3 Questions You Need to Ask About Your Brand

Description: Traditionally, the people responsible for positioning brands have concentrated on the differences that set each brand apart from the competition. But emphasizing differences isn’t enough to sustain a brand against competitors. Managers should also...

4 Rules for Reporting Bad News

Many business owners have outside investors that have put money into the company with the expectation of turning a profit on their investment. But businesses don’ always run smoothly and sometimes the CEO has to report bad news to their sources of funding. Is...

5 Key Marketing Questions

When you know the answers to these 5 key marketing questions, you can create effective web pages, sales letters and other sales generating communications. The answers to these 5 questions reveal how you can get your prospect’s attention and motivate them to take...

8 Crimes of Marketing

We all make mistakes in business and some are more costly than others. Here are just eight of the marketing mistakes businesses make every day. Go through your marketing plan carefully and see if any of these errors apply to you. It may not be too late to make...

Add Benefits to Increase Sales

When someone makes a purchase they buy more than just a product or service. At the time the product or service is probably the most important element, but they also buy a range of benefits that can over the long-term become their reason for being satisfied or...

Analyze the Competition and Get Ahead

Author and futurist Charles M. Perrottet identified two types of businesses – eagles and ostriches. The eagles analyze their competitors and assume their competitors do the same to them. The ostriches don’t look around them and remain focused on their own activities...

Basic Market Research for Small Business

Market research is not just for the big corporations. Small and medium-sized businesses can also conduct market research with relatively little expense. All that is required is a carefully structured, properly targeted approach to obtain invaluable market information....

Be Different — and Quantify It!

The purchasing behavior of human beings is fairly predictable. If they buy something once and it works for them, they’ll be inclined to repurchase it when the need arises again. And if they purchase something from a source that is acceptable to them and...
Be Known by Your Affiliates

Be Known by Your Affiliates

Smaller enterprises have a hard time cutting through the brand strength of their larger counterparts. A small hotel will never be as easily-recognized as the Hilton up the street. Nor will an aviation business with two aircraft be seen in the same light as United...

Be Media-Friendly and Get in Print

Public relations is an important part of every business. You might place an advertisement and have an offer of free editorial space, or perhaps you want to write a press release about a new product or team member in hopes of getting some publicity. Whatever the...

Be Yourself and Sell Yourself

One way or another, business is all about selling. We have to sell to our customers, to our banks and other sources of funds, and even just when we’re meeting people for the first time in a social situation. “Selling” really means just being yourself...

Business Cards that Work

Your business card is one of the most important marketing tools you’ll ever create. You give your business card to prospects and customers so they have your contact information. You tuck your business card inside of presentation folders, drop it in letters, and...

Crazy Marketing Ideas

Some of the most lucrative businesses have been built on what on the surface appears to be a completely irrational idea. Maybe it’s best not to be too sensible when it comes to marketing. When pet rocks were marketed in the United States in the mid-1960s some people...

Create Better Online Forms

The growth of eCommerce has helped to convert many of our formerly paper-based activities into electronic functionalities. Early attempts at putting forms onto the Internet usually required downloading a form, filling it out, then faxing it back to the website owner....