If you are a small business owner in North Carolina or looking to start your own, you may need some extra capital to help get you started.
But the question becomes, what does a banker want from you?
When a banker considers making a small business loan, they typically want to assess the borrower’s (your) ability to repay the loan. They will consider several factors, such as your credit history, business revenue, expenses, and the collateral available to secure the loan.
Here are some specific things a banker may want to know when making a small business loan:
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | May 29, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
When small North Carolina businesses get started, they typically focus on how to land their first clients. Often they will rely on traditional forms of advertising, such as coupon mailers, billboards, out-of-home, or print ads. While many small businesses think that because they provide a superior product or service, it is only a matter of time before prospective clients will find their way to them.
While this strategy may bring in a small amount of revenue, there is a better and easier way. Small businesses should think about leveraging the power of the internet to reach prospects online and reap the benefits of combining traditional and digital marketing. No small business, no matter how new, should disregard digital channels as a source of leads and the conversion of interest into clients.
Still not convinced? Think about this over 94% of business-to-business (B2B) buyers do research online, whereas your business-to-consumer (B2C) buyers research online 97% of the time before making a decision.
Unfortunately, if you rely only on traditional methods, you miss out on a significant portion of your potential clientele.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | May 17, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
When you think of rural America, you might often think of large farms where your nearest neighbor may be several miles away, rugged terrain where the roads are so curvy you can see your own brake lights, or it might be just sparse deserts.
Regardless of how you view rural America, I have compiled a list of seven statistics and facts about rural America into one infographic.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | May 15, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
Building a technical team from the ground up must be done as intentionally and systematically as possible. You have to know exactly what you want and what your business needs. Then you start tracking down the relevant talents for your team.
A technical team is essential to your business because they are directly involved in the technological development of your product. The team helps your business navigate the Tech market and usually consists of engineers, network architects, UI/UX designers, analysts, and hardware experts. Depending on what service your company offers, your technical team could be just two software engineers in a shared working space or a third-party organization where you outsource your technological needs. However, as a business owner, you can choose to build your team in-house.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | May 08, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
The key to increasing your Asheville area small business’s clientele is through marketing, primarily content marketing. With content marketing, you are telling your business’s story in such a way that it attracts prospects, educates them, and entices them to choose your WNC small business.
Now, there are numerous options for small businesses to get the word out, but content marketing is one of the better and more cost-effective ways to differentiate yourself and your business from the competition.
As prospects begin their search for services or products, they have several questions, such as:
- What distinguishes your Asheville small business from the one down the street?
- What are the criteria for hiring employees?
- What is the business’s mission/philosophy?
- How much can clients be involved, and what role can they play?
- What are the expectations for communication with clients?
- What results can we expect if we use your services or products?
- What are the business’s difficulties? What are the areas that need to be improved?
Your marketing materials, website, social media presence, and personal interactions should all follow a consistent theme and work to answer these questions.
Ensure you deliver on what you promise regarding what you say and do. This will not only reassure clients, but they will also be able to see the quality of your services or products.
You can and should create buyer personas to help you focus your marketing efforts. Defining an ideal client will help you develop marketing content and collateral that speaks directly to them.
Written By: Adam Bennett | May 03, 2023
Adam is the president and founder of Cube Creative Design and specializes in private school marketing. Since starting the business in 2005, he has created individual relationships with clients in Western North Carolina and across the United States. He places great value on the needs, expectations, and goals of the client.
As we emerge from the COVID pandemic and many restrictions have been lifted, small businesses are trying to return to normal. However, one thing that has fundamentally changed is not only the need but the necessity of a strong internet presence.
Before many, many small businesses could get away with a simple website or “have a Facebook page,” and that was all they needed to “show up on Google” or get found. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case; things have changed. Your clients will first look you up in various places and do their research before contacting you.
You need to employ several different techniques to ensure you show up. Content marketing is one of the best. Content marketing is about creating value, relevance and attracting prospects with content that answers people’s questions. But you also need to promote it. Therefore one of the best tools for that is social media.
