Duct Tape Marketing

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I know that marketing doesn’t come naturally to most business owners. Not many people say to themselves - “I am such a good marketer I think I’ll start a business selling something.” No, unfortunately the conversation probably goes like this - “I sure love to work with spreadsheets and do people’s taxes, holy crap, I’ve got to learn how to market.”

When the realization that you are in the marketing business hits, too many people want to grab onto the latest and greatest marketing idea and ramp up the selling machine overnight.

When it comes to marketing, you’ve got to decide that little improvements, metered out every single day are the way to gain a measure of marketing momentum. Don’t freak out and try to do it all today, or next week. Make it a habit. Think Kaizen! Kaizen (改善) is Japanese for improvement. It is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. It’s a philosophy that is bantered around my management consultants, but it so applies to small business marketing.

I know you want the quick fix, but get over it, that’s not the way it works.

Create a list of marketing activities that, if practiced every single day, would cause continuous marketing improvement. Make certain that about 1/2 of your list makes you uncomfortable just to think about. For some that’s public speaking, calling up really big prospects, asking a supplier to partner or simply asking a journalist to coffee. If you’re not stretching enough to make yourself just a little uncomfortable, you’re not growing, you’re not moving forward. Again, focus on daily sips of improvement rather than the tsunami.

Here’s a little exercise I love to use to check my comfort level. Clasp your hands together, like you might in prayer, interlace all 10 fingers. Most of us have a natural way of doing this - I’m left thumb over right. Now, switch your clasp to the opposite way - so for me that’s now right thumb and all corresponding fingers over left. It feels a little awkward doesn’t it. It’s not painful or really even that sensational, but it usually produces just a slight feeling that is uncomfortable. Try it any time you feel like you are phoning your day in and use it to remind yourself to push just that much every day.

Posted by: John Jantsch on May 08, 08 | 10:10 am
Category: Marketing Calendar, Marketing Strategy, Strategic Partnering | Tags: , Kaizen

Many small business owners still think they can take a pass on the power of online social media tools, particularly if they reside in seemingly low-tech industries like plumbing, fishing, or lawyering. I want to share a quick interview I did with Jason Brown, 23 year old co-founder of Brown Lures. That’s right, they sell fishing lures to guys and gals that probably don’t call hanging out at Web2.0 conferences a good time. (I’m just guessing on that though.)

Brown credits his blog with changing the way people find him, he created a podcast that gives him great “fishing stories” and loyalty from guides up and down the Gulf coast, he uses RSS and content tagging to automatically produce fresh blog content, and email marketing to blow his competition away at trade shows.

Using social media in industries that are still slow to adopt it is the killer competitive advantage.

In Brown’s words:

“We have been running waiting lists for products for about a year now, and no one has any clue how we are doing it without spending big advertising money. I love this stuff . . .”

Alas, I can still here the cries from the cynics - We don’t need no stinkin social media, we just need more sales.

Care to share your “social media in a low-tech” industry success stories.

Posted by: John Jantsch on May 07, 08 | 10:10 am
Category: Blogging, Mobile Post, Podcasting, RSS, Social Media | Tags:

My monthly live interview series featuring well-known authors and business leaders continues in May with Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto software.

April’s call with David Allen is archived on the series page along with calls with John Battelle, Guy Kawasaki, Michael Gerber, Tim Ferris, and Ivan Misner. The impressive line-up also features Michael Port in June. Check out the archives and enroll to be notified for each call.

Posted by: John Jantsch on May 06, 08 | 10:10 am
Category: Duct Tape Marketing, Entrepreneur | Tags:

Content is the commerce of social media. But, relevant content, the stuff your customers and prospects actually want to know is the gold. Constantly cranking out this gold can sometimes present creative challenges.

So how do you know what to write about, how do you keep the ideas flowing, how do you keep the content relevant and popular.

There a number of ways to address these important questions, not the least of which is simply paying attention to what your prospects and customers ask on the daily basis. There’s another tool that not many small business know much about, but is a wealth of great content ideas.

The service is called Yahoo Answers. Millions of people go to Yahoo Answers to get answers to questions on just about every topic known to man. Yahoo members are free to answer these questions and then even earn points for participation and developing a reputation for good answers. I’m not sure working your tail off answering all kinds of questions is the best use of your time (although you may actually come across opportunities to interact with people looking to buy what you sell) but, I have found that the questions posed on your particular subject of expertise can provide some tremendous research for blog topics. If a number of people are asking the same questions, and they are, then maybe the market is ripe for your blog post addressing the question.

The questions are broken down into many searchable categories. In addition, if you find the occasional question that you have already thoroughly addressed on your blog you can step up and provide an answer on the Yahoo Answer page and cite your blog post as the resource for your answer. If your answer is considered particularly helpful, this can send some additional traffic (no link juice though) your way.

Posted by: John Jantsch on May 05, 08 | 9:09 am
Category: Marketing research, Search Engines, Yahoo | Tags: , Yahoo Answers

I’m guilty of some of the infractions on this list. Some are so common, it’s hard to remember the right way to handle these misused words and phrases. Great resource list and a pretty good weekend read!

