marketing
How 'Cause Marketing' Can Help Your Business
By Paul Diamond Monday Mar 8, 2010How can companies get something substantial in return for donating to social or environmental causes? The answer is cause marketing — the collaboration of a "for profit" business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. Cause marketing is a powerful tool for building brand awareness, loyalty and sales while helping a non-profit cause. Benefits of cause-marketing
The Key to Social Media Marketing? One Hour a Day
By Hollis Thomases Wednesday Mar 3, 2010“Social media marketing” is one of those buzzwords that often gets tossed around without much context or insight as to what it really means. Social media is media (content) created by the masses rather than by large corporate institutions that have traditionally dominated what you and I know as “the media.” It’s sort of the democratizing of content: by the people, for the people.
3 Ways Small Business Can Take Advantage of the Web
By Ira Wolfe Monday Mar 1, 2010If you’re an executive or business owner looking for a good reason to ignore social media in your business, here’s some potentially good news. You can simply ignore it if you can say “I agree” to all three of the following statements: I have more business than you know what to do with. Robust relationships aren’t important for customer satisfaction and referrals in my business. I don’t need more traffic to my website. How did you do? I suspect most of you didn’t pass the test.
Today in Marketing: How Small Business Can Profit From Text Messaging
By Eric Reyes Monday Feb 15, 2010In Tuesday's Must-Reads in marketing stories from around the web, find out the best reasons to put video on your site, how to make sure your company's website is high up on Google search results, why text messaging is the perfect opportunity for small businesses — and more:
3 Reasons Why Email Still Matters to Your Business
By Steve Cunningham Thursday Feb 11, 2010Email has long been considered the dinosaur of the digital marketing world. Our inbox is overflowing to the point where it is unmanageable and we certainly don't need more of it, right? However, there are plenty of reasons why email marketing will remain the workhorse of any digital marketing strategy, and in particular, any successful social media strategy. Here are the top 3 reasons why email and social media belong together. #1 - Not all customers are social media users.
Key to Closing a Sale: Don't Be Overly Professional
By Eric Reyes Tuesday Feb 2, 2010There are a million books on how to improve your sales pitch, and most teach you tricks that are off-putting. Jill Konrath on HubSpot has a radical suggestion: don't be too professional — it won't, despite what the books say, increase your chances of making the sale.
Five Public Relations Mistakes You Don't Want to Make
By Eric Reyes Friday Jan 29, 2010Everyone is going to tell you what to do to improve your PR efforts. They are going to tell you to get on Twitter, and do your SEO properly, and foster a sense of community in your industry. Marla Kertzman wrote yesterday on Small Business CEO about some canny things to avoid to further your PR efforts. This list stands out because some of these things are exactly what PR people aspire to do – play in big venues, respond to attacks, doing a lot with a little.
A Free and Easy Way to Keep Tabs On Your Competition
By Ira Wolfe Friday Jan 29, 2010Do you know what your customers, competition or the media are saying about you? While social media like Facebook, Twitter and blogs are brilliant tools to convey a message and monitor what’s being said, the simplest way to get started on gathering market intelligence is Google Alerts.
10 Questions to Help You Develop Your Brand
By Eric Reyes Thursday Jan 21, 2010Time to assess your brand. It's not just up to the marketing department; it's up to you, the leader of the company. Anna Farmery at the Engaging Brand put up 10 questions this week for you to ask yourself. This is a first step to examining how your brand holds up under scrutiny and can help you figure out what your brand needs to do better.
5 Consumer Trends Small Businesses Should Capitalize on Now
By Paul Diamond Wednesday Jan 20, 2010The concept of "business as usual" is undergoing a transformation in the face of changing consumer and dramatic economic pressures. I spoke recently with noted trend analyst William Higham, author of “The Next Big Thing - Spotting & Forecasting Consumer Trends for Profit.” He identified five key business trends: