Some small businesses are hesitant to embrace social media. Blogging seems time consuming, Facebook scary or unknown. At the same time, old marketing strategies don’t seem to work any more. Business owners may not always realize that they need to re-visit their marketing plan to create and adopt a marketing system to get results. The [...]
It takes Warren Bennis 480 pages to describe leadership, compare it to acting, and tie together the three pathways to becoming a great leader. Bennis, a UCLA management professor, has many stories to tell. He points out that leaders have the ability to draw together a fragmented public, be it on the radio, television or [...]
Facebook gave us a way to find old classmates and renew friendships, find clients and share ideas. Email has given us a way to quickly conduct business or send silly stuff to co-workers and friends. So now we have IM, text messaging, friends on Facebook, and constant communication by 140 characters or less on Twitter. [...]
Word of Mouth Marketing, the oldest form of marketing is gaining ground again. How can business owners beat the current recession with Word of Mouth Marketing? Educate and Nurture Your Current Customers Don’t put all emphasis on new customer acquisition, but affirm your current customers, find ways to develop loyalty programs that increase the lifetime [...]
Warning for Tourists I have been traveling quite a bit lately. I embrace these opportunities as there is always so much to learn from people who live in different parts of the world – frugality and resourcefulness from citizens of countries that have to get by with much less than people in the U.S, relaxed [...]
I would like to share my fellow Duct Tape Marketing Coach Bill Doerr’s advice: Challenge 1 “Not seeing enough people” Probable Cause/s: * insufficient level of marketing-related activities Corrective Strategy: Be sure you’re engaging in appropriate activities at an adequate level for the client acquisition and revenue-generation goals you have. Seems obvious and may correct [...]
Do you really know who your ideal customer is? Can you picture what he/she reads, likes, wears and how your ideal client makes purchasing decisions? If you know your customers’ needs well, then you don’t need to follow them around, you can lead them with confidence and you can spread ideas that resonate with your [...]
I started looking for alternative presentation tools for one of my always traveling friends and found Zoho Show . It is completely free for personal use, presenters can access their presentations from anywhere. You can export your slideshow to PowerPoint if needed, share your presentation online and track how many people have viewed it. Presentation [...]
Cover of Free Prize Inside In his book, Free Prize Inside, Seth Godin points out that innovation is cheaper than advertising. He defines the “free prize” as that extra, edgy product feature. His examples include swatch watches, frequent flyer miles, Tupperware parties, and portable shredding trucks. Design and style matter, he says. One chapter describes [...]
Image by luc legay via Flickr Many small businesses have cut their advertising budgets and put their marketing efforts on hold. Their satisfied customers, social networks, and happy business partners therefore become their main promoters. As this is the year of reinventing, recycling and repositioning for many small businesses, let’s think about the best ways [...]