The world of marketing can be a very confusing and often times intimidating place. When small business owners and managers are already overrun with the tasks of running their business, taking time to promote the organization, much less learn it all from the start, is nearly impossible. This blog is intended to help managers and owners of all business sizes to better understand the principles and concepts behind marketing, without all the technical mumbo jumbo. Instead of throwing SEO, CPI, market saturation, and every other type of marketing jargon vocabulary there is, we explain things in an undertsandable and plain english sort of way to help you get the most out of your marketing!
P.S. We also throw some random stuff in here just for fun! Enjoy!
So here is a good question to ponder. If your office bathroom decides to start spewing water everywhere in your building, do you call a plumber, or do you tell your accountant to go fix it?
So what about when your marketing needs to be redefined because your customer retention rates are dropping and your new business numbers are fading? Do you call your secretary to order more mailers?
As a business owner, you are going to face a lot of challenges and you will never have the time to do everything yourself. This is a lesson most of us are forced to learn within our first couple of years. This is why we surround ourselves with individuals who specialize in the different tasks we find valuable to our companies and none is more important than your marketing. Without fuel you have no fire.
Specialization is the key to maximization.
One of the biggest advantages of bringing in a marketing consultant is that they spend every day of their lives (the good ones) living and breathing consumer behavior. Your forte is in your trade, which is why you chose to be in it. Their forte is in theirs as well so it is generally a good idea to bring someone in who can help bring new ideas to the table that you may have never thought of. One of the most interesting things about hiring a consultant is that you will very likely have things pointed out to you that were right under your nose and you will most certainly end your first session with a “why didn’t I think of that” look on your face. It is very similar to taking a visit to the therapist, pointing out things you may have glanced over about your business but never really inspected. More importantly, these consultants have a large number of contacts in different media avenues which can save you a ton of money over having some advertising agency or salesman con you into spending too much on something that doesn’t work.
Getting the big picture.
It is quite easy for many business owners to get tied up in the day-to-day operations of their business and begin focusing on the specifications of their products and services instead of the benefits the customer receives. What begins to occur is that the owner can lose focus of what the consumer is really looking for. A perfect example is that a roofing company may become fixated on the technical aspects of their new shingle products but forget that what their consumers really have in mind is comfort, appearance, and lowering of utility expenses. Bringing in a marketing consultant can help to give you an outside and objective viewpoint that you may not be able to see from the everyday trenches.
Time is precious.
Can you afford to detract your time from day to day operations to take on another full time job of marketing your business? Remember, there is a big difference between working in your business and working on your business. Many of the tasks necessary may not even be incredibly difficult but they need an expert eye to coordinate. A marketing consultant can give proper direction over a fraction of the time it would take you to figure it out and simply take care of it themselves or advise one of your support personnel on what to do without wasting their time either. Resources are precious in business as you already know and there is no sense in wasting them.
Speaking of resources
How quickly can you effectively hire an actual marketing manager? More importantly, how much would that cost? The average salary of a marketing degree recipient straight out of college is typically $47,000 a year, the highest of all bachelor degree programs. I bet that $150 an hour for only a few hours a month with the consultant is starting to look a little more tasty now eh? Not to mention, a marketing consultant can get your project fired up and rolling within a matter of a couple of weeks which is much faster than you could even find and interview the proper candidates for a full time position, thus saving yet more time and money.
Put a ring on it.
Commitment is always a serious thing and when you talk about bringing on a full time employee for marketing or devoting yourself to it, you are taking on a serious commitment. Either way you are going to be spending time, resources, money and frustration on the project, yet it is necessary to continue growing your business. Or is it? The beauty of bringing on a consultant is that they can help you effectively, and in less time, but best of all… if you don’t like them, you can easily drop them without fear of losing tons of invested resources. Either they are good and you keep them, or they aren’t and you drop them without obligation.
The icing on the cake.
At the end of the day, every business owner spends their time weighing risk versus reward. The risk of bringing on a new employee or even worse, wasting a lot of your money on a campaign that fails, can sometimes be irrecoverable. What if you have a mishap and now no longer have funds to recover from the “oops” or worse yet, can’t afford any other marketing efforts? The best bet is to consider taking a look at a marketing consultant with a strong portfolio and a great sense of creativity to help put a fresh breath of life into your marketing campaign.
I hear these guys are strong Atlanta Marketing Consultants. ; )
1. Visibility
2. Credibility
3. Usability
4. Conversion
5. Aesthetics
Now we all know that there are a lot of elements that go into an effective website. We are going to go over a few quick tips to help you better design your own website, or select a web designer that can adequately fulfill your needs to make your site a formidable business tool instead of a stagnant business card.
