(Mark Hayward is back with another guest post on marketing for small business, drawn from his own experience. You can follow him on Twitter @mark_hayward) If you are like me, when you purchased or opened your business, you really did not have a clue about how to market yourself online. Perhaps, you still don’t. Certainly,…
Ah, another PR pitch email, full of jargon and buzzwords and meaningless phrases. Could you tell me a story of someone who is using your product? Then I might get it. Another speech, centered in the speaker’s own world. How about a concrete example? If you want to reach people…if you want to connect…if you…
Artists and creative business people need a way to reflect their art work in their business cards. Just because you’re an artist, doesn’t mean you don’t need cards. You are, after all, in business. And lots of business still happens offline. Here are two artistic examples, incorporating different personalities. The first one is hand drawn….
In an era when we all look up phone numbers online or even using our cell phone, why so many paper phone books? Alva, Oklahoma, population around 5000, is included in all six of these directories. One directory is new in the last year. And I don’t even have a copy of the City Directory,…
If you’re in business in a small town, you know something valuable. Seth Godin is pointing it out for everyone, in Welcome to island marketing. If you run a business on a small island, every interaction matters and every customer is precious. There’s a finite number of people you’re going to be able to sell…
When I checked into the Crystal Mountain Resort in Michigan, the desk staff person handed me a paper copy of the events and activities calendar for the week. That’s a tourism idea that has been around forever, and we can make something more of it. First, let’s adapt it for a small town. Don’t think only…
People trust other people, much more than they trust you. That means your potential customers trust the semi-anonymous reviews written on online review sites more than all that great text on your own website. Do you regularly monitor what is said about you on TripAdvisor, VirtualTourist or Igougo? How about mainstream booking sites like Hotels.com,…
Nate is a web designer. Allie is getting married. I’m helping an organization with their web presence. Trista arranges flowers. All these stories are linked. And all of them tell something about small business. 1. Nate Reussercame to tell me (and the staff of the organization) about passwords and their website. In the course of…
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