Month: December 2014

Trust is the foundation of all sales. Be Real. Always. Social Media is full of fakes. Trust comes from being real about who you are.

Knowing the answer to this question is the foundation of all success. It forms the basis upon which strategic efforts can be executed. And it provides the target that allows you to know if your efforts have been successful or need adjustment. With properly aligned goals, you can know when you have achieved success –

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On a spur of the moment, I decided to take my family to the local county fair this past week. What a riot! I grew up in Ohio and the Ohio State Fair was always a highlight of the summer. It was like a great finale at a fireworks show – loud, brilliant, colorful, oh,

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When small businesses talk about marketing, more often than not, they are really talking about “advertising.” Advertising is not marketing. Advertising is a marketing tactic. And a limited one, at that. Advertising is an intrusion, an interruption. It is frequently something most people (that includes your customers) see as something to be avoided. Marketing is

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The more you know about your customers the more you can speak to them like they matter. Unfortunately, most small businesses stop their examination of their customers at the basics: are they here (as in are they in the store, on the phone, on our website), and can they and will they buy? But these

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Reaching beyond the email marketing mass Blast! Your customers are not a lump of demographic data points. Having a customer, no matter your business, is a privilege. Indeed, it is a requirement for business success, but the fact is, without customers, you have no business. The fundamental shift in marketing made possible by digital evolution

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When well planned, digital marketing campaigns provide prospects and customers with stuff they need/want and helpful ways to find out more. The stories should be interesting, relevant and helpful. One big error with marketing “blasting” tools has to do with the content strategy not the tool itself. Smart marketing, crafted for the recipient, is useful

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When marketing professionals talk about engaging, they are talking about getting visitors to your website, or readers of your email newsletters, or even readers of your off-line marketing to take some action with you and your company. Throwing up a “Hey, buy this now!” message is not engaging. When it comes to your contacts list,

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It’s Official… mobile usage has overtaken desktop computer usage. And, now Google is signaling that web sites that load faster, are easier to navigate, and give users what they’re looking quickly and in formats fitting the device viewed are RANKING FACTORS. Your web site’s success depends on its ability to responsively deliver search-engine-friendly content to

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