1. Visibility – Your website needs to be easily found by search engines and potential customers. This means your domain selection is vital. Make it something easy to remember and communicate to other people when giving them your web address. Do your keyword research before beginning and think about possibly using those keywords in your site address. Make sure that you apply keywords in your meta descriptions, h1 and h2 tags, as well as your actual url names in order to effectively appear in search engines. There are many tricks that a professional can show you to best optimize these pieces for top Google rankings.
2. Credibility – More importantly than getting new traffic to your website, is what they are going to see when they get there. You need to make sure that your site has authentic and correct information, a professional and clean design, and certainly, NO TYPOS! That is the quickest way for a customer to see that you don’t pay attention to detail.
3. Usability – Many people don’t think about this aspect when they get wrapped up in creating some beautiful website design but you must remember; there is a compromise between photo size and loading time. Be sure that when you are oohing and ahhing your audience that you are also taking into consideration how long it takes them to get there. People are less patient than ever and if your page is taking more than 5 seconds to load then you best believe they are getting their virtual fill at another internet pump.
4. Conversion – One of the most overlooked aspects of a website. If you don’t already know what “above the fold” is then you can just about bet this paragraph is pointed at you. “Above the fold” is the term for the section of website real estate that people land on without scrolling or clicking anywhere. That means it is the first viewed section of your landing page without any movement. Type in your URL and don’t touch anything. That is what we are talking about and you better make sure that you see a strong call to action, a reason to use you, and an easy way to contact you all right there in that space or you can certainly bank on failure. The exceptions to this are specific strategies where you are attempting to get people to view a particular page, or an instance such as a photographer where design and aesthetics are your selling points and therefore trump the typical call to action on the front page.
5. Aesthetics – Last but certainly not least, don’t forget about the aesthetics of your website. Some people say don’t judge a book by its cover but webpages are most certainly the largest exception. Your ability to properly place yourself in the mind of a consumer is often almost totally dependent upon what they see when they get to your site. Make sure that any photographs are professionally taken and be sure to “clean around the edges” of any graphics or images. Remember, a potential customer will pass judgment on you within the first 15 seconds so whether you think it’s fair or not… you better make it look good.
So whether you are tackling your own website design and search engine optimization or selecting a professional web designer to do it for you, make sure you ask yourself and them these questions before diving in. Remember, when you aren’t talking to potential customers, your website is… what is yours saying?
Here is a great article though slightly dated that we found to help some of you with questions on SEO basics. The original article can be found here.
With apologies to an apparel company FUBU whose name stands for For Us By Us, it’s almost as if Google could be rebranded “FHBH” thanks to its ranking practices relating to E-marketing links. Links are the most important E-marketing elements of search engine optimization because SEO lead Danny Dover says that Google assumes they are created by humans for humans.
1. Quality content. Dover says that Google really likes the E-marketing idea of links because, humans create them generally; which means they’re—in theory—harder to manipulate. And Google sees links to a given website as votes. So something like The New York Times is going to get a lot of votes, a lot of links, because it has valuable content that real human beings are reading and linking to. The same thing goes for any site. And the place where it gets tricky is, once a site gets a lot of links, links that it passes out are worth more than your average blog post. A link from the Times is going to be much more helpful for you than a link from Joe Schmoe’s blog.”
2. Inbound links are more important than outbound links. So it’s critical to determine if incoming links come from quality E-marketing sites.
Briggs says that Google developed the ‘nofollow’ attribute as a way to combat spam. “Adding this attribute tells Google not to follow a link. A link with the ‘nofollow’ attribute is meant not to pass PageRank value. Use ‘nofollow’ when linking to untrusted content, paid links and links added by user-generated content.” Here is one post of Top 100 Forums With DoFollow Signatures, which can help your E-marketing effectively.
Briggs also pointed to these scholarly papers on combating “web spam” for background regarding untrusted content and influencing trust.
3. Relevant content. “Once you know the needs and wants of your customers, deliver it to them via rich content; whether that be information, widgets, videos, blog posts, flow charts, etc.,” say Beatty and Gullaksen. Then ensure that the portable E-marketing content contains optimized links back to the company site. Also, they say, syndicate the content the company creates to the “appropriate social communities, blogs, power users of social networks, customers, etc.,” as well as having it on the corporate site.
