Many businesses thrive on the expertise of their owners, operators, or managers. This is particularly true of small businesses, especially service businesses. A great way to increase your business volume and increase the perceived value of your products and services is to communicate your expertise within your community. What Is Content Marketing? A lot of […]
Category Archives: Marketing
Is Guerrilla Marketing Dead?
You may think guerrilla marketing is dead, but really it’s evolved with the times. If you haven’t done the same, then you need to take a leap forward to get the most impact from your marketing dollars. What is Guerrilla Marketing? Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term guerrilla marketing in 1984 with the release of […]
Are You a High-Margin Business?
Achieving profit is the real goal of being in business. Profits are what allows a business to invest and grow. Some businesses have higher profit margins than others. That can be due to the type of industry, the competitive landscape, and economic conditions. There’s often a direct correlation between the margins a business can charge […]
How Premiums Work Better Than Coupons and Discounts
What is a Premium? A premium is anything of value that you offer a prospect or client in exchange for taking an action that you direct them to. This could include an incentive or a gift. The right premium could encourage someone who might otherwise set aside the mail to act now instead of later […]
Your Unique Selling Proposition
What’s a unique selling proposition (USP)? First the Wikipedia explanation: “The unique selling proposition (a.k.a. unique selling point, or USP) is a marketing concept that was first proposed as a theory to understand a pattern among successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. It states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and […]
Emotional Advertising
Most advertising today is of the “me too” variety. When you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. The louder they yell: “LOOK AT ME!” the faster you want to toss the ad in the trash, change the channel, or click delete. Open the yellow pages (if you can still find one!), look inside a magazine […]
9 Marketing Lessons to Grow Your Business In Any Economy
Let’s get right to the lessons: Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Studies of sales practices continue to show that most salespeople don’t follow up more than one or two times after making a presentation or giving a quote. Marketing is no different. […]
Please Don’t Ignore Me
The bulk of marketing budgets is often reserved for acquiring new customers. Much energy, time, and money is spent pursuing prospects that have a marginally small chance of ever becoming a customer. There’s a flaw with this strategy. The simplest and most effective way to boost your bottom line profits is to remember who brought […]
Marketing That Works Today
There are two broad categories of marketing you can use for your company, and it’s important you understand the difference. These two types of marketing are called brand/image marketing and direct response marketing. Although both can have a place in marketing your business, for small businesses one (direct response) is much more effective and efficient […]
Give Prospective Customers a Plan of Action
One of the greatest mistakes marketers make is to assume that interested prospects will automatically know which steps to take next when they receive a marketing piece in the mail, via email, or from a salesperson. Without a clear plan of action, many of your prospects will simply discard your marketing piece and move on […]