Articles

10 Affordable Small Business Marketing Ideas

Many small business owners feel the squeeze due to increasing fuel and food prices. It is time to get creative with marketing. We all try to find new ways to keep our existing customers happy and attract new prospects. Read more…

Write A Simple, But Effective Marketing Plan

A practical marketing plan provides a compass that you can use to navigate your company in the right direction. An effective marketing plan would help you: identify ideal clients, evaluate company information against your industry or market, and track and analyze results so you learn what works and what does not. Without a compass, you may be moving fast, but not in the right direction. Here are eight steps to creating a practical marketing plan. Read more…

Free Google Marketing Tools for Small Business

Let’s face it. Google has become part of our daily routine. We can decide how much of it we will let into our lives, but why not take advantage of free tools that have been created by this innovative company? Small businesses can definitely utilize some of the web-based marketing tools that Google offers. Read more…

Free Online Office in Less Than A Day

If you are like many other busy small business owners, you wear many hats and may easily find yourself in a situation where you need to leave your primary place of business during a busy season to attend a weeklong training in another state or help out a sick family member who lives 500 miles away. Small business owners often don’t have corporate Intranets set up, but they need access to certain files from remote locations in order to finish a project or collaborate with other team members while travelling. It can be complicated to call the home office and stay on top of all projects. It is often a hassle to keep sending large files back and forth. What alternatives do busy professionals have? Read more…

From Purple Cows to Tribes and Free Prizes — Seth Godin Has Mastered Edgecraft

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. Read more…

Content is King, President and Pope

Some stuffy PR guys would probably like to challenge the contents of this book as it does not promote the old truths of PR and marketing. David Meerman Scott has focused on explaining the world of opportunities that have opened up for aspiring journalists, marketers and small business owners via web-based tools and services. Free or low cost applications such as blogs, podcasts and social networking tools such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn are changing the old rules. Read more…