4. Use outbound links to make friends, gain attention, influence trust and gain some ranking benefit. This work can result in later links to the company site, he says. One caution is that don’t chase the ‘celebrity’ sites. Target the mid-tier and small sites, because they’re more likely to notice your link and the traffic you send.
And, while the direct ranking benefit of outbound links appears negligible—one of his colleagues once measured it at 5 percent for a particular site—Briggs quotes Matt Cutts of Google’s Webspam team as saying parts of Google’s system encourage links to “good sites.”
5. Despite what some think, outbound links to quality sites don’t hurt SEO. All of the engineers I’ve talked to at the search engines say that wanton use of outbound links leaking SEO juice is not actually what happens; you don’t lose juice, you just pass on juice. And juice isn’t really a finite resource; it’s something that we came up with to measure websites on the Internet.”
Effective SEO for your E-marketing sites is very crucial, that can get more traffic for your site to boost your E-marketing. Hope all the above proven ways can help you at utmost.
Bruce Weatherin : February 22, 2011 1:56 pm : Marketing Tips
There are a lot of things small businesses take into account when it comes to promoting their products.
Where to advertise?
How much to spend?
What kind of demographics should I target?
However, one simple thing many forget to do, is track where their actual customers are coming from and more importantly, where they are not. Why should you care about tracking, you may ask. If you’ve got customers coming in the door, then who cares where they come from? Your wallet should care for starters. It’s about optimization of your marketing and therefore optimization of your business. Let’s look at a simple example.
50% of your budget goes to Advertisement A
50% of your budget goes to Advertisement B
80% of your customers found you because of Advertisement A.
Get the picture?
Obviously, you are wasting a lot of money on B and you should start placing that money into A and therefore maximize your potential customers. Well, if you were tracking you could see this, but more importantly, you might see that customers coming from Advertisement B have a value 5 times that of A. Thus, it would in fact be more beneficial to place your dollars with B. Another important item to understand is tracking those who don’t become your customers. If you have something hanging in your teeth that scares people, don’t you want somebody to tell you its there? The same concept applies in business. You can’t necessarily see from the eyes of the consumer and you might be pushing customers away for any number of reasons that you haven’t thought of. Maybe they don’t like the color of your product, or maybe the packaging is faulty? These are often simple things to fix but if you don’t know about these things then you can’t fix them. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
This, ladies and gentleman, is called optimization of marketing strategy and you can’t optimize anything if you don’t have information to work with so here are three rules to remember when marketing your business:
Rule #1
Ask EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER where they came from and how they found out about you, not to mention why they do or do not like you. This is huge!!!
Rule #2
Make sure you are actually compiling this data and REVIEWING IT!!! Data is useless without analysis.
Rule #3
ADAPT your strategy accordingly with what you find. Only the strongest survive, and in business this century, that means the quickest to ADAPT!!!
Even more simply, we’re gonna break these down into three easy to remember steps:
COLLECT
ANALYZE
ADAPT
By following these simple rules you can help your business to gain more customers by using the proper promotional techniques and waste less by avoiding those that are not working. Remember though, you can’t do either of these without TRACKING!
Good Luck!
Bruce Weatherin : February 4, 2011 2:56 pm : Marketing Tips
One of the first mistakes we see a lot of clients make in their pursuit of social media glory is establishing a personal page for their business. Now, there are a couple of advantages to this, however, overall it is a bad idea for a business to brand themselves using a personal page instead of an actual business page.
Pros
The pros to having a personal fan page come in two forms, friending and tagging. In friending it is easier to pickup followers because you can simply add “Mutual Friends” every day in order to expose your brand. The only problem with this is that it could be considered intrusive. The second good thing about a personal page comes in the form of tagging people in photos. Facebook only allows you to tag people in your friends list, hence if you have a business page and the admin isn’t friends with the people being tagged… they can’t tag them or your business. Hopefully Facebook will address this in the future.
Cons
Friend limit – You are limited to only 5,000 friends on a personal page, if you plan on doing social media properly you’re going to need more room than that!
Search Engine Optimization – Google and Yahoo index fan pages NOT personal pages. So with a personal page you are losing almost ALL of your search engine benefits which is a huge perk to social media.
Professionalism – Your brand is not a person and therefore should not be represented as one. If you want your business to be viewed as professional then you need to make sure that you appear that way… even in social media.
Tracking – Business fan pages allow you to track the interactions you are receiving to your page specifically. This is huge in your marketing campaign because it allows you to see what is working and what is not. Next we will talk about how tracking is one of the most important elements of acquiring new customers.
