Let’s face it, marketing can be hard! In each marketing blog post, we hope you’ll find the information you need for your business marketing success.

KTVL – Business Owners Learn Twitter and Facebook

Tweeting does sometimes bring the press! Thanks KTVL for the article! Business Owners learn Twitter and Facebook MEDFORD, Ore. — Retweets, trending topics, friends and followers, local business people learned how to harness the power of social media in Medford Saturday. Social media is the hottest thing in gathering new customers for businesses but this…

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Television vs Social Media

In part one of my comparisons of traditional media marketing comparisons, we looked at Radio vs. Twitter. In Part two we’re going to compare Television and Youtube.  From a business owner and marketer Television is best known to make stars and images.  As a business, Television is best used in your marketing plan to create…

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Radio vs Social Media

The title is a little misleading as it’s not really pitting one up against the other as much as trying to point out more of the similarities.  A lot of small business owners invest in radio every month.  These same business owners scratch their head and wonder what or how does social media fit into…

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Why Twitter? Maybe for the News

While everyone talks and talks about how you should use social media, and if you follow their 10 steps you’re sure to succeed if you pay attention the one category that is using twitter the right way is our local journalists. That alone is why you the local small business owner should be involved in…

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Limited Money, Limited Time – Where’s the Biggest Bang for the Buck?

Lately, I’ve had a lot of conversations with business owners about where the biggest bang for their buck is when it comes to advertising their business. Since it seems to be a common theme this month, I thought you might be interested in it as well. The first question I always ask is how quickly…

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How Many Layers Does Your Social Media Have?

Social Media, like every other advertising medium works best for your brand when it’s layered. But the beauty of social media is that it’s easy to layer. Here are the top 5 ways to layer your social media for maximum effectiveness: Use Facebook as a collection point addresses for your email newsletter. Your Facebook page…

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Using Online Advertising to Spread Your Message

Advertising online is an easy, and relatively inexpensive way to spread your message to your targeted audience. With most online advertising you only pay for those ads that are actually clicked on, and you have the ability to target who will see those ads. You certainly can look to smaller sites (television and newspapers for…

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Are You a Part of Small Business Saturday?

Have you heard of Small Business Saturday? It takes place on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And it’s a movement that is growing. The concept is simple: A day to come together in support of the small businesses we love. The businesses that are the heartbeat of our communities and local economies. That day is November 27, 2010—the…

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Just Because it's a "Deal" You Shouldn't Always Buy

From time to time, we all get an amazing “deal” that comes across our desk from the media. And it’s tempting to throw $300-$500 dollars at something that we’re getting for 75% off or even 50% off. But in those moments, it’s critical that you remember what your strategy is, and why you pursue it.…

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Syncing up Your Messages

I’ve sat in a lot of rooms lately with small business owners and discussed the imperative nature of syncing all their outbound messages together. And while it sounds good, it’s very often not something happens with great regularity. But doing so will help you to maximize your brand message and get the highest levels of…

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Blue Sky Marketing (NOT!)

Remember when our marketing lives were easy? Unlimited budgets, no concerns about the economy, fabulous television ads… those days have been gone now for awhile, and I think that as marketers, we’ve gotten better, smarter, and more responsive. We’ve had to think carefully about every dollar we spend, we’ve had to project and hit ROI…

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Does Your Brand Inspire Passion?

We’re here in the middle of football season and we have the opportunity to observe the fans of a favorite team every week. It doesn’t really matter which team takes the field, you can count on one thing – there will be thousands of people waiting to lose their mind, abandon their restraint, and shout…

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You Need a Target Audience

A couple of days ago, I asked you, “How Effective is Your Marketing Plan?” The first question on the Effectiveness Quiz was: Did your plan clearly articulate your target audience, including demographic information?(The correct answer would be something on the order of 20-34 yrs old, middle income, attending “X” school and living in “Y” neighborhood.…

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Branding a Local vs National Company

I had the opportunity the other day to chat with a friend who is a brand marketer for a national brand. During the course of our conversation, I was struck (again) by the same-ness and at the same time, the different-ness that comes with branding a national vs. local brand. At its core, branding is…

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Where is Your Audience?

So as a small business owner where is your audience today?  There was a time years ago when you could buy a ad in the Saturday local paper and get a decent ROI.  If you weren’t a fan of print, and were looking to build some Top of Mind Awareness (TOMA) you could reach out…

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Social Media-Build Your Own Audience

Traditional Media has been doing it for years, building an audience through programming and marketing and then turning around and selling your business the opportunity to talk to their audience. Social Media is the opportunity for YOU, the local business owner to create your own audience to communicate to and through.  Building an audience in…

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Online Advertising in the Age of Adwords

With the advent of our new economy, we’re seeing a pretty significant move from traditional media dollars to online media. The reasons are several-fold. Traditional advertising takes a big bite out of a limited marketing budget. Online advertising is quite cheap in comparison with traditional media. Marketing budgets are getting smaller – not larger. Online…

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Using and Buying Media Wisely

This seems like a good time, before we get fully into planning season, to talk about the best uses of media. I touched on this briefly in my recent post the Intersection of Planning and Improvisation. But this is really a topic that deserves a full post before annual plans are laid for 2011. The first thing…

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Traditional Media Created Social Media

photo credit: susan solinski Prior to conglomeration there was a time when radio, television and print were local community outlets.  The big three were locally owned, and focused on the local community.  Now most decisions that are made for communities regarding their major media are made from thousands of miles away.  What music to play,…

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