Moving My Blog

We are moving this blog to the Front Page of the Business901 website. There are still active links on the side to download any guides you may be interested in.

To get everything moved will take a few days, so please click on the link here.

Thanks
Joe

Can LinkedIn increase your sales?

Free report that is worth a look, this is what John Jantsch has to say:

My friend Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies has compiled a free report outlining ways to use the popular business networking site, LinkedIn, to increase your sales.

Manypeople are drawn to the promise of millions of connections on LinkedIn but suffer from the “now what” syndrome once they get signed up. There is gold in LinkedIn, but like any social network the secret lies in understanding how to open up access points and begin to make them pay off in mutually beneficial ways.

GetCan LinkedIn increase your sales.

Harnessing the Simple, but Effective Art of Referral Marketing - New York Times

When the NY Times looks for an expert on Referral Marketing where do they turn, Duct Tape Marketing, take a look!

Harnessing the Simple, but Effective Art of Referral Marketing - New York Times

15 Do-It-Yourself PR Ideas

Scott Howard found this at found this at TheCheapRevolution.com.  I found it on his blog... ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom dedicated to Marketing, Advertising and the Creative Process

15 Do-It-Yourself PR Ideas

It’s hard to allocate where your money should be spent when you’re a startup - and you sometimes have to stretch every dollar. Bootstrapping doesn’t have to be hard though. If you decide to promote your company yourself, read on for fifteen do-it-yourself tactics and get ahead of your competition!

1. Write an interesting article. Writing articles is a great way to establish credibility and drive traffic to your site. Check out this outline if you’re not sure of the layout or for some more ideas. The key here is to make sure your article ends up benefiting the person reading it. Some ideas include:

• Talking about the social benefits of your service.
• Providing advice on pitfalls you fell into when starting your business with examples on how you overcame them.
• Creating a case study on a client.

After you put it together, submit it to online article submission sites such as ezinearticles.com. For a list of more than 150 other sites, check out this post. (Pick your shots and find the ones that will be the most relevant to your audience).

Other important aspects to take into account are to make sure your headline is thought-provoking and to include a byline at the end of article. Your headline should draw people in – make sure it’s short, funny, and/or engaging. Sometimes writing it last works best. Check out this great post by Copyblogger for other headline ideas.

Finally, your byline should give readers a brief background of yourself and your company. Be sure to include a link to your site readers can click on. If you have analytics software installed on your site, track which sites are bringing the most traffic and concentrate your future efforts in submitting articles to those sites.

2. Blog about it. Don’t have a blog? Get one! If you’re worried about the cost, you can sign up for a free account at blogger.com or blog.com. The title of your blog should be relevant to your product/service – you can also make it catchy or creative depending on the industry you’re in.

When writing your posts, take considerable time in writing your headline. In addition, make sure to include keywords that relate to your post. These keywords will be instrumental in helping readers find your post. Once you’ve published your post, submit it to bookmarking tools such as stumbleupon, delicious, and digg. For a great list of social media sites you can submit your post to, check out this entry by Tropical SEO. These tools will help drive traffic to your site.

I would also set up a Technorati account. This will help even more readers find your blog. It’s free to set up an account and you can set up your blog to automatically ping the site every time you post. MyBlogLog is another site I recommend setting up an account on. It allows you to build a community around your blog as well as network with other bloggers.

3. Send an e-newsletter. This implies you have a mailing list. If you don’t have one, start building it now. Include all the current contacts you have and be sure you have an opt in button on your site so you can collect more contacts. Another way to build your mailing list is by asking people at networking events if you can add them to it.

The next step is to write your newsletter. In it, you can talk about news in your company, recent hires, etc. Always make sure you include news your readers can use – there has to be at least one post that will benefit your readers directly. For example, in our last newsletter, we talked about leveraging social media for your business. Use an e-mail campaign service such as Constant Contact and iContact. For other alternatives, check out our previous post. Be sure to include an opt-out option or you will be violating the CAN-SPAM Act.

4. Submit a Press Release. Write a noteworthy press release in third person and submit it yourself at free online sites such as prweb.com. For other sites, click here. You can also send the press release to the local media around your area. To gain a better chance of getting it picked up, include a cover letter that showcases how the information in your release benefits your local community.

It’s important to also note that it may prove worthwhile to pay for one PR service if you have truly newsworthy information. We’ve used Businesswire.com with great success.

5. Profile your company in Wikipedia. It’s important to build an online presence and adding an entry in Wikipedia can help you accomplish that (even with the new nofollow attribute). Check out how other companies profile themselves and use the same format. Be sure to include links to your site so people can find you (We’re working on ours now!).

