Yahoo! Small Business Sales & Marketing: Ideas & Advice on How to Grow a Business

Six Ways Accountants Can Use Content To Boost Their Bottom Line

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:00:59 -0400

As a former accountant I recognized that there is a knowledge gap in the marketplace. After getting a Master’s degree in accounting from one of the highest rated programs in the country, I realized I knew plenty about accounting but close to nothing in terms of marketing. That is obviously a problem for anyone trying...

Deliver a Great Sales Experience To Prospects, Including Those That Don’t Buy (Chapter 4)

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:00:34 -0400

For sure, increasing sales productivity is a good thing. Marketing organisations are putting in place systems and tools to generate and score leads, so that reps can focus on more qualified prospects. However, even in the best case scenario reps will not close every opportunity. Some customers may not have a need to buy now....

Online Marketing: Conquering the L-Word And Spreading The Word When You Launch Your Program

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:20:32 -0400

Here in the US, Memorial Day means summer officially begins. It used to mean you could begin wearing white shoes, but nowadays I wear my Asics all year round, in whatever color comes in my size. It’s hard to believe that people like us used to get all caught up in those complicated social rules....

Three Insider Tricks to Going Viral

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:35:43 -0400

Dancing babies, talking babies, clever dancing and talking dogs, cats, cats and cats. Have we had enough yet? Apparently not. Thanks to a string of recent advertising videos landing in inboxes, Facebook and Twitter feeds across the world, Evian is the newest contender in the fight to go viral. The bottled water company’s newest baby...

Harnessing the Power of Personal Brands in Your Business

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:55:03 -0400

Small businesses don’t usually have huge amounts of capital to work with. They cannot afford to spend too much on advertising and the only way for them to succeed is to focus on providing great customer experiences. If a customer is happy with a certain product or service, then they are much likely to recommend...

How to Humanize Your Brand with Humor

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:54:32 -0400

Ana Gasteyer’s career took an interesting twist when she mocked Weight Watchers on Twitter. As an actress and former Saturday Night Live cast member, Gasteyer had the quick wit to snap joke after joke about the weight loss company. One sarcastic tweet to Weight Watchers inquired whether a meal on gummy bear vitamins was considered...

5 Reasons Your Email Isn’t Generating Clicks

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:30:31 -0400

Welcome to another edition of the “5 Reasons” blog series. This will be a weekly blog series, with a fresh post every Monday. Last week’s topic was “Five Reasons to Start Using Google AdWords”. This Week’s Topic = Five Reasons Your Email Isn’t Generating Clicks On January 14th, I wrote about the 5 reasons your...

One Size Fits All? Not When it Comes to Email Marketing

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:30:13 -0400

Over the last two weeks, we’ve been talking about the first R: Reputation and why it’s important to build a good one (you can check those posts out here and here). Today, we’re going to focus on the next “R”: Relevancy. You might be sending out well-written, beautifully designed emails every week, but are they...

How To Make The Change To A Mobile-Friendly Email

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:56:49 -0400

We all know that change can be difficult. It’s true in life and it’s certainly true when it comes to marketing your business or organization. You find something that works, you invest time, energy, and resources into improving it, and then one day someone tells you stop and rethink everything that you’ve been doing. It...

How to Build Your Personal Brand Like Gatsby

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:55:52 -0400

In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald introduced Jay Gatsby to the world in The Great Gatsby. This summer, Leonardo DiCaprio brought the iconic character to life once again on the big screen. Jay Gatsby is the master of the intriguing personal brand. Everyone in New York City knew his name. Everyone wanted to know more about...

Tips for Better Business Writing

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:40:45 -0400

Whether you run a small business or occupy a small corner of the org-chart at a massive multinational corporation, today’s business is almost entirely information driven and most often is done in writing. The following business editing tips should be sufficient to help you do a good job. Less is more In business writing as in...

More Than Half of Small Businesses Are Going Mobile…Are You?

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:30:59 -0400

As mentioned in a recent Fresh Insights post, new survey data from Constant Contact shows that the mobile train has officially left the station. Two-thirds of small businesses are on board, proving that mobile marketing is no longer the sole domain of major brands like Subway, Google, and Target. Given the growing interest in mobile...

Reasons Why Visitors or Users Never Come Back to Your Website

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:35:06 -0400

Of course, designing and developing your own website will help you drive more business revenues and customers. But, by the time you have realized that your web development venture doesn’t really helps you engage visitors or users. Have you ever wondered why this happened to your website? Well, it is very crucial to find the...

Visual Content: 5 Ways Auto Brands Help Audiences Get the Picture

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:15:05 -0400

The internet is a visual place — and that’s as true for auto companies as it is for fashion brands. Do you know how to use photos, images, and other visual media to boost your brand? Is posting pictures enough? Where can you distribute your images to drive audience interest? What unique options should you...

Quality Reigns Supreme, As Content Marketing And News Consumption Trends Change

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:03:23 -0400

Tactics, tools and formats for content sharing and engagement are a constant evolution, but one thing remains stable in the sea of change: the need for quality content. The latest evidence comes from The Pew Research Center’s “The State of the News Media 2013” annual study: 31% of respondents deserted a news outlet because it...

