Of course you need to drive leads and sales right now, in the short term.
But you can also do that in a way that builds your brand—including your reputation, and your relationships—for the long term. Here is a simple 1-2-3 formula for building a brand. Read more…
I’m amazed at how often small businesses fail to incorporate any kind of “mental hook” into their advertising and marketing.
I’m talking about a visual and verbal hook that will stand out, raise eyebrows, get people to pay attention, stick your name in their mind, and give people a good feeling about you. Read more…
How many times have you read a web page, brochure, ad or mailer and thought, “It’s not really telling me anything I need to hear, it’s just more blah, blah, blah.”
That’s not unusual. A lot of marketing copy has a bad case of the blahs.
On the other hand, have you ever read something that really connected, that was interesting, helpful, convincing, that made you want to read on or want the product? Read more…
My wife teaches French, and she sometimes plays a game in the classroom where she offers students a single Skittle candy when they get the right answer. She’s always amazed at how alert and motivated they immediately become-just for one Skittle!
The offer of the Skittle creates what I call the Perk-up Factor: it makes them perk up. Read more…
“There are no products. There are only customers.”
With these words, Peter Drucker signaled the end of one model for how we think about doing business, and the beginning of a new model.
What was he talking about? Read more…
There’s an old joke about a man driving through Maine who got lost looking for a certain town. He stopped and asked a farmer for directions. The farmer scratched his head, thought awhile, and finally said, “I don’t think you can get there from here!”
Ah, if only there had been a sign giving directions. Read more…
To create a successful classified ad campaign, think of yourself as a matador who waves a red flag to get the bull to notice him and charge. You’ve got to turn your classified ads into red flags that will stand out and get readers to stop, pay attention, and read. Read more…
Sometimes, the way to think big is to think small. And, as I’ve mentioned before, one of the best “think small” solutions for small businesses is to think about how to use classified ads.
Classified ads are a bit like the Rodney Dangerfield of advertising: “they don’t get no respect.” But for many businesses, classified ads can actually be an important part of a very effective advertising strategy. Read more…
Someone has said that we can’t all do great things, but we can all do small things in a great way.
I want to paraphrase that to say: Even if you can’t afford a great marketing campaign, you can at least get more marketing mileage out of the small things you are doing.
Starting with perhaps the smallest marketing tool of all: your business card. Read more…
If you can only afford to use one marketing tool, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than a simple brochure (or flier or circular). I call the brochure the Swiss Army Knife of Marketing Tools because there are so many ways to use it—and because it can deliver your selling message in greater depth and detail than an ad or radio or TV spot. Read more…
