Moms in business: Marketing on a shoestring

May is the month we recognize and celebrate moms for their amazing accomplishments, which for many moms includes far more than family duties.

Between shuttling the kids from one activity to the next, preparing dinner, folding laundry and refereeing the fights over which Wii game to play, a great number of moms also run small businesses. In an ongoing small business marketing series, we’ve explored several ways to market a small business on a budget — something savvy moms know a thing or two about.

When marketing dollars are limited, Internet tools like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are a natural choice for many mom-entrepreneurs. But simply showing up doesn’t mean you’ll automatically make sales.

A common problem for home-based businesses is a lack of clearly defined goals, and without measurable, achievable goals, how can you know if your social media profiles are helping you reach your goals? If you don’t know what you want, it’s impossible to have a strategy for making social media do what you want.

To get you started on determining if your social media strategy is going to help, ask yourself these questions:

• Have I clearly defined overall sales goals for my business?
• What percentage of those sales do I expect to come from social media? (Hint: 100 percent is far too optimistic)
• Have I defined how much time and/or money I am willing to spend to see the desired results?
• Is my social media profile targeted at a specific customer niche? (Hint: If you try to appeal to everyone you will probably appeal to no one.)