Posted by: John Jantsch on May 04, 08 | 5:05 am
Category: Marketing Tools | Tags:

A reader and subscriber to the Duct Tape Marketing podcast asked me recently to reveal the tools, techniques and software I use to create, edit and publish my podcast. My system is hacked together through a couple of years of trial and error and is by no means the textbook way to podcast, but like most of what I do it’s simple and practical. So here’s an under the hood look at the Duct Tape Marketing podcast.

Recording

All of my episodes are recorded phone conversations. This presents a real quality challenge as phone lines don’t produce good audio signals. I tested a few solutions and landed on a decidedly low tech approach at the suggestion of a radio station technician.

Using a very retro cool Blue Snowball USB mic and WireTap Studio software I place the guest on speaker mode, lay the mic down by the phone, hit record and conduct the interview. My voice and that of the guest are captured directly into the recording software as an mp3 file. (Audiophiles may be cringing at the sound of this, but it produces decent quality, level sound between my voice and the guest, and eliminates a couple steps in the process.)

Editing

On a Mac I have found that Garage Band does a nice job. (Audacity is a great PC option) In Garage Band I can add the sponsor messages, music clips from a library and edit anything out of the recorded interview. Once I’m happy with the results I export to iTunes and convert back to mp3 format. This seems to produce a nice balance between audio quality and file size.

Publishing

Since mp3 files can get pretty big and benefit from a media server for streaming I use Libsyn to host and stream my files. I get all the bandwidth I need (even with thousands of downloads per episode) for less than $10 per month.

I use a blog created just for the podcast to post show notes and publish the RSS feed. I’m moving this to a WordPress blog eventually and have heard nice things about PodPress for this function.

Promoting

You must make sure that your podcast is listed in iTunes and that people can easily subscribe. I would also suggest seeking out and submitting your feed to a host of podcast directories.

There you have it, my podcasting secrets laid bare. Any other podcasters out there care to share their podcasting success secrets?

Posted by: John Jantsch on May 01, 08 | 6:06 am
Category: Podcasting, Social Media | Tags: , Audacity, iTunes, Libsyn, Wiretap Studio

Are you a coach or a consultant - does your business hire coaches or consultants?

The answers to the question above seems to spark a bit of passion in entrepreneurial circles depending upon the definition one uses of each.

To me a coach is charged with holding a client accountable to stated actions, goals and courses while a consultant is more likely to feel empowered to set the course of action. In my mind there probably is no pure definition because a marketing coach or a marketing consultant, for instance, doing the best they can for a customer, will likely fall into a hybrid service to get the ball moving forward in any way possible.

Whatever you call it, there is no doubt that having a trusted adviser, one that calls BS when it needs calling, is one of the most valuable assets an entrepreneur can obtain.

While I am on the subject this might be a good place to invite you to join my live Discovery call and learn about the opportunity to become a Duct Tape Marketing coach. The call is today (4/30) at 2pm CDT - Enroll here to join me

So, what’s your definition of coach of a consultant - or do we do a disservice to both trying to label and define the practice?

Posted by: John Jantsch on Apr 30, 08 | 8:08 am
Category: Coaching, Duct Tape Marketing, Entrepreneur, Marketing Coach | Tags: , coach, consultant, marketing consultant

One of the best reasons to blog is to open up an interaction channel with your customers, prospects and contacts. The fact that your readers can comment and add relevant content to your site via blog comments is a major breakthrough in the communication process. It’s why everyone is talking about social media these days. Blog commenting was one of the first mass one to one conversation starters and made people hungry for even more advanced forms of social interaction.

Active commenting is one of the first signs that a blog has some real life - with it comes more readers, so put in the work it takes to grow this important tool.

Small business owners can easily take advantage of this tool now that so many people know what it is and know how to interact, but . . . you can do a few things to stimulate this interaction and draw more conversation.

1) Ask for comments - Sometimes just creating a post and in inviting your readers to add comments can be just what you need to get them flowing. Commenting is a habit that you need to help build in your readership.

2) Ask questions and seek opinions - From time to time ask your readers what they think of something or what they have done that works or how they have addressed a particularly challenging situation. You don’t need to have all the answers.

3) Comment on comments - When readers comment you can encourage additional conversation by responding and showing that comments are welcome - even if the comment calls something you said into question. I’m guilty of ignoring this far too often - I’ll get better, I swear!

4) Show some humaness - No matter what your blog topic is readers like to know that the author is a human being. It’s okay to let that show and to add personal thoughts. Only you can determine how far to go with this, but I know that your readers will connect the more they know your story

5) Stir the pot from time to time - You don’t have to be a celebrity gossip blogger to stir up a little controversy. Often some of my best interactions come from topics that people are decidedly passionate about.

6) Make comment participation a game - Keep score and reward your most active commentators. I have installed the WP Top Commentators Plug-in that keeps track of how many comments a particular reader makes and rewards them with a link. You can see it in the left sidebar.

7) Make sure commenting is easy - Publish your comment feed and consider adding a the Subscribe to Comments plug-in so that people get a notice when someone else comments on a post they are active on.

So, what’s your hottest tip for encouraging blog comments?

Posted by: John Jantsch on Apr 29, 08 | 7:07 am
Category: Blogging, Small Business Marketing, Social Media | Tags: