Once is Not a Marketing Campaign

If I had a dollar for the number of times that a business owner told me they tried marketing once and it didn’t work for them, I would be driving a much nicer car. Marketing is not like lima beans, you can’t try them once and make a decision on the spot that it doesn’t work for you. Yet I continue to run into businesses who use that excuse when I suggest that better or more targeting marketing efforts might…  (Read on)

Choice of Venue Makes a Difference

I still get the opportunity to help clients with seminars periodically thought not as often as when I was with Microsoft. One of the interesting lessons learned has to do with site selection. All business owners are looking to cut corners and so the idea of free is always appealing with cheap being a second runner up. Free meeting space and cheap room rentals unfortunately doesn’t always create the desired experience for your guests or outcome for your events. Several…  (Read on)

Deal or No Deal: How Would You Spend the Banker’s Money?

Admittedly prime time television must have soured in mid-December when I found myself repeatedly watching the Small Business Owner edition of Deal or No Deal on Wednesday evenings. Unlike the original version of the show, this one features no lovely, leggy ladies with briefcases. Instead the contestants as well as the briefcase models are all real business owners. At the beginning of the show, one lucky business owner gets to compete while the others cheer him or her on. If…  (Read on)

Change Your Marketing Mix Not How Much You Spend for Different Results

The results of a new study published by email marketer StrongMail and promoted by The eMarketer Daily show that 90% of business executives plan to spend the same or more on marketing next year. No kidding! Business executives who cut their marketing budgets are likely the same ones that closed their doors last year. Marketing can’t be treated as a discretionary expense like going out to dinner or the movies. Without marketing there are no sales. Without sales there is no…  (Read on)

Using Stock Photography: A Cautionary Tale

The growing popularity and widespread availability of stock photography sites like istockphoto.com and fotolia.com has put the likes of Getty Images and Tony Stone on their ears right along with a great many high quality independent professionals. You can’t blame it all on the stock photo sites. The issue has been compounded by camera phones and flip cameras: everyone things they can take pictures. Right along with the proliferation of images has come a lowering of standards in what viewers…  (Read on)