When answering marketing questions for clients, one thing I hear a lot is, “Is it better to do _____ or ______?” The blanks are filled with all sorts of comparisons, such as discounting vs. not, doing a free or a paid webinar, sending people to a free resource or one that has a cost, using [...]
No two businesses need the exact same marketing strategy. Clients often go into the process of creating a marketing strategy with an expectation that there are certain platforms or features that have to be included – perhaps because they have felt pressure to do that type of marketing in the past. As someone who believes [...]
When was the last time you used a Yellow Pages book? Once a staple in every home in the US, it isn’t nearly as easy to find this resource anymore. As the world went digital, new tools became available to find what we needed. Yet, in the last 5-10 years, I have had so many [...]
There is a conversation that has come up a few times this year for me with other service providers, and it is one that I want to share with you today. It is about the concept of marketing ROI. ROI – or “return on investment” – is a popular phrase, but I wonder whether it [...]
The concept of measurable analytics for marketing has a tendency to divide small businesses into two camps: Those who don’t even think about measuring their marketing and those who firmly ask exactly what the ROI will be as a means of deciding what marketing to do. Neither of these camps is the perfect place to [...]
I wanted to take a moment today to address something that is important for EVERY business: What to do when a marketing approach stops working. No matter what business you have, your objective in marketing is to stay in front of – and relevant to – your target market. So, what do you do if [...]
If you are trying to build up your business presence online, one of the methods you might be using is blogging. Periodically, you sit down at your computer and let the creativity flow. You publish your thoughts…and nothing happens. Blogging can be a great outlet, but if you don’t have a plan for the content, [...]
If you use Facebook as a marketing tool for your business, you should get the most out of it for the time you spend. There is a lot of Facebook best practices advice out there in the world about how many times a day you should post, what you should post, when you should post. [...]
The idea of warming leads is an important one for small businesses. Warming leads is the process of building trust with potential customers over time until they are ready to buy from you. If you think about what it feels like to have someone try to sell something to you in the first five minutes [...]
Today I wanted to address the flip side to the idea of knowing your brand, your market, your offering. This is the idea of the evolution of marketing your business. When you are marketing your business productively, it should naturally evolve. Chances are that at some point you have come up with a new idea [...]