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In this 2013 marketing calendar for small business (or any size business!), you’ll find these 12 marketing “cheats” plus 12 full months of content marketing ideas, event and promotion ideas, merchandising tips and how to get employee buy in for your marketing campaigns, mission and vision.
This week the Wall Street Journal noted that small companies with commercial mortgages could be facing balloon mortgages this year. Without working capital, small businesses could be foreclosed up...
When’s the last time a person or an organization made a genuine, personal and most importantly, a lasting positive impact on you that you remember? Can you
2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: learn from more than 3800 marketers on how to focus your social media activities and what the rewards are.
Excerpted from article on HubSpot: "The need to create high-quality content, however, has put many marketers in a difficult situation: high-quality content takes a long time to create, and many just don't have the time to do it. While it'd be nice to say, "tough noogies, find the time," that's neither realistic nor helpful. So instead, I've opted to brainstorm a list of very quick things that don't add on much time to your content creation process, but will instantly elevate the quality of the content you create. 1) Fact Check: While being accurate may not actively add anything to the quality of your content, inaccuracy in your content deals a mighty blow to content quality. Set yourself apart as the industry standard for unbiased, factually correct content -- the stuff your readers can always rely on. That kind of reputation is how thought leaders are born, and it elevates you next to your competitors.
2) Include Data That Backs Up Your Points: When you're trying to convince your readers of something, data is a quick way to build instant credibility and convince your reader that -- to put it bluntly -- you know what the heck you're talking about.
3) Find Examples That Illustrate Your Points: Just like supporting data points can help you strengthen your case, using examples -- whether you're coming up with hypothetical situations or, even better, using real ones -- can lend a lot of clarity to confusing concepts for your readers.
4) Use Visuals to Illustrate Points: A picture's worth a thousand words.
5) Get Quotes From Thought Leaders and Subject Matter Experts: No one is an expert in everything. But the content creator's dilemma is that they're often asked to create content around subjects they only know only a little bit about. That poses a problem for content quality, to be sure. But the best way to get around this -- and this will make your life so much easier when writing about things you don't fully understand -- is to reach out to a subject matter expert or thought leader in the space.
6) Remove Any Jargon: High-quality content is easy to understand. Jargon, however, is decidedly not easy to understand. Remove any gobbledygook from your content before publishing it to ensure any of your readers can easily understand what you're talking about.
7) Do Some Formatting, and Incorporate High-Quality Visuals: Add some bullet points, some numbers, some bold headers, and some images to make your content look much more palatable, and much more high-quality. Not only does formatting and images make your content higher in quality, but it also makes it more engaging and shareable, too.
8) Have Someone Edit and Proof: A proofreader will look through your content and correct minor errors, like misspellings, misplaced commas, that sort of thing. This is important, sure, but it's no replacement for a good edit. An editor will actually work with you on the storyline, the phrasing, the order of your points, and help identify what's missing. If you want to instantly increase the quality of your content, hire a freelance editor..."
Read full original article here: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34104/8-Ways-to-Instantly-Improve-the-Quality-of-Your-Marketing-Content.aspx
Via Giuseppe Mauriello
Even when you love marketing, if you’re a single shingle, small business owner or a business with no bench players when it comes to small business marketing, sooner or later, your marketing may come to a grinding halt.
No matter whether you’re the boss or the person in the entry level position on the job, we all get paid by the hour in one form or another. We often do spend more time thinking that we’re not getting paid what we’re worth than we do evaluating whether we are bringing value to the hour. We often spend more time doing busy work to make the hours pass quickly than we do in making the hours count when it comes to the success of the organization or even our own businesses. But if we focus more on adding value to the hour, we set the stage for our own success, and send very strong messages.
Our customers don’t have bat signals. We aren’t always the first experts they turn to. Our marketing won’t work without wonder woman. (Guest post)
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Discover 18 new social media marketing statistics to help improve your inbound marketing.
Whether you are designing the brand identity of your small business for the first time or retooling elements of your brand identity to move your business forward, it’s never been more important for...