Future Problems – As the developers of Facebook help the site become more intuitive, they will allow the missed abilities that businesses need. They will also eventually begin to tighten restrictions on those in the wrong places. When that day comes or when you grow too large, do you want to be the one trying to convert 5,000 “friends.” This also creates segmentation of your target market causing you to have to update in multiple places and have a harder time showing your true following.
The Verdict
It is easier to accrue “friends” using a personal page earlier on but as you begin to grow you will very quickly start to see the drawbacks to this approach. Remember, trying to do something the easy way is no excuse for doing it the right way and you could be saving yourself a lot of headaches down the road. To stay on top of what is happening with Facebook changes, check out their actual blog here. Now lets get to work on getting more customers!
Bruce Weatherin : January 12, 2011 10:11 pm : Marketing Tips
The internet. Dun dun dun!!! Its been considered the most influential entity of our time. The internet has become the modern day equivalent of the wheel. Over 77% of Americans use it. You mean more people use the internet than have cars? Yes. It is the reason you are reading this blog and the reason we have unimaginable access to products and services across the country and world. What is the internet doing for your business? You mean to tell me that you only have limited exposure on the most influential system in the modern world? Well, have no fear. We have some easy tips that will get people running to you in no time and best of all… the advice and tips are free!
1. Content – add content and writing to your site that is in TEXT format. Do NOT add it in picture format. Google and the other major search engines don’t pick up writing that is formatted as a picture. Use keywords that relate to your products, business and services but do so in a natural way. Search engine spiders get smarter and smarter by the minute so don’t just spam the same phrase over and over again. Just provide good strong descriptions of what you do and more importantly, who you do it for.
2. Descriptions – the first thing search engines jump on is your header and description tags so make absolutely sure that these contain relevant information to what you are trying to promote. Even better, focus particular pages to certain words you are trying to have search engines pick up. The descriptions should NEVER be the same across multiple pages and remember, this will be the first thing searchers see so make it good!
3. Domain name – one of the biggest mistakes many people make is coming up with a site name that is hard to spell, understand, remember or type. The age old technique of Keeping It Simple Silly is key to domain name selection. If what you want is not available, then try to find something creative yet simple that makes it easy for people to remember, understand and reproduce in their browser bar. Keep in mind that you will be repeating this website name to people about a million times so if its hard for you to explain once, then you should consider a change.
4. Directory Listings – One of the most overlooked opportunities for small businesses is free directory listings, there are tons of them out there but the first ones you should hit are the Google directory, Yahoo! Local listing and the yellow pages. Just by hitting these three your business will jump up in internet searches exponentially
5. Site map – creating a site map can make your website much easier to navigate and it looks mighty tasty to search engine spiders. Create a site map for your website and make sure to submit it to Google, Yahoo and Bing. Check out http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ for help on making one.
6. Social Media – a must have for every small business. Your business at the very least should be listed with content on at least the four major networks of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Digg. MySpace is a dead zone so if you thought you were clever and had that one covered… well I’m just gonna have to burst your bubble. Also, getting friends and family to interact consistently with your pages helps exposure out a LOT!
7. Web Publications – this is a great way to send traffic to your website. Write a few posts about what your company does, your products, or just some helpful information that would assist people in or looking into your industry. Submit these articles to anybody you can find that displays news or information in your area, or in your field. Make sure you include links to useful sources and of course, don’t forget your own website.
8. Blogging – to some this seems like a forbidden area full of scary time consuming writing and unknown alien technology. Its not that scary or time consuming. Every couple of weeks just write up a few paragraphs about interesting content or even other articles you’ve read. Post it up and Bam! You are ready to rock.
9. Stamping – stamping is our term for branding your own branding. You should stamp your website url and relative social media sites on everything you can possibly think of. Your email, business cards, brochures, banners, flyers, advertisements and everything in between should have your internet sites on every single one of them. Your website is where people will sniff you out the most, while in the comfort of their own homes, so make sure they know how to find you.
10. YouTube – This mammoth of the internet jungle now receives more than two billion hits a day. That’s a lot of viewers and there is no reason why your business can’t cash in on this popular site right now. You can literally just take video of yourself or your personnel giving advice in your particular field and post it up only to watch the views come rolling in. Just make sure you know what you’re talking about and this will become one of your favorite and most profitable expansions of your internet marketing.
As you can see, Internet Marketing really isn’t all that hard to start. Granted we could go on for hours about how to fine tune many of these elements but chances are this should give you a very strong start into making your business more visible on the internet.
Sources:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm
http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/05/youtube-celebrates-fifth-birthday.html
www.x8marketing.com
Bruce Weatherin : February 10, 2010 2:54 pm : Marketing Tips
In any business there is always a plethora of industry jargon. Any given specialization has hundreds and even thousands of acronyms. It can become incredibly confusing at times and so we have put together a list of terms that small business managers and owners can benefit from through referencing. Now, you will notice that these aren’t textbook definitions. That is because in this blog we actually believe in plain English and not “let’s leave our client 3 miles back in confusion.” I hope some of these help and I will be adding to them as other ideas pop up.
Enjoy!
Marketing Terms
Brand Equity – the value associated with a brand name, trademark or logo
Branding – a name, design, symbol, or any combination that differentiate a product from its competition
Brandmark – logo, once protected it becomes a trademark
Competitive Parity – spending as much on marketing as your competitor to maintain the same market share
CPM – industry term meaning cost per thousand impressions typically from $0.50 – $25 per 1,000 people exposed or impressed upon
CRM – customer relationship management system, a system like NetSuite or similar that captures client data together for ease of access, management and analysis
Environmental Scanning – monitoring external contingencies
Demographics – grouping consumers on the basis of age, gender, Socioeconomic factors, geographics etc
Instant gratification – reception of the benefits of a purchase immediately after
Marketing Myopia – when business focuses on product attributes and not benefits to consumers
Marketing Orientation – focus on customer needs and making profit by meeting them
Media Scheduling Types – Continuous, Flighting, Pulsing, Seasonal
PPC – Pay per click advertising – internet advertising where you pay for every click-through action of users to your site or page from the posted advertisement
Perceptual Mapping – mapping out consumer perspectives of brand and competitors
Product Cannibalism – introducing a new product, which merely takes consumers away from another similar product of the same company instead of generating new consumers
SEO – search engine optimization – making your site appear high in search engines through natural searching instead of paying for adwords or similar services
Spokespy – creating a marketing spokesperson within your target operation in business-to-business marketing
Strategic Window – taking advantage of competencies matching market need and reducing risk
Statistical Confoundment – statistics that don’t make sense usually due to improper survey methods
Target Segment – people who can afford the product, have great enough numbers, and are reachable.
One last thing… if you have any terms you would like posted on here then feel free to leave a comment and we will place it on the list!
Bruce Weatherin : February 8, 2010 12:03 am : Marketing Tips
The Questions
When meeting with a client for the first time, they always come brimming with a host of inquisitive questions. Even though most business owners understand that they need marketing to survive, they often view it as a modern day witchcraft of sorts. They understand marketing can have drastic, almost magical effects (both good and bad) but how the process actually operates is often bizarre and foreign. It is incredibly common to begin working with clients who ask, “What kind of advertising should I start with?” Another common inquiry is ” What kind of advertising will bring the most customers?” The first question a client should be asked however, is “What will your customers see when they get there?”
With this in mind, first and foremost, before even considering advertising, a business must consider their brand identity. Pull out your wallet and look at your driver’s license. What do you see? Your identity. If your business has no identity then it might as well not exist. As a small business owner, put a lot of thought into your company image which includes items such as your logo, your motto’s and catch phrases, and last but certainly not least, your website. Over the next months and years you will learn that your website is your virtual identity. Every time you pass out a business card, you hope that it portrays the image you desire. What you must understand is that your website performs this same exact function but on steroids. With all of this in mind however, let us briefly discuss what you should consider when creating your new company brand identity.
Before we dive in, what is this brand identity I speak of? Brand identity is the typical attributes consumers associate with a brand. A perfect example is the Mercedes-Benz logo. When viewing this symbol, people most often reference the image to luxurious, quality vehicles. This is the brand identity this particular vehicle manufacturer has created for themselves through advertising, branding, and their product offering.
Logo
What makes a good company logo? Well for many, there are 5 traits a logo must carry.
Simple – Don’t cramp your own style or as father always said “KISS (Keep it simple silly)”
Memorable – If you miss this one then you will be both lost and forgotten.
Timeless – You spend too much hard work building your brand image, do you really want to go through the whole process again in ten years?
Versatile – Can you put it on a house? Can you put it on a mouse? What about your pants or a super-model’s blouse?
Appropriate – Last but not least, make sure your logo is appropriate to your target industry and audience. (Unless you are GoDaddy.com)
Mottos (Tag Lines) and Catch phrases
Some companies don’t even have a recognized motto but this could be considered a lost opportunity to brand your company image. The motto is an accepted part of a company’s identity in today’s world and we all know that you should use every tool available to you. Besides, if you don’t make up your own company motto, some people (like your competition) might make one up for you…
A good motto has some things in common with your logo:
Simple – Once again… don’t confuse your customer with a bunch of junk. Get to the point.
Memorable – Make sure you remember that this is your “forget-me-not.”
Definitive – Your motto should define or at least hint at what you do.
Honest – Don’t be deceptive to the audience in your motto. Today’s consumers are incredibly savvy at all ages. Don’t lose their trust.
Appropriate – If your motto isn’t pertinent, then it can tarnish your credibility. A perfect example is people dis-reputing GoDaddy’s “and a smoking hot blonde” tagline.
Website
This is possibly one of the most important decisions your business will make, “How will we present our company on the web?” Not to place any pressure, but you do know that 77% of all Americans have internet access, right? Even more interesting is that 64% of the US population uses broadband. What does this mean for you? It means that would-be clients are actually more likely to see your website than one of your business cards.
With these factors in mind… what makes an effective website is still incredibly debatable depending on your target demographic and web design preferences. Here is a list to help you think about what is important.
Simple – I know this one is redundant but sometimes less is more.
Clarity – Your messages should be very clear and easy to decipher. Define what you do and how to get in touch.
Navigable – People have to search the internet enough for the info they seek. Don’t make them search your site too.
Content – You should have loads and loads of content! If you are the expert with all the answers when people search, who will they come to when it is time to take action? If people come to your site for info, then they will leave your site with a positive brand image.
Optimization – Both your website and content should be optimized for search engines to increase your rankings, your visibility and (drumroll please), your internet footprint! The greatest websites in the world won’t be seen by potential customers if you don’t build content that pertains to what they search for and desire. This is a huge part of building a successful business and one of the first basics any decent marketer will address to increase your market share. Yes, Adwords can help, but who will you go with… the sponsored ad with questionable motives or the normal result with expert advice?
Avoid too much media – Let’s face it. Americans are impatient. If you make them wait, they will leave.
This wraps up a small portion of marketing brand imaging basics. Now, please be advised that these subjects do not by any means cover the entire spectrum of material included within a brand identity. I do hope however, that these guidelines can help you to make more informed decisions as you begin to construct your business’s marketing strategy and brand identity!
Good luck!
Bruce Weatherin : February 2, 2010 11:46 am : Marketing Tips
So I stumbled across this video of Seth Godin who was deemed “the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age” by Business Week. I would highly suggest watching this video as it touches on some really important ideas for small business marketing strategies. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to implement online business or direct promotion marketing, it is still important to make sure your message is relevant to what your potential customers need. This guy is considered to be one of the most brilliant and successful marketing gurus in the world. If you care about your profits… then this video is a great start into the understanding of your next marketing campaign. Enjoy!
Seth Godin speaks at Google HQ
X8 Marketing Services
Bruce Weatherin : January 25, 2010 4:16 pm : Marketing Tips
How does an animal survive in a changing environment? Simple. It must adapt and evolve to sustain and prosper. How does a business survive? Well, I don’t see too many people selling typewriters anymore. Yes, they must adapt and evolve their products, services and of course, their marketing strategies. It is incredibly important for small businesses to get a leg up on their competition however, they can and the beauty of the information age means that you don’t need a massive budget to get expert advice. The information is out there… and many times it is free. Here is another interesting article which could prove beneficial to many who want to see what today’s Marketing Trends are and if you need some free professional advice then contact the team over at X8 Marketing for more tips and suggestions.
2010 Marketing Trends
Bruce Weatherin : January 20, 2010 11:15 am : Marketing Tips
One of the most basic and critical elements that many small business owners overlook is the ability to present. Whether you are approaching potential investors or making a basic sale to a standard client… you need to engage your audience. Being a small business owner isn’t just about being your own boss… its about controlling your own fate. Learning the art of PowerPoint and presentations can help you turn your average business into an exceptional one. Take a look at this article for some great advice and tips on your next presentation!
Can your Powerpoint presentation rival TV advertising?
Bruce Weatherin : January 19, 2010 3:26 pm : Marketing Tips
A really interesting article placed in front of me by YellowDog. This is something that every business owner should be considering in their business card design and implementation. I highly recommend X8 clients taking a look at this.
http://www.psychotactics.com/artbusiness-card
