Thoughts on Marketing…

September will be here in a couple of days – and if your summer has been as busy as mine, you may have let your marketing slide. It’s easy to do when you’re running around trying to take care of summer business. It’s especially difficult to keep up if you have kids and summer activities [...]

Staying in touch with your sphere of influence, past clients, and warm leads is important. You know that. But what can you say that won’t make them think you’re being pushy? Sales letters aren’t appropriate for past clients or even for your sphere of influence. These are people who may turn into current clients at [...]

I firmly believe in newsletters sent in the postal mail – and was gratified to read that marketing guru Dan Kennedy agrees. He says that when your prospects open their mailbox and find something from you they can hold in their hands, it has much more impact than an email – or a link in [...]

Real estate is a “people” business – with success depending not just upon technical expertise and skill, but also upon interpersonal relationships. Because buyers, sellers, and agents work so closely together, trust and even camaraderie are important elements. Having something in common in addition to a real estate transaction helps create that trust, because humans [...]

Have you gotten into a rut with promoting your local business? Do you feel stuck with running the same tired ads in the newspaper or printing up sale flyers to insert in sacks when customers make a purchase. If so, business probably isn’t increasing at a very rapid rate. So try these three simple steps [...]

Want to do something today – right now – that will help build your business? If you have a pen, a piece of paper, an envelope, and a stamp, you can do just that. You can write a thank you note. In fact, you’ll do even better if you write a dozen thank you notes. [...]

Small business marketers across the world are trying to get their message out to consumers – and failing miserably. They know they have a wonderful product or service, but somehow, no matter how often they send a letter or an e-mail, and no matter how often they pay to have their message printed in a [...]

We all have different thresholds regarding wrong and right, moral and immoral. I personally think it’s immoral to abandon a dog. Someone else thinks its no big deal. But this isn’t about dogs… It’s about marketing, and things you can do to promote yourself and your business. I just read about a business that donated [...]

Here’s another tidbit from that Bob Bly email from a couple of days ago: ***Invent your own words*** Want to make your product stand out? Invent a new term to describe it. Consumer example: Miller Brewing advertising its beer as “cold filtered.” Business example: Mike Hammer called his approach to business improvement “re-engineering.” Advantage: if [...]

Face it – the only people who want someone who is “new” are the ones who are so hoping to get a low price that they’re willing to take a chance on you. They might even offer to let you work for them for free in order to build your reputation, your portfolio, your experience, [...]