happen?
• Offering new employees $2,000 to leave Zappos at the end of new-hire training.  This  ensures that all employees are the right fit with Zappos culture and values.

How Non-Marketing Investments Pay Off

The management team (correctly) determined that if Zappos delivered exceptional customer service, that their customers would do their marketing for them.  And boy have they.

Listening to Tony speak was a lot like my shopping experience with Zappos over the last several years.  Always pleasant,  delightful, and more than you expected.

I only wish companies like Sony—where the price tags are way higher for televisions, etc.—could be a fraction as responsive and fun to deal with as Zappos.  But that’s a post for another day…

Do order yourself a copy of Delivering Happiness.  We all got an advance copy as part of the Conference, so I am reading mine now.  Will share more insights soon.

Here are some juicy links to “Delivering Happiness” resources Tony’s book team has assembled, click here.

Photo: My partner’s video cameras, Flip Minnow and 3-year old, Sony HD

Conversion Rates Matter

If you’re working to improve your website conversion rate, an online video maybe a useful marketing tactic.

‘Conversion rate’ refers to the percentage of the people that visit your small business web site that take the action you’re hoping they’ll take.  The action might be to:

• Join your email newsletter list
• Download your how-to articles
• Bookmark your site for future visits
• Subscribe to your RSS feed to follow your content updates in a news reader
• Or (best) call your company for more information, or to make a purchase

Video Is Ideal for Telling a Story

Social media marketing is all about creating an online conversation and telling stories that connect with buyers.  People that need your products to get things done.  A great way to turn web visitors into buyers is to tell a compelling story about your company and your products and services that draws them in.  A story that makes them want to contact you!

Bedhog, an ecommerce company, does just that with their video.  The entrepreneur briefly tells the story about how, as newlyweds, she and her husband debated over who took up more room in bed and a charming new bedding product was born.  Check out the Bedhog video by TurnHere here.  Sleepsquad is a time-saving concept for mattress buyers.

Not Ready to be a Video Producer?

It’s been my experience when working with business owners, that the biggest challenge is the time involved.  It can be relatively easy with today’s easy to use digital video cameras to make a video.  But it does take time and a bit of experience using the camera.  And some level of editing is usually needed to prepare a somewhat professional video.  That’s why the Internet gods have created outsourcing.

If, after checking out the results many businesses are experiencing, you’d like to dip your toe into the online video pool, you could try outsourcing to a company like TurnHere.

TurnHere creates and distributes online videos for small business owners among others.  They manage creating the online video for you from beginning to end—making it easy for small business owners that are not ready to buy a digital video camera and do it themselves.

TurnHere has many happy customers and some interesting data about the value of online video to increase interest and sales.   Here are some results shared with me by TurnHere.  Their partners and some third party research organizations compiled the results:

• 52% of viewers take action after watching online videos
• 30% of viewers visit a store
• Clicks for more information increase by 30-40%
• Phone calls to your business increase 16-20%

TurnHere does a nice job of helping professional services companies to tell their stories in an interesting, non-slick-advertising way.

Is an online video that educates your web visitors about the value your company offers an answer for improving your sales?  It will depend on how effective the video is at demonstrating exactly how your products and services fill a need for the web visitor, potential buyer.  The video must be short and compelling without being too salesy.

TurnHere Benefits

I think—if you haven’t already got a friend, child, niece, or local provider that can do a video within your budget—the TurnHere solution is worth a look.  Here’s why:

Video producers that are recruited by TurnHere are experienced film folks.   That means they know how to help you, the business owner, tell your product or service story in a compelling and professional manner.

1. Brevity is key.  They help you create a video that is 60 to 90 seconds in length.
2. You review the finished video online. Best of all, you don’t have to learn how to “edit” video.
3. You only spend part of a day shooting it and the producer comes to your location.
4. TurnHere will distribute your video to online video sharing sites for you, if you wish.
5. The  videos are professional and polished.

A small company I know here in San Diego is trying out the TurnHere service. I will let you know about their experience.

Meanwhile, if you’re not up to producing a DIY Internet video for your business, check out TurnHere.  They often have promotions and specials running.

Full disclosure: The nice public relations person for TurnHere, Alison McNeill, sent me a note about this service and I really liked the quality, and the short, to-the-point length of the videos. So I am posting about it.

Problem: You’d like your website to be a source of prospects and leads for your sales team.

Goal: Attract more potential customers with the types of problems your products solve to your company website.

Tactic: Strengthen your website content by making content marketing a priority.  Content marketing is here to stay because buyers use online search tools to do their homework when purchasing anything.   Buyers also check out social media sites when researching online.  Products and services of all shapes and sizes are now at the mercy of the online researcher/buyer/customer.

For companies selling higher ticket products, your decision makers and influencers inside your prospects’ companies constantly search online for the best products/services to buy.   The way buyers determine who has the best widget can be influenced by who has the best problem-solving information (most valuable content) on their website.

Develop a content creation and publishing schedule and stick to it.

Make sure the content you create is valuable, remarkable content.    Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, authors of the new book Inbound Marketing, Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs have lots of useful valuable information on this topic.  They recommend that you think of your marketing function as half marketer and half publisher.

• Make sure your website content is valuable, educational (how-to focused), and shareable.
• Use your content to share your expertise.  Be generous with your knowledge and experience when creating your original content.
• Write an article  (or create a brief video) with the kind of content that your customers will want to forward to their colleagues and coworkers.   The kind of content they want to share.
• The Inbound Marketing authors call this remarkable content or shareable content.  How to content is great for sharing.

Benefits:
When your website content answers your buyers’ and prospects’ top issues, you’ll increase the number of web visitors in search of solutions that you provide.

More people looking for answers to problems (you solve) will find your website more often (Woot!).

Your website will become the online destination for people looking to solve the problems your small business can solve.