Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide – 2nd Edition.
The Referral Engine – Teaching Your Business to Market Itself – by John Jantsch.
In my weekly newsletter I profiled what I think are essential small business tools. These tools don’t all directly relate to marketing, but most perform a marketing function. You can view my 10 essential tools here. I cover things like project management, virus protection, file sending, spam blocking and keyword locating.
You can subscribe to my weekly newsletter too and get a free 25 page white paper I call – 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success.
I had a great interview with Jack Covert, founder and President of 800-CEO-READ over on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. CEO READ is a great champion of business books and authors and one of my favorite places to shop.
Listen to this interview and hear how Covert accidentally came up with the name for his service. Jack also reveals what he thinks are some soon to be released can’t miss books.
Partnering with other businesses, both on and offline, is a tremendous way to increase your brand’s awareness while gaining valuable referrals and exposure.
You can use this strategy in many ways, but one of my favorites is to seek out a potential partner, one who serves your target market, and offer to provide a free report or other valuable information to their clients or subscribers. You may even wish to offer to co-brand the report and fulfillment process for them to give your partner as much reason to participate as possible. Here’s a simple example of this strategy in action.QuickBooks Community sign-up page
If you offer resources to your clients or readers as an affiliate you may find that some affiliate partners are more than happy to co-brand your affiliate page like My AWeber sales page. I think this “partnership” look and feel makes your efforts with the affiliate appear more permanent. Lots of others may be promoting the same affiliate program – look for ways to make your connection stronger. You might even consider offering special training or tips for your affiliates.
You can also brand or co-brand simple processes. Again, I believe these touches, over time, help lend more and more credibility to your brand and give even the casual surfer or prospect the impression that you have a great deal to offer. Here’s an example of My StockLayouts Affiliate Sign-up page
Think about other organizations that serve your same target market, referral partners, companies you admire, your clients, testimonial providers and even your vendors – all great co-branding candidates.
The best way to start down the co-branded path is to ask. Be prepared to offer your partner a benefit of some sort as incentive for partnering and then go out and find even more partners.
I interviewed Michael Port this week on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast.
Michael Port is the author of Book Yourself Solid and one of the highest energy marketers you will find. Michael practices what he preaches in his very readable book and is kicking up quite a storm these days in marketing circles.
Michael also puts out some great information at his Book Yourself Solid web site.
Rob Kirby has taken over writing the Design Matters blog here at the Duct Tape Blog Channel. Join me in welcoming Rob.
Rob earned a BFA in Illustration from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1992, and has served as a senior designer and art director for a number of companies including Nature’s Sunshine, Studeo Interactive Direct and ContentWatch. He is currently the Director of Creative Services at LogoWorks. In his spare time Rob enjoys painting and playing the drums. For samples of his artwork, visit Kirby Fine Art.
Changes ahead for the Channel: I am pleased to announce that I will be adding a powerful group of blogs and bloggers to the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel – Within a month or so our ranks will swell to about 20 blogs. New channel topics will included:
Got any more I should know about?
Lots is being said about pay per call advertising but so little exists in terms of measurable results that it is still a little tough to know if this play makes sense for the typical small business.
The bottom line lies in understanding your lead conversion process – does it require a phone conversation with a prospect – and testing.
Marketing Sherpa continues its effective practice of presenting new stategies inside a case study or interview with a real user with this article - Initial Test Results From Pay Per Phone Call Search Ads
Advertising pervades most of our waking moments (and likely some of our slumber). So much so that we are getting pretty good at tuning out what we see as sales messages. Desperate advertisers see this as a sign to up the obnoxiousness factor and extent the advertising space into some places it just should not go.
Advertisers should not put messages:
~ In public bathrooms
~ In school cafeterias
~ At the bottom of a cup of coffee
~ On the phone at dinnertime
And lastly, on my food! You think the telemarketing call at dinner is disruptive, imagine staring down at your dinner and finding an advertising message imprinted on your potato chips.
I love Pringles – and not the Ranch, Nacho, Light, Fruity, Blended, or BBQ kind – the original kind. My wife buys them to put in the kids school lunch and hides them from me, but I usually find them before they have been consumed. Picture my disgust when I grabbed a handful and found a co branded message from the Guinness Book of World Records had been sprayed onto every chip. That’s just wrong! I’m not eating these chips and I may have soured on the brand completely (we’ll see)
Note to Kellogs – if you are considering a promotion that features PopTarts and a World Cup Sponsorship with advertisings messages in the iceing – don’t.
I may just have to become a non-advertarian.
What’s next, will Chester the Cheetos Cheetah get his own blog?