6. Get a LinkedIn Account. LinkedIn is a social networking site for business professionals. It allows you to connect with those you know as well as get introduced to those you want to know. In my opinion, it’s most useful function is its “Answers” feature. This is where users post questions on several different categories about a certain topic. Leverage your knowledge and experiences by answering them and post your own questions that make others notice you. Be sure to leave a response you’re proud of because the best answer given to a question can earn you an “Expert” rating.

7. Leverage Social Media sites. Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Ning and Zaadz can be a great way to market your company and/or offering. Make a

Stunning images the easy way

 

From the Duct tape Marketing Blog, if you want images, read on!

Images help tell your story in vivid ways. Blog posts come to life, presentation are more interesting, printed materials look richer, and web pages are more appealing. Most people get that but finding the right images and turning them into something useful can be a bit of a costly pain. Help is on the way in terms of low-cost, high quality images and image editing software that is easy to use and low or no cost.

Hereare some tips for adding and editing images to make your marketing more visually appealing.

iStockphoto - low cost library of royalty free images that cost from $1-5 depending upon the size and resolution needed. You can search by keyword, subject, color, and white space. This is every small business marketer’s dream.

Picasa - Google’s free PC editing software allows you to organize and edit photos easily. You can also store them online using the Picasa service.

Adobe Photoshop Elements - Adobe’s lightweight version of Photoshop comes in at about $99 and does more than most small business owners would need. (The tools to optimize photos for the web is worth the price.)

Check out some of the online photo editing tools as well. They all offer different features and have free versions.
• Picture2Life - edit, collage and animate
• Pixenate - very simple and create your own photo editing
• Graphita - let’s you play with photos

If you really want to take advantage of the power of images you can start your own photo editing site or add photo editing to your classified or auction site by purchasing Pixinate’s server version

Article Submission

My newsletter this month talked abut using letters and articles for PR generation. I mention where to submit them and forgot the list. Well, when I dug into it I found probably more than I wanted to. Here is a list...Do you have more?

www.articleworld.net
www.ezinearticles.com
www.isnare.com
www.ideamarketers.com
www.certificate.net/wwio/
www.ducttapemarketing.com/article/.
www.amazines.com
www.articlealley.com
www.articlecity.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.articledepot.co.uk
www.articlefinders.com
www.certificate.net
www.freesticky.com

Branding lesson from Mr. Juliano @ the SoundBite Back Blog

SoundBite Back says:

I recently wrote a three-part series on branding for Business People magazine. The first column, shown below, appeared in the March issue. The April issue, which came out this week, includes the second segment. I'll post parts two and three here, too, after they're published.

Understanding Branding
Knowing what branding isn’t helps you define what it is

Branding is one of the most misunderstood aspects of marketing—and that’s unfortunate, because branding is integral to every company’s success. In this first of three ProSpeak articles, I’ll discuss some of common misconceptions about branding and define what it is by explaining what it’s not. In the process, you’ll learn how your company can use the different components of your brand to tell a story that cuts through in today’s cluttered, chaotic communication environment.

Let’s start with the most common misconception about brands.

Your brand is not just your logo. There’s a good reason why logos and brands are often confused with one another. The marketing definition of “brand” is derived from the “brand” that ranchers use to identify their cattle. It’s a mark of ownership, a distinctive visual clue of what belongs to whom. Your logo has a similar function, but as a result it’s limited in its ability to tell a comprehensive story. You should think of your logo, then, simply as a tap on the shoulder that reminds people your company exists. But the impressions they have about you go well beyond the logo itself.

Your brand is not just your company name. Your name should be just as distinctive as your logo, but it doesn’t always tell a story—nor should it have to. As brands change over time, it often makes sense to change your tagline, your logo, or your advertising, but it’s rarely a good idea to change your name. Why? It takes a long time for a name to gain traction, and you don’t want to squander the equity you’ve earned unless your name has a strong negative connotation (one example: the change from “The Phillip Morris Companies, Inc.” to “Altria Group, Inc.”). Also, your name no longer has to be descriptive in and of itself: after all, does the “A & M” in “Texas A & M” have any meaning today? Is the scope of IBM’s products and services limited to the manufacture of “business machines”? Today, it’s just as likely that a successful name—“Google” or “Starbucks,” for example—says very little on its own about what you offer, until your audience is informed by the larger context provided by the brand.

Your brand is not just your mission, vision, or values statement. Mission, vision and values statements should be written for your internal audience (if they’re written at all). They are the traffic signals that tell your people what you stand for and what they should focus on. However, they won’t—nor should they intend to—replace well-crafted marketing messages designed to make an emotional connection with your audience. That’s where a tagline comes in. However...

Your brand is not just your tagline. Nike says “Just do it.” For McDonald’s, it's “I’m lovin’ it.” And for Target, it’s “Expect More. Pay Less.” These taglines often summarize a larger message about the brand, but they’re merely a jumping off point. The tagline often creates a question in the consumer’s mind (Just do what? I’m loving what? Expect more of what?), with the answer inherent in the context provided by the brand.

Your brand is not just your advertising. Advertising certainly helps you tell your story, but it’s a one-way conversation. Think of your advertising as the first thing you would say when introducing yourself to your customers, and your brand as the rest of the dialogue. One important note about advertising: even if it’s great, there’s no guarantee your audience will continue the conversation. That’s because...

Your brand is not something you control. Today, the consumer is in charge. As suggested above, your advertising, your logo, or your tagline may start a conversation with your customers. But their experience with your product or service—and the experiences others have shared with them—are what gets them to either continue the conversation or end it on their own terms. This word-of-mouth is what truly defines your brand. And while you should do everything you can to make customers speak well of you, they alone have the final say.

Now that you know some of the things your brand isn’t, let’s move on to what it is. First of all, your brand is everything mentioned above, and more. It’s the colors you use in your marketing materials. The media coverage you receive. The way your employees dress, speak, and respond to concerns. Perhaps the best definition is that your brand is a promise—the net impression that your customers have based on what you and others have told them, and what they’ve learned from their own experience. If they see the value in that promise, they’ll interact with your product or service. And when their experience is consistent with that promise, that’s branding at its most powerful. That’s when you start turning your customers into advocates for your brand, and when they become your most valuable asset.

So, how do you build a world-class brand? Next month, I’ll discuss some brands that have succeeded by making, and keeping, differentiated promises. What you’ll discover is that it doesn’t take an enormous marketing budget to build a great brand—but no matter how much you spend, it’s worth every penny you invest.

Making Radio Work

Scott Howard of Collective Wisdom sent me this tidbit recently. If you are think of advertising on Radio, you should read this:

Two Ways to Make Radio Work by Roy Williams

Avoid disappointment make sure you do it right. Radio can be successfully used for short-term or long-term campaigns. But the only thing more frustrating than trying to use short-term techniques in a long-term campaign is trying to use long-term techniques in the short term. Do you understand the rules for when and how to use each?

Click above for the entire article.

If your selling, manufacturing or even a contractor, you should be reading my other blog
www.yourmarketingmachine.com

Advice on finding a coach?

I asked a consultant the other day: "What advice would give someone trying to find a consultant in your field?"
The answer:
1. Longevity, someone who has seen both good times and bad times
2. Active within a specific field/industry.
3. Communication skills
4. Ability to make my life easier, not complicate it.

Have any other suggestions?

In Japan, That Donut Could Cost You Your Job

Where are we headed? 33 1/2 " waistline or your fired, WOW!

To curtail Japan's overweight population, the Japanese health ministry recently mandated that all waistlines among its 56 million workers over age 40 be below “regulation size” of 33.5 inches (for men). Any company failing to bring its employees’ weight under control--as well as the weights of their family members--will be fined up to 10% of its earnings by the government.

According to government officials, 27 million Japanese--about half of all adult workers--have health indices (cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and BMI) that don’t meet ideal numbers, and will be targeted for mandatory medical intervention. The director of the Medical Urban Clinic in Osaka, Toshio Mochizuki, says he is concerned about the new movement. “I’m worried that the overweight will start to be shunned at the workplace and these new rules will make no one want to hire them,” he said. Read the full article here.

--AndreaLeigh

Your Marketing Machine: Career Secrets converted to Your Marketing Machine

This is the post on Dan Pink's new book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, take a look.

Your Marketing Machine: Career Secrets converted to Your Marketing Machine

A Whole New Mind (Live) Daniel Pink

Just as we were getting used to the Information Age, Daniel Pink tells us that it is ending. With it goes our focus on charts, statistics, and linear thinking. Traditional "left-brain" activities, like logic, analysis, and repetitive production, are being turned over to robots, computers, and offshore labor. The valued skills of the 21st Century will be those of the right brain: empathy, design, synthesis, and contextual thinking. In this live presentation, author and lecturer Daniel Pink tells you:

• How abundance, Asia, and automation are changing the world
• Why "routine" is the scariest word in the English language
• How old-line companies like GM and Proctor & Gamble are responding
• What six abilities matter most in the emerging age

Kind of old news, but worth repeating to see how these items are affecting your business today. but actually using it as an intro to his new book, which I wil discuss tomorrow.

Have you seen our new Contractor blog?