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You Only Have a Little Time: Say It and Make It Stick

We are living in a world of instantaneous communication where you have to say it and make it stick – quick - or the opportunity is gone.

Think about it: If you’re trying to communicate in this digital age, then you’ve noticed that our attention spans are short. Twitter makes us think we can get the gist of “it” in 140 characters or less. But not just that; those of us who have worked with children were either frustrated or discovered the art of quick and powerful lessons. Have you ever tried to teach a roomful of 6-year-olds? My hat is off to the professional educator because in my opinion, a 6-year-old’s attention span seems to shift every 2 minutes. And that’s perfect.

You can’t become good at communicating, marketing and getting the kind of attention that you want your company to have unless you practice. And the way I see it, working with Twitter and with children is the perfect marketing exercise.

Can you explain what you do in a way that a roomful of children can understand it?

What would happen to your marketing if it was clear and relevant enough for children to understand? Meeting that standard of simplicity could be good for business. That means minimal jargon. That means words and stories that really connect with your audience.

Apple did it with the first iPod. Remember their marketing language: “1,000 songs in your pocket.”

A child can understand that. It’s clear. It’s engaging.

Can you make your business matter in 140 characters or less?

Use Twitter to master the art of the meaningful sound bite. Since you only have 140 characters, you’re forced to be interesting and quick.

Think about it: 140 characters is a good rule of thumb not only for Twitter but also for:

blog post headlines,
press release headlines,
elevator pitches
30-second ad spots

On Twitter, you only have a few seconds to get your point across before something new pops up. In business, you only have a little time to reach a potential client before something new pops into his/her mind. So use the resources around you—children and Twitter—to learn to maximize your sound bites.

After all, everything is a lesson if we pay attention and learn.

From Small Business Trends

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

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The only guide for dealing with Restraining Orders on the market.

Sep 7th

The only practical guide for dealing with False Restraining Orders on the market. The Top 10 tips to stay out of jail long enough to clear your name. 60% affiliate commissions in a market with no competition!
The only guide for dealing with Restraining Orders on the market.

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The Only Reason to Participate in Social Media

Jul 6th

The Only Reason to Participate in Social Media

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Plain and simple, the real reason to participate in any marketing activity, including Facebook and others, is to generate a customer.

That point of view gets overlooked in favor of the “see how many fans you can get” social media game. One of the things that has become painfully clear of late is that having lots of followers does not equate into having lots of business. I know plenty of well-known, heavy hitter social media types, the ones that show up on lots of tops of Twitter lists, that are broke.

I’m not suggesting that having no followers is the way to go either, but turning followers into leads and converting those leads into profitable business is the real reason to spend time and money in any tactic.

Again, I’m not suggesting that this means you find a way to buy a few fans and then spam them into submission, but you must have a workable plan in place to move people from followers to prospects.

For most businesses this means email. If you are not consistently putting out great content and offering that content for your followers to grab in exchange for their email address you are severely limiting your ability to make social media pay.

You can do this in the form of an email newsletter, downloadable free ebook or even free online seminar or other event. The point is that if you can gain trust in your social media engagement, the kind that makes people confidently give you permission to email them, you’ll make social media pay. If you don’t, you won’t, it’s that simple.

Once you’ve earned this kind of trust, you can begin to nurture this lead, educate and make offers in ways that simply don’t have impact in most social media settings.

Obviously, you can take this offline as well – drive folks to play a game of check-in, invite them to your in person event, or get them to enter to win a grand prize at your location – but the point still remains.

Look at what your doing right now with your social media efforts and ask yourself this question – What could I do that would entice some percentage of my followers to willingly and joyfully give me their email address? – answer that and you’ll turn your social media efforts into a powerful lead generation machine.

View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

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Marketing to Only Forex?? Market to All Traders

Jun 1st

Amazing 75% Commission. Get Paid Now! Amazing New Method Revealed By Veteran Trader.
Marketing to Only Forex?? Market to All Traders

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Better is Only Better if it’s Different

Mar 28th

Better is Only Better if it’s Different

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

I believe that the most important marketing consideration is an effective marketing strategy.

asgw via Flickr

Now, I’m not talking about the empty academic exercise kind of strategy. I’m talking about the discovery and communication of a core point of differentiation that informs and drives every tactical aspect of marketing and, in many cases, the overall business strategy of the organization.

And guess what, being better than your competition isn’t a strategy, it’s an expectation. There’s nothing wrong with striving to be the best at what you do, it certainly will make for happy customers, but it won’t attract that kind of easy buzz that being different generates.

I’ve not done this scientifically, but over the years I’ve rarely encountered a firm that didn’t think their products or services were superior to those of the companies they directly competed with. In most cases, those same firms also believed that something along the lines of “we provide better service” was their core point of differentiation.

While it may indeed be true that your service is better, striving to communicate this belief as a central marketing message is what keeps firms stuck in the rut of commodity with every other firm that is saying the same thing.

Firms that build substantial marketing momentum through strategy don’t strive to do things better, they strive to do things that no one else in their market is doing or to do the same things that everyone else is doing in different ways.

A remodeling contractor creates and promotes something they call the “One Week Bath” – an unheard of proposition
A law firm provides the same legal services as their competitors, but packages them in fixed price bundles. – heresy with the bill by the minute set
A screen printer crowdsources t-shirt designs and shares sales profits with the successful designers. – wow, incredible designs and rabid loyal community

Now, being different for different sake isn’t enough. You’ve also got to uncover a way of being different that solves a current frustration, eliminates a problem, enhances an experience or dramatically alters a well worn industry given.

The most powerful marketing strategies are therefore:

Something that is both unique and beneficial
Something you can actually pull off elegantly
Something that your competition doesn’t or can’t do

Where to look for differentiation

Ways to differentiate lurk in every corner of a business and industry and your hunt for differentiating strategy start by answering the following questions:

What could we do that no one in our industry is doing?
What is the greatest frustration of our ideal customers?
Are there innovations in other industries we could adopt?
Are there unique ways to package, price or deliver our products and services?
How could we create a totally unique customer experience?

Here’s the funny thing though. There’s a good chance you’re already doing something that is unique, but you just don’t know it. In working with small businesses over the years, I’ve uncovered stunning marketing strategies by simply going out and interviewing a handful of an organization’s loyal customers.

Customers often appreciate the little things you do differently: clean up the job site each day, explain accounting in plain English, return phone calls promptly or provide recommendations of other service providers.

The key is to find these differences and make them your core marketing strategy. Sometimes this takes guts – maybe nobody else in your industry is promoting those little things, maybe they don’t sound that sexy, but your best customers told you that they make a big difference to them and that should give you the confidence that it will make a big difference to others.

You don’t have to revolutionize a product or service category to be different in ways that matter to your customers. You just have to innovate in ways that make sense to them and make your brand easy to talk about. Sometimes simplifying what you do can be the greatest innovation of all.

Human strategy

Once you find your strategy of difference you must go to work on building it into everything you do.

Use your strategy of difference as a filter for every marketing decision.

Evolve your language internally and externally to communicate your core difference.

Bring every member of your staff into the discussion and help them link their function to the delivery of your strategy of difference.

View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

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How to Reveal Fan Only Content on Facebook

Feb 2nd

How to Reveal Fan Only Content on Facebook

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

One cool little trick that marketers often use on Facebook is to hold back content for “Fans” only. The pull behind this is that you can then give a little perk and encourage folks to “Like” your page and become a fan.

There are 3rd party apps like those from North Social or Wildfire that can make this happen for you or you can do a bit of coding with FBML. I wrote a how to article on installing the Static FBML app here - you might want to visit that first as you will need the app installed to take advantage of today’s tidbit.

This image greets non fans

I installed a Static FBML tab called Free eBook and put an image that encourages people to become a fan and offers a free eBook for doing so. There are lots of ways you to take this. Some organizations offer coupons or discounts for becoming a fan or access to early registration – really anything of value can be a great incentive and will generally increase your number of fans. (Visit my Fan Page to see is in action)

The code that makes this possible is the FBML attribute – fb:visible-to-connection. This is the same code that Facebook uses to show or not show your profile to friends or fans and it’s pretty simple to employ.

(One tip – if you are an admin of your page and logged in you will see both the fan and non fan content so you must test your implementation logged off or from a different username.)

The code in the FBML app using fb:visible-to-connection

Okay, so let’s break this down. For the most part this is very simple HTML with a little FBML

the fb:visible-to-connection code is what tells Facebook to make and not make parts visible to fans
the fb:else is an attribute of this code that identifies what should be shown to non fans – you simply wrap the non fan content in fb:else and the /fb:else closing tags. In this case I have used an image that encourages visitors to become fans.
the next code, starting the h3 tag, is the content that is shown only to fans and this can be whatever you wish. I have used simple content with simple HTML.
the last bit is close the /fb:visible-to-connection to tag. You can have other content on this page that is not related to the fan only offering and it would outside of this tag

This is what fans see after they his Like

This is s very simple demonstration of how to use this function. You can add your own style using external style sheets. A good place to learn more is Tim Ware’s HyperArts Blog.

You can directly to the free eBook tab I installed here – if you are already a fan you will see the link to the download. If you are not a fan yet you will see an image urging you to become one – hit Like and you’ll see the free eBook download.

View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

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The Great Recession Isn’t the Only Reason Why Sole Proprietors are Earning Less

Jan 10th

The Great Recession Isn’t the Only Reason Why Sole Proprietors are Earning Less

5 comments

In 2008, the average sole proprietor’s net income was approximately $12,000. Such low earnings beg the question: Why aren’t sole proprietors’ making much money?

At first glance the Great Recession appears responsible. IRS data show that the net income of the average filer of a schedule C fell more than a seven percent in real terms in the first year of the economic downturn (2009 data are not yet available).

While this drop clearly shows the negative effect of the recession on small business owners’ earnings – 72 percent of whom run sole proprietorships – the Great Recession isn’t the primary cause of the proprietors’ falling income. That’s because the drop in income started well before the recession got underway. IRS data show that 2008 was the third year in a row that average sole proprietor net income declined in real dollar terms. In fact, as the figure below shows, the average income of sole proprietors (in 2007 dollars) has been trending down since the late 1980s.

The decline in sole proprietors’ earnings doesn’t reflect a long term decrease in the earnings U.S. companies. IRS data indicate that the net income of the average American business increased 48 percent in real terms between 1980 and 2007.

Moreover, the average subchapter S corporation and the average partnership experienced large increases in income from 1980 to 2007. As the figure below shows, over past 28 years, the average partnership has seen a 1,365 percent rise in income in real terms and the average subchapter S corporation has experienced a 763 percent increase, while the average sole proprietorship has faced a 22 percent decline in real income.

So what accounts for the long term decline in average earnings of sole proprietors? It can’t be shrinking margins, which have actually increased over the last three decades. Back in 1980, sole proprietors had an average margin of 13 percent, well below the 21 percent average in 2007.

Instead, the data point to shrinking sales. Measured in constant dollars, revenues at the average sole proprietorship were 51 percent lower in 2007 than they were 1980.

But this decline in sales was only experienced by sole proprietorships, and not by small businesses taking other legal forms. Between 1980 and 2007, average revenues increased 157 percent at partnerships and 57 percent at S corporations when measured in real terms.

Why did the average sole proprietorship (but not the average S Corp or partnership) experience a drop in sales over the past three decades? The data suggest a rise in part-time business ownership. Between 1980 and 2008, the number of sole proprietorships per capita almost doubled, indicating a big increase in the proportion of Americans that files a schedule C. However, the share of the labor force that is primarily self-employed fell almost a full percentage point over the same period. If more of the population is filing schedule C’s, but less of it is primarily self-employed, then we must have more people running businesses on the side than we used to.

In short, the data suggest that the falling income of the average sole proprietor results less from the Great Recession than from a long-term decline in average revenues. This revenue slide, in turn, likely comes from a change in the composition of sole proprietorships. As the share of filers of schedule Cs running side businesses has increased, the performance of the average sole proprietorship has declined.

From Small Business Trends

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

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That Which Pertains Only to Me

Oct 15th