Smart Marketing

Some book reviews from Eric Dondero

Eric Dondero is a successful blogger who recently reviewed my two books The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses and Stand Out from the Crowd.

His review is called "Two Good Books for Online Marketing" and he goes into how the books have helped him with his websites and blogs...

Find marketing tips and articles

Looking for a place to find marketing tips and articles? A lot of small business owners struggle to find the best sites that feature practical, usable marketing tips and articles. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Marketing Profs - Over 240,000 marketers belong to this fabulous site, so you know it features great content. Some of it is premium content (ya gotta pay).
• About Marketing - Laura Lake is your guide to marketing at this rich site and you'll be amazed at the amount of articles and tips featured. 
• Writing & Speaking Articles for Consultants - Located at Management Consulting News' site, these articles and tips focus on marketing a consulting practice.
• Emerge Marketing's Free Marketing Tips & Articles - My site features a bunch of free marketing articles, a Marketing Lingo section, and a bookstore.

These are just some of my favorite sites off the top of my head. Alright supermarketers, which ones have I left off that need to be added...?

Top Marketing books for small business marketing

Often I'm asked what the top marketing books are for small business that I recommend. Small business owners don't have a lot of time on their hands, so they want to know what the top marketing books are so they can get the information they need without a lot of wasted time.

So I've created a page on my website called Marketing Books for Small Business. Check it out and if there are some I've missed, leave me a comment...

PS -  The first two books are mine, but based on reader feedback, I still feel good about including them on the Top Marketing Books for Small Business list.

Do you want business growth? Try publicity

One secret to business growth in today's media-driven world is to get publicity. Most small business owners who are looking for business growth eventually find publicity to be among their favorite friends. Why?

Because publicity will help your business growth by:

• Increasing awareness significantly
• Generating new leads
• Establishing credibility for your business
• Earning more trust from your buyers and
• Gaining approval in the eyes of your investors, employees or vendors.

I'll get into all of these business growth benefits at a later date, but for now the lesson is this: if you want business growth, turn to publicity.

One great tool is to help you with this is PRLeads. This service matches you (or key executives from your business) with reporters and editors who are looking for sources they can quote in stories they're writing.

Hard to believe? I thought that too, at first. But then I joined PRLeads and was fielding queries from reporters and editors the very next day. So far since joining several years ago, I've been quoted in Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc Magazine and about a hundred other publications.

One secret to business growth is publicity and the secret to publicity is appearing in the press often. PRLeads will help you do that.

Definition of Marketing

I'm often asked to give my definition of marketing. In The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses, I outlined what I thought was a very good definition of marketing. See what you think.

Do you agree with this definition of marketing:

"Marketing is a process where everyone in your company pursues actions, at designated contact points, to increase sales, grow profits and deepen relationships"

If not, what else is needed to round out this marketing definition?

Small business marketing plan tip #2

Most small business owners, when writing a marketing plan for their small business, seem to trip up on their elevator speech. That's the small audio commercial you tell others right after they ask you "What do you do for a living?"

Basically, your elevator speech needs to 1) start with a hook (to grab a listener's attention)  2) follow with a strong specialization statement ("I specialize in...") and finish with a benefits statement (that clearly communicates how your company makes people's  lives easier).

Being face-to-face with a potential buyer is a defining moment for your company. The buyer listens intently to see if you have something they need, and almost as importantly, they listen to see if you can communicate it effectively.

One of the best resources for developing your elevator speech on the market today is Robert Middleton's InfoGuru Manual. In it, he walks you through, step-by-step, exactly how to craft an  elevator spech (he calls it an Audio Logo) for your company. The manual also covers many other topics (generating referrals, web site promotion, email marketing, giving speeches, writing articles, etc) that are easy to follow. But, I am specifically drawn to  Robert's chapter on Audio Logos, because so few marketing resources out there cover it.

If you're a service professional that's serious about growing your business, take a look at Robert Middleton's InfoGuru Manual today.

Small Business Marketing Plan

As a small business marketing consultant who specializes in developing small business marketing plans, I see the need for two conditions to be in place for success. First, your company’s leadership must be 100% committed to the effort. Without this commitment, demonstrated daily, the marketing effort will stall.

Second, your company’s marketing also needs a designated driver—someone who is tasked with executing the marketing plan and hitting deadlines. In larger companies this is a marketing manager; in smaller ones it could be a sales assistant, an administrative assistant, or even the president’s secretary. Without these two things in place, your small business marketing plan will be doomed from the start. But with them in place, your small business marketing effort will succeed.

