Business Blogs as CMS - a marketing conversation

October 17, 2007 | 1 Comment

If you own a small business and don’t yet know of Michael Martine’s Remarkablogger site, go subscribe to the RSS feed now. He provides fantastic insight and ideas into blogging for business.

His recent posting - Video: Business Blogs vs. Normal Websites - discusses using the blog platform as a content management system for business sites. But, more importantly,  he points out how critical it is to write for your website using a conversational tone - not brochure-speak. I often tell clients that people don’t want to be “marketed to”, they want to be “communicated with.”

As you can tell, after analysis of different web development approaches and platforms, we decided to use WordPress as the structure for our entire site. Its easy, powerful and has great search optimization capabilities. We’re just getting started here, so check back with us often. Now, go watch Michael’s video post!

Sphere: Related Content

A Case for Duct Tape Marketing

October 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Ever wonder why is it so hard to market your small business?

You don’t have to look far to understand why this question plagues so many.  It really has to do with why folks get into a business in the first place. 

The typical small business in America is started by someone who knows how to do something. It might be how to prepare taxes, how to assemble a certain type of gizmo, how to wire a ceiling fan, how to administer a network, or how to plan a wedding. Almost never does this know-how include being able to market a business that does those things.

What if marketing was easy, almost automatic?

But what if I told you, no matter what your business claims to do or provide, you’re actually in the marketing business. That’s right–every business is actually a marketing business. Think about it for a moment. Do you really have a business without being able to reach and motivate a customer?

You are in the marketing business! Marketing is an all-encompassing outlook that must inform every activity of your business.  It isn’t just a department within your business. When you discover this outlook, marketing your business gets really, really easy.

 Install the system - work the system

The small business owner who uses the Duct Tape Marketing system comes to define marketing as: Getting people who have a specific need or problem, to know, like, trust AND contact you. Getting a hot prospect to actually pick up the phone and seek you out is the dream situation for most small business owners. How many times have you made this statement, “if I can only get in front of a qualified prospect I can almost always turn them into a client?” A fully functioning Duct Tape Marketing system is the key to turning more leads into more customers.

Ultimately, with the systematic application of Duct Tape Marketing, the definition of the term marketing evolves to include this all-encompassing view: Getting people who have a specific need or problem to know, like, trust, do business with AND refer you to others who have this same need or problem.

That’s the value of a proven system: it delivers the keys to success every time.  And it helps you leverage MORE success.

Sphere: Related Content

The Death of Business 2.0

October 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment

I  just received my October issue of Business 2.0 and noticed the outside cover saying “This is your last issue…” OK, I thought, I need to update my subscription, but then I read further… “We’re writing to inform you that Business 2.0 magazine will no longer be published in print form.”

This is a huge loss of a great business publication. Business 2.0 has been, in my opinion, one of the best Technology & Business magazines for the past 10 years - since its first issue.  As I’ve read on other blogs, Time Inc. entertained offers to purchase the magazine & subscriber-based, but instead chose to close the publication and roll part of the editorial team into Fortune magazine. I think this is a huge mistake.

 While Fortune Magazine is a great publication, its editorial filter will change the unique content style and approach that was the trademark of the Business 2.0 team. Who will step up and fill the gaps?

• Fast Company
• Inc.
• Fortune Small Business

Read what some others have to say on the subject…

TechCrunch

ValleyWag

BloggingStocks

It’s sad to see the last issue!

Sphere: Related Content

The Marketing ‘Operating System’

October 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Forest for the Trees chose Duct Tape Marketing as the principal foundation upon which we base everything we do. It is our ‘Marketing OS’ - the operating system that allows businesses to systematically create a predictable stream of qualified prospects and customers.

Hear the ‘Duct Tape Marketing Story’ from John Jantsch himself.

The Duct Tape Marketing system was born out of an initial failure to serve the small business clients that were drawn to my agency over ten years ago.

Shortly after departing college I went to work for a large advertising agency. It only took me about five years in this job to realize I had to own my business.

At first, I went to work serving the marketing project needs of very large corporations but found that I was always much more interested in working with small business owners.

But, I found it very difficult to help small business owners using the traditional advertising agency model. Small business owners simply couldn’t afford to spend marketing dollars on image advertising, creative briefs and research teams to form their marketing strategies.

I found the missing ingredient to my puzzle in Michael Gerber’s brilliant small business book titled the E-Myth Revisited. Through the E-Myth, Gerber was one of the first to introduce the idea of the duplicatable small business system.

While I had found that small business owners had little trouble grasping systems for things like accounting and shipping, no one was talking about marketing as a system.

It became painfully clear to me that only way to effectively deliver simple, effective and affordable marketing results for small business owners was through the development and application of proven set of marketing principles and strategies.

This system had to be duplicatable, produce predictable results and come with a fixed, almost product like, price tag.

The Duct Tape Marketing system is the outcome of over twenty years of work in the real world small business marketing laboratory and my continuing passion.

I still love working with small business owners and do so everyday. I derive considerable joy knowing that thousands of small business owners have now succeeded growing a business the Duct Tape Marketing way.

Sphere: Related Content