Excerpted from article by Search Engine Watch: "Looking for a nice selection of SEO power tools that will help diagnose technical issues and optimize your website, or perhaps gain insight on what your competition is doing? Below are 13 SEO tools (many of them free) to do just that. Even if you have little to no budget, you will still able to get the job done with this selection of search marketing power tools. 1. Your Eyes 2. IIS SEO Toolkit 3. Screaming Frog 4. Majestic SEO 5. Adobe Site Catalyst 6. Google Analytics 7. SEMrush 8. Google Webmaster Tools 9. Bing Webmaster Tools 10. SEO Tool Set 11. Google Trends 12. HitWise 13. You Get Signal."
Each tool is analyzed with more information and external links. Read full article here: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2199683/13-Essential-SEO-Power-Tools
Via Giuseppe Mauriello
There is a serious but all-too-common disorder that could be derailing your marketing ROI. Many visionaries, including a large number of entrepreneurs and small business owners suffer from BSNT disorder. Is this Disorder Derailing Your Marketing ROI?
Excerpted from article: "According to the Harvard Business School, increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent increases profits by 25 percent to 95 percent. In order to help you increase your own retention rates, we’ve compiled a list of our 15 favorite tips (backed by academic research and case studies) on increasing customer loyalty, divided into five easy-to-browse sections.
- Communication It’s hard to create loyal customers if they aren’t paying attention to you. Given this fact, below are our favorite bits of research on clear communication with customers. 1. Stand for something; 2. Utilize positive social proof; 3. Invoke the inner ego;
- Selling If customers don’t enjoy your selling process, they’ll likely never do business with you again. Thus, selling to customers the “correct” way is an integral part of creating customer loyalty. Below are a few studies to help you improve the process. 4. Use the words they love to hear; 5. Reduce pain points and friction;
- Reciprocity Reciprocity is the social construct that makes the world go ’round… or in your case, keeps your customers coming back. The premise is simple: Go above and beyond for customers and get rewarded with repeat business. The execution, however, can be trickier, so below is a compilation of interesting research on how to improve reciprocity with your customers. 6. Realize that budget is negligible; 7. Utilize surprise reciprocity; 8. Make it personal;
- Support This one is a no-brainer: You can’t create a tribe of loyal customers without an exceptional customer service experience that keeps them coming back. In this section, we’re going to bust a few customer service myths wide open, as well as tackle some important things you need to keep in mind when offering support online. 9. Speed is secondary to quality; 10. Customers enjoy businesses who know them; 11. Choose the right platform; 12. Make it a communal effort;
- Loyalty Programs The key to creating customer loyalty programs that work is to know why customers use them and what gets customers to keep using them. Below you’ll find consumer research that answers these questions. 13. Get people started; 14. Get ideal customers to be VIPs; 15. Label your customers..."
Each tip is analyzed with more information. Read full article here: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-marketing/15-important-tips-to-help-you-keep-your-customers/
Via Giuseppe Mauriello
Whether the product you sell lists at $3 or $300,000 and lasts for 3 minutes or 30 years, differentiation is the key to growing your business, gaining market share and besting competitors.
Have you read The Tipping Point? It talks about ideas that catch like wildfire after hitting “tipping points” that propel them into motion. No tipping point happens without starting points. And it can be harder to find the right starting points, and more difficult to get started, than to find the tipping point.
Contrary to popular belief, customers are less interested in price than in these six things. All customers want the highest quality at the lowest price, right? Well, sort of. That stuff is important but, surprisingly, the quality vs. price formula is not usually on the top of the customer’s list of concerns, especially when it comes to selling B2B. According to numerous surveys, B2B customers want the following six things from the people who sell to them.....
Via paulgreen, MAX that Marketing
Marketing Bites, the 2013 Marketing Calendar for Restaurants, Bars and Caterers breaks down some of the most effective means of attracting, engaging, motivating and retaining patrons for individuals in the hospitality and food industries.
Few business owners knowingly hire people who really don’t give a damn about the type of work they’ll be doing or the type of business they will be working for. In fact, most new employee/employer...
4 Ways to Tweak Your 2013 Marketing Calendar In these last weeks of 2013, I hope that you’ve found a few moments to sit down with your business plan for the new year and map out your own 2013 marke...
You can get more customers in 2013, but it will cost you. You can get more employee enthusiasm in 2013, but it will cost you. In fact, you can get just about anything you want in business, if you are willing to pay the price.
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