If you want to learn more about how to develop a small business marketing plan, my book The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses might help.

5 things you didn't know about Jay Lipe (and probably don't care to)

Tom Pick over at the WebMarketCentral blog tagged me, so in the spirit of Christmas giving, I’ll respond in kind. Here then are 5 things you probably don’t know about me (and probably don’t care to):

 

1. I’ve played drums since I was 11. My favorite band to play with is called OMJB, an 18-piece jazz band that plays the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey. Its band leader is none other than Jay A. Lipe, my dad.

 

2. I got an A on an 8^th grade English project by engineering a real-life escape from the classroom. To do this, I climbed out a 2^nd story window and jumped to the ground. I don’t believe the teacher was rehired the next year.

 

3. I set our house on fire when I was a teenager. Bored, I started throwing lit matches out our bedroom window. A short while later the doorbell rang and when I answered the door, 3 strange men told me “we were driving by your house and noticed it was on fire.” I was grounded for several months, after all fire engines from our village came to put out the tiny little fire.

 

4. A buddy and I water skinny-skied (slalom water skiing while completely naked). After we each made a circle around the lake, the phone rang and it was a couple of girls from across the lake who saw the whole thing. Man, I was embarrassed.

 

5. My brother threw a dart into the side of my head. Playing downstairs one Sunday morning, I jumped out of a box right when he threw a dart. Luckily he had just lobbed it. With the dart still stuck in the skin right below my temple, I ran upstairs screaming and woke my parents up to show them what had happened. Imagine waking up on a Sunday to see your son with a dart stuck in his temple. My guess is each of them suffer from nightmares around the incident.

 

OK, the game is now on. Tag you’re it, Jim Logan, Jim Berkowitz, and Joao Plantier.

 

 

Keeping up with the Rule of 7 - AWeber's autoresponder shines

Marketing's Rule of 7 states that it takes a minimum of seven points of contact to transform a cold prospect into a buyer. Seven is the minimum. Points of contact can be measured in personal communication (e.g. phone calls, networking, face-to-face sales calls) or non-personal  communications (e.g. emails, direct mails, publicity mentions).

So, armed with this Rule of 7, what is the best marketng tool to help achieve seven points of contact (and more)? It's an autoresponder series offered by companies like AWeber. 

The reason an autoresponder series is so powerful is because:

• Most website visitors don't order on the first visit.
• They don't know enough about your offer to order the first visit.
• They're busy with other projects.
• They might not have the money to purchase immediately.
• They're still evaluating other products or services and haven't made a decision yet.

What does AWeber's comprehensive system offer you?:

• Visitors request information from you via email or through your web site, and it is automatically delivered to them within seconds automatically!
• The name and e-mail address of each subscriber is automatically added to your AWeber database, saving you endless hours of data entry!
• Personalized follow up letters are automatically sent to each of your subscribers at regular, predetermined intervals, building trust and rapport between you and your subscribers!
• You spend more time with your family, since AWeber is doing so much of your work!
• Your efficient AWeber follow up account converts subscribers into customers without intervention from you!
• Save time, reduce stress, build customer loyalty, increase conversion ratios, and make more money!

If you're interested in taking a test drive of this powerful system, visit AWeber's site. This is one of only a handful of products I wholeheartedly endorse.

The Lipe Code of Marketing Ethics - Can you live by it?

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that other businesses in this world (L&G Business Solutions for one) have sworn to live by my Lipe Code of Marketing Ethics.

I included this Lipe Code of Marketing Ethics in my new book Stand Out from the Crowd; Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company Identity because I think marketers are showing an alarming lack of ethics in their actions these days.

Maybe if we can get enough people to swear to the Lipe Code of Marketing Ethics, we can start a permanent trend towards marketing... from the heart.

For a refresher, here is my Lipe Code of Marketing Ethics:

• We will always be clear and truthful in our marketing communications.

• We will never intentionally deceive or mislead our customers. If we do, we’ll apologize—immediately.

• We will fully disclose, in the large print, all pricing information.

• We will always respect the privacy of our customers.

• We will always give buyers the ability to opt-out; quickly honoring their desire to do so.

• We will stand behind our products if they fail to deliver on their promises.

• We will listen to our customers’ needs and concerns, and make every effort to incorporate their input.

• We will not use strong-arm tactics to get people to buy.

• We will always document claims, testimonials and comparative statements.

• We will always accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions.

So what do you think? Can you pass this along to someone who might benefit from it? The future of marketing is in your hands.