Guest Post by Jill Tooley Although many brands have embraced the idea of personality in the public eye, some still turn up their noses at it. Big mistake! A company or organization needs to appear human to the public—especially regarding social media and marketing efforts—because it helps consumers establish an emotional connection. Without that connection,
Great Customer Service: Anticipation vs. Reaction
Companies are often lauded for their good customer service because of the way they handle situations after something goes wrong. Deservedly so. The better way is to minimize those reactions with anticipation. The difference between good customer service and great customer service is the difference between reactionary customer service and anticipatory customer service. What can,
Killing Giants with Brand Tension
A book is only as good as it’s insights. Not takeaways; those bullet lists are a dime a dozen. Insights change your thinking or change your action. For me, Brand Tension was the insight in Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry by Stephen Denny. Brand Tension: The combination of two
Upcoming Events, Conferences and Seminars
I’ll be hitting the road presenting at a couple of events before the summer conference break. Texas CPAs First up, I will be presenting two sessions for the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants on May 19th in my hometown of Waco. The first will be Build an Awesome Brand teaching CPA firms the basic building
The Best WordPress Plugins for Small Business Websites
I’m a huge fan of the WordPress content management system for websites. WordPress is free software that allows small business owners to take control of their own website. This website is built on WordPress using a customized version of Headway Themes. Part of the power of WordPress is the plugins that add functionality to your
Seasonal Marketing – 5 Strategies for Businesses with Cyclical Demand
Guest Post by Isabella York Keeping small businesses afloat in this economy is difficult enough, but for small businesses whose selling period is a specific time of year it can be even trickier. As is evidenced by many popular seasonal businesses, this is not an impossible feat. To keep your seasonal business current and in
Creating Desire and Marketing to Everyone
I wrote in yesterday’s post, What is Marketing, that marketing is about creating desire. That’s a broad statement that needs to be clarified. The debate has raged for years about marketing’s ability to create a desire, or to cause people to need something. I stand firmly in the camp that says you cannot create artificial
What is Marketing?
Let’s start with the Wikipedia definition of marketing: Marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Holy cow, what does that mean? Sounds like Jibber Jabber to me. College courses teach the Four P’s of
Personalized Group Coaching Now Available
Jay Ehret of The Marketing Spot is now accepting enrollment into his summer semester of group coaching. Only eight businesses will participate in this intimate program. This is the same DIY Marketing process that Jay has used with his consulting clients for the past several years. This group option lowers the cost of the program,
Technology Briefs
Friday morning I attended the Waco Chamber of Commerce Technology Briefing. The presenter was Michael Murphey of iVerse Media, a company that creates iPhone and iPad apps, specializing in comic books. Here were some of my take-aways. Walled Gardens are OK Apple gets a lot of criticism because they exert very tight control over their
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