Want to improve your marketing? Then do these five things: Always be marketing – that will give you more trust, credibility and brand recognition Use consistent messaging – that will make it easier for your audience to digest Tell stories – that will make your marketing more enticing Aim for the heart not the head – [...]
Want to generate some free marketing? Form a referral relationship with a complementary business – one that operates in a similar field but isn't a rival. A good example would be a personal trainer and a health food store. How would the relationship work? Well, you would get a referral fee when you send customers to [...]
If your small business is doing marketing that appeals to everyone, it's actually doing marketing that appeals to no one. The only way you can create marketing that appeals to everyone is to make it horribly vague. Bad marketing targets every single customer group. Good marketing deliberately excludes many groups. And why would you want to [...]
I’m a big believer that every small business should look for valid pretexts to market to their customers. Why? Because the more times you can get in front of your customers, and deliver them helpful, engaging, relevant marketing, the more sales you're going to make. What is a pretext? It could be anything from Christmas, Easter, [...]
Are you planning to save money next quarter by cutting back on your marketing? Your rivals will be delighted to hear that, because on any given day, at least one of them will be marketing directly to your customers. Marketing is all about building trust, credibility and brand recognition with your customers. It takes time – [...]
I've got some marketing advice that might sound a little strange. Don't market your products. Instead, market the product behind your products. What on earth am I talking about? Let me give you some examples. Say you sell barbecues. Rather than marketing your barbecues, talk about the quality family time people can spend around one of [...]
What is the most important activity of any small business? The answer is sales. If a small business is able to make sales but is terrible at everything else - it has some chance of survival. But if a small business is brilliant at everything but making sales it will fail. So what drives sales? The [...]
You wouldn't ask someone to marry you on the first date ... so don't try to close your customers on the first contact. In business as in romance, you need to do a little wooing first. That's where marketing comes in. When you go on a date with the man or woman of your dreams, you [...]
Every small business owner should build a personal brand alongside their company brand. Yes, even you. Why? Because people connect much more to individuals than they do to companies. We feel an emotional connection to a person, not to a business. And it is these emotional connections that make it easier to generate referrals and leads. [...]
I've got some bad news: there are no get-rich-quick-schemes in marketing. The only way to succeed is to play the long game. That means publishing quality content on a consistent and long-term basis. Why? Because marketing is all about building trust, credibility and brand recognition – and you can't build those things overnight. They take time [...]