It wasn’t long ago that social media was viewed as a way for people to stay in touch and play games. But now, it has become a powerful marketing tool. Take a look at these statistics:
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 26, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
When done correctly, a content marketing strategy can significantly impact your small business’s brand exposure and reputation. It can also boost your client interactions and drive higher-quality traffic to your small business website.
Now I realize that that one statement might not be enough to convince you. Therefore let me provide you with these:
- Researchers expect the content marketing industry to generate a revenue of nearly $140 million by 2026. (Source: Business Report by Research Dive)
- Nearly 3 out of 10 businesses will spend less than $1,000 monthly on content marketing, whereas almost 5 out of 10 will invest $1000-$5000 monthly. (Source: State of Content Marketing: 2023 Global Report)
- Almost 7 out of 10 businesses plan to increase their content marketing budgets in 2023 (Source: State of Content Marketing: 2023 Global Report)
- 7 out of 10 B2B and B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. (Source: Content Marketing Institute B2B 2022 Research Report and Content Marketing Institute B2C 2022 Research Report)
Given those statistics, I hope you realize that content marketing is one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to build awareness, boost sales, and grow your small business.
This begs the question of how effective is your content marketing strategy.
If you answered very effectively or effectively, congratulations, you are well on your way. However, if you answered it’s not or what is a content marketing strategy, then you have come to the right place.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 24, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
Small businesses often face the challenge of limited resources, making marketing a crucial aspect of their growth strategy. By implementing effective marketing tactics, small businesses can significantly impact their target audience, drive sales, and increase brand awareness. In this post, we’ll explore the foundations of small business marketing and how it differs from marketing for larger enterprises.
One common misconception is that small businesses don’t need marketing. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Regardless of size, marketing is essential for any business, and small businesses can greatly benefit from targeted efforts that cater to their unique needs and goals. By addressing these misconceptions head-on, we can uncover the true potential of small business marketing.
It would be best to consider several things when building a winning marketing strategy for your small business. Here are my top five strategies:
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 17, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
If you are a rural small business or a rural service area business, you know that showing up on Google can be difficult at best. I am not going to lie. Showing up in Google’s local pack is nearly impossible. Mainly because you can’t get a Google Business Profile (GBP) listing in a town you don’t have an address in. However, it is possible to take over the top rankings for local organic results on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 12, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
If you analyze how affiliate marketers do keyword research for their sites, you will see that they do it wrong. They start with exploring low competition keywords. Then they create content and place as many affiliate links as they can.
Yes, this way will result in a huge spike in traffic. But there won't be any affiliate link clicks. As a result, it leads to zero conversions and no revenue.
It’s an amateur blogging mistake. How to solve this issue then?
Figure out keywords that have a high level of search volume. These keywords should cover the topics that will allow you to place a link to your product or service.
Besides, you can't forget about search intent. It plays a key part in the entire process. For instance, someone exploring information about "the best content design tool". This person wants to find out the pros and cons of the tool and buy it one day. Hence, it makes sense to place your affiliate link using this anchor.
However, if the person wants to find out "what is a content design tool", it is a whole different kettle of fish.
In this post, you will get familiar with four types of affiliate keywords you should target in your strategy.
Let's cut to the chase!
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 10, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
In today’s digital world, local SEO is crucial in helping businesses reach potential customers in their area. A staggering 9 out of 10 search engine users look for local businesses online, and nearly 5 out of 10 Google searches focus on finding local information. If your business isn’t ranking well in local search results, you could miss out on valuable clients and opportunities. Local Search Engine Optimization, or Local SEO, is a strategy that improves your rural small business’s online visibility by optimizing your content, social profiles, links, and citations for local search.
As a local rural business, utilizing local SEO techniques is essential for increasing your chances of survival in a competitive market. In this post, I will explain what local SEO is and how it works and provide tips and tricks to help you optimize your rural small business website for local search.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 05, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for the success of any business, regardless of size or location. At a high level, on-page SEO optimizes your website’s content and structure. In contrast, off-page SEO focuses on the actions and factors outside your website that can impact its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). This post will explore the importance of off-page SEO and how it can benefit your rural small business.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | March 06, 2023
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
