Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Small Businesses: Drive Online Traffic and Growth
As much as I work in social media and use guerrilla tactics to spread messages within communities, I hadn't fully considered the potential of using guerrilla marketing tactics for small...
Media Buying Strategies for Small Businesses: Stay Focused on Your Plan
Occasionally, we all get an excellent "deal" from the media. It's tempting to throw $300-$500 at something you're getting for 50% or even 75% off. However, it's essential to remember...
Prioritizing Small Business Growth Strategies
As a small business owner, it's HARD to keep the focus on growing your business when the daily demands consume all your time and energy. But here's the reality we...
Syncing up Your Messages: Consistent Brand Messaging
I've recently spoken with many small business owners about the importance of syncing all their outbound messages together. This is critical in building robust and consistent brand messaging across all...
Blue Sky Marketing (NOT!)
Remember when marketing seemed easier? We had unlimited budgets, no economic worries, and impressive television ads that wowed audiences. But those days of blue sky marketing are long gone. As...
Who are Your Target Market’s Influencers?
Quick - who is your target market? Can you clearly and specifically tell someone not in your industry who your target market is? Good! Now who are your target market's...
Branding Can Be Easy
We often get caught up in the complexities of branding—ensuring every message is carefully crafted, guarding our brand's image, and trying to control every detail of how we present ourselves...
Navigating Social Media Nightmares
Social media nightmares are the most significant concern I hear when I talk with businesses about using social media to grow their message is the "what if..." What if someone...
Your Brand is Your Story: Building a Narrative That Connects
An easy way to think of your brand is to understand that it is the story of your business. Your brand is more than just a logo, color scheme, or...
Branding Foundations
Every brand needs to be built on a solid foundation. While the materials the blocks are made of change from company to company, their purpose, form, and necessity do not...
Does Your Brand Inspire Passion?
We're here in the middle of football season, and we can observe the fans of a favorite team every week. It doesn't matter which team takes the field; you can...
Your Brand Online
Some time ago, those of us in the business world began hearing that we needed to create a website for our business to build our brand online. Frankly, this confounded...
Your Customers Should be Able to Count on You
I recently found a great little store that provides excellent, thorough, and knowledgeable customer service. I was so excited about the service I received from this store that I told...
10 Ways to Build Your Brand
We've talked much lately about that inevitable Marketing Plan that will be "due" soon. Here's a quick recap of ways to build your brand as you dream of what you'll...
Examining Your Marketing Environment
As you begin to put together your new strategic marketing plan, you should take into account the internal and external factors in your marketing environment that will be affecting you...
Struggling to Convert Facebook Likes to Sales Leads?
Let's face it: social media can be overwhelming. Something that takes your teenager one minute to do takes you hours to figure out. And when you add in the complexity...
Following Through: How to Keep Your Marketing Plan Alive and Achieve Success
For the last several posts, I've been expanding on each of the questions I posed in my original post, "How Effective is Your Marketing Plan?" Today, let's dive deeper into...
Choosing Products for Your Target Audience
Not every product you carry will suit your target audience, so discussing how and why a particular product will fill a need is important. It’s incumbent upon you to figure...
