More Than A Few Words

Not every advertising vehicle is right for every business.Should you advertise on Linkedin? Yelp or the Yellow Pages.com?   This week we will talk about some things you should keep in mind  And if you want to learn more, download our Online Advertising Guide. 

Branding is easy with a new company. You have clean slate.  There are no expectations, no existing impressions to overcome.  That isn't the case when an 11 year old company decides to change their name.     Our guest this week, Muhammad Yasin the Marketing Director at Perq  shared the ups and downs of that company's recent re-branding exercise. 

You have been spending months working on your blog posts, but no one seems to be reading them.  This week Jarred and Lorraine talk about some of the reasons readers are not flocking to your site, and how to fix that. 

Twitter is the ticker tape newsreel of the modern era. It's a global watering hole, perfect for researching the latest trends, following breaking news, and interacting with the needs of customers. Its low barrier-to-entry puts everyone from celebrities to plumbers on the same playing field. Have you found your brand's voice among the crowd? This week, Lorraine introduces newcomer Jarred Juett to the Roundpeg family. They discuss the maturation of  Twitter - from its infant stage as a platform for snark, gossip, and true innovation, to its evolution as a tool for customer service, broadcasting, and transparent communications.

While every business plan covers the same basic topics the emphasis is different based on who will be reading your plan.  What a banker wants is dramatically different from what an investor needs to know.    Want to learn more?  Download our free business plan outline. 

The big game was a blow out, but what about the advertising battle played out on social media and on TV?  Anne and Lorraine talk about the real winners and losers of yesterday's game. 

All good things come to an end.  That is especially true for content marketing.  Even the best campaign can only run so long.  So how do you know when it is time to call it quits? 

It is so much easier to do anything when you plan ahead.  That is especially true when it comes to your content marketing.     It is tough to do your best work if you wait till the last minute to create a blog post, email or social media update,   Using a content calendar, you can organize your month around topics, themes or events which are relevant to your business.  You can anticipate the kind of content (video, photograph,blog post, landing page, worksheet or ebook) you will need to support each of your themes.     What should your content calendar look like?  You can find an example here or download our worksheet and create your own. 

When it comes to your website there is always something new.  A new feature or tool.  This week we share some of our favorite web enhancements, things you can do to improve the functionality and user experience of your website.    If you enjoy the podcast, consider downloading our white paper on this same topic for even more suggestions. .  

When it comes to your product or service, who are the influencers? Who will others look to when they need help deciding what to buy?  Do you have a specific plan to get these people on board to help you market your product? Allison and Lorraine discuss who is and isn’t an influencer, and how to reach out to these critical word-of-mouth marketers.

While the big social networks of Facbook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google + get lots of attention, there is a vast "underground" or private internet that bypasses these platforms completely. Increasingly, we're seeing a shift away from the kind of mass broadcast social media that has dominated for so long toward a smaller, more intimate social experience. While this shift was lead by younger adults and teens, it is now spreading as all users are recognizing that not everyone needs to know everything about you. As a user, I think this healthy; as a business owner, it presents real challenges. If people are fleeing Facebook, how do you connect with them socially? This week, we talk about this growing trend, and how you as a business owner can stay one step head. In addition to the broadcast, check out Allison's blog post on the

When you're busy (which, let's face it, is always), it's so easy to let a week slide by without writing any new content for your blog or responding to content sent over by your marketing company. It's understandable, but in order to have great content marketing, you've got to be consistent. In this week's marketing podcast, we discuss how to keep up with content marketing even when life's crazy. 

More than just marketing hype, your brand position statement is about creating an impression of your company in the mind of your prospective customer.  It is the basis on which all your other marketing should be built.  A positioning statement contains the following elements: Description of the target customer Benefits sought by the target customer to solve a specific problem Your unique solution   This week we kick around examples of good and bad position statements.  

What is content marketing?   It is information you share with prospects which help them reach a buying decision without overtly selling.  Content can be video, audio, pictures, eBooks, blog posts, email or social media update.     Using any of these formats you mission is to maintain an informative tone, while still leading the most qualified prospects to the decision they need to work with you. 

Some "experts" are seeing the recent declines in the time people are spending on Facebook as a clear signal that Facebook is dying.   I think their predictions are a bit premature.  Facebook is still huge social media platform so don't count them out yet.   This week we talk about some of the changes in demographics and user behavior, the addition of hastags, the over use of ads and most importantly, what all these changes mean to small business owners.