Copy (Still) Rules

Fri, 24 May 2013 07:30:29 -0400

The Internet has revolutionized the world in many ways. But when it comes to copywriting, it has had a negative impact. Now while there is no doubt that this medium has significantly increased opportunities when it comes to this field, it has also had a detrimental effect upon its professional aspects. Before the widespread proliferation...

Agile Marketing Series: A Deep History of Business Management, Part 2

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:55:39 -0400

With specialization and globalization, life is now divided between our individual connection to the world and the world as whole playing out in real time before us. We are simultaneously able affect it, and stand powerless before it. Many businesses are going through what Walter Kiechel calls a “re-engineering,” with the individual customer at the...

Dark Patterns are The Dark Side of Customer Experience (Unless You Like Pissed-Off Customers)

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:45:50 -0400

When it comes to customer experience, my personal mission has always been crystal clear: help companies act more intelligently. Smart companies leverage disruptive technologies, like social influence and digital sensors, to better serve their customers. Stupid companies ignore them, or use them as tactics disconnected from strategy. Most companies fall into one of these two...

Example of Business Email Closings and Sign Offs

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:30:03 -0400

The closing of a business email is almost as important as the email itself. This is because of its strong influence on the response of the email recipient While your email subject and introduction create the first impression on your recipient, closing and sign-off dictate the kind of response you get. You definitely don’t want...

10 Great Advantages of Outsourcing Content Creation

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:25:39 -0400

If you’re debating between outsourcing content creation and getting it all done in-house, you have to know the pros and cons of each situation to make the best decision for your investment. Consider these advantages of using an article or blog writing service to help you create the unique content your customers love. Original Image...

Common Content Marketing Misconceptions

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:22:14 -0400

Content marketing has been around for well over a hundred years, but is becoming one of the most used tactics to do everything for businesses; from getting more customers, to improving their search engine rankings. Still, many misconceptions about it exist. Susanna Gebauer recently broke down some common content marketing misconceptions. We’ve highlighted the most...

All I Need to Know About Marketing Optimization I Learned In a Singles Bar

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:15:07 -0400

Optimization is a hot topic for BtoB marketers. Developing well-crafted, relevant and engaging emails, websites and landing pages will certainly help you get closer to the ultimate sale. But optimization is about more than having the right text and visuals on a page– it’s about building better relationships. One thing we sometimes forget is that,...

Top Challenges Holding Marketers Back From Adopting Data-Driven Marketing

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:30:21 -0400

Results of a recent Teradata survey show that most companies are well aware of big data’s potential value and the challenges that go hand-in-hand with it. On the value side: More than seven out of ten (72 percent) of those surveyed see the need to gain control over the exponentially growing volumes of data in...

10 Questions Your Landing Page Content Should Answer

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:30:08 -0400

Every shopper has a few questions in mind which require answers before they will buy, or convert. Determining the key questions for your product or service, and answering them in your landing page content will help increase your conversion rate. Before you start writing your landing page content, put yourself in the shoes of your...

A 3-Step Customer Service Guide for Your Team

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:31:48 -0400

What you can do about that moment of truth, when a customer decides to stay or go.

How To Get Over The One Hurdle Keeping You From Creating Killer Content

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:22:46 -0400

In the last 12-18 months, several factors have come together to form what could be described as the ‘inbound marketing perfect storm,’ transforming content into the foundation of both Search and Social. First, search algorithm changes that de-emphasized thin content in the SERPs pushed Marketers to focus on quality content. Second, as is evident from...

Content Marketing: 5 Challenges and Solutions

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:00:23 -0400

Companies are constantly being bombarded with messages telling them to ‘create more content’, ‘educate and engage your audience’, ‘become a publisher’ and so on. Yet most of them face huge challenges in this area, be it lack of resources, budget, time or all three. Unless they can overcome these challenges, these content marketing messages simply...

It’s Not You. It’s Your Customer Service

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:15:03 -0400

All the best entrepreneurs are in on this secret: it’s not about getting customers—it’s about keeping them. All startup entrepreneurs remember their first sale, but they know that real success lies in getting customers to come back. Competition in the startup world can be stiff, so customer loyalty can really make or break a business....

Top 10 Things the B2B Buyer Persona is Saying About Your (Content) Marketing

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:00:39 -0400

Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t seen David Letterman do this one, so I want to tell you what B2B buyers tell us about marketing’s influence on their decisions. Note that every one of these statements comes from real interviews with actual buyers. After all, we don’t believe in making stuff up about buyer...

Critical Minute – I Wear My Google Glass At Night

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:40:02 -0400

Google’s latest headline-making innovation is called “Google Glass,” a pair of glasses that is essentially a mini computer that never leaves your vision. While the technology sounds like something out of a 1980’s sci-fi film, Google hopes that someday in the near future, everyone will own a pair of Google Glass. Before the product has...

3 Ways to Get More Subscribers on Your Email List

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:30