What to do when your Marketing Comes to a Grinding Halt

Even when you love marketing, if you’re a single shingle, small business owner or a business with no bench players when it comes to small business marketing, sooner or later, your marketing may come to a grinding halt.  This could happen because there’s a squeakier wheel, business emergency, personal emergency or illness, or – heck […]

Microwave Popcorn and Word of Mouth Marketing

It used to be that the bigger your business was, the more advantages you had, because all of the so-called advantages to be had – like paid advertising – cost real money. But things have changed. Consumers, senses bombarded and saturated with paid advertising, are now skeptical, savvy and wary of anything that sounds like […]

6 Ways to Supersize your Networking ROI

A few days ago I jotted down notes for an article on how to get more value from your networking efforts and as I sat down to write this article for the 365 Days of Marketing blog, I remembered writing in 365 Days of Marketing about the fact that a lot of people misunderstand what […]

Which Comes First: Your Product or Your Marketing?

Thinking about launching a new product – or even a new business?  Find out why marketing should be at the heart of your planning process, from the beginning.  It used to be that Marketing professors and books opened up marketing discussions by presenting the “4 ‘P’s of Marketing,” most of which occur toward the end […]

Announcing the release of: Little White Marketing Lies

Announcing the release of Little White Marketing Lies by Elizabeth Kraus Have you fallen for any of these little white marketing lies? The Little White Marketing Lies table of contents:  we provide exceptional customer service our employees set us apart word of mouth is our best marketing our customers love us success is just one […]

Bring on the Drama! Why You Need Emotion in the Workplace

How many times have you heard that emotion has no place in the workplace? I pondered that, thinking about how often we believe that every problem can be solved if we can only apply enough logic and keep our emotions out of the equation. I realized that it just is not true. In fact, in […]

Are You Using The Paper Cutter Approach to Marketing?

Ah, the paper cutter—that oh-so-useful tool with its machete-like blade that sits way up on that shelf in the copy room. We actually like it when we have a chance to use it. It’s kind of therapeutic, even fun. We get to figure out how to line things up perfectly to get the cut exactly […]

St. Patricks Day Marketing Ideas for Small Business

With Valentine’s Day in the rear view mirror, the next observance you may be looking toward when it comes to themed promotions, marketing and decorating is March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. St. Patrick’s Day marketing does not offer you the same types of organic gift and gift certificate sales probabilities as did Valentine’s Day, and […]

The Doctor is In! Symptoms, Diagnosis and The Leadership Cure for Your Business

One of the questions that I ask clients when working on brand identification is, “If the brand of your business were a person and walked into the room, what words would you describe it?” The point of the question is to help identify what type of brand personality the organization has and how they want […]

Is Pinterest Right for Your Business, or Should You ‘Put a Pin’ in It?

The phase, “let’s put a pin in this” means that something may be a good idea or suggestion, but that you are going to pin it to a bulletin board (really or symbolically) for further study. But since early adopters generally get the most ROI from being among the first to really understand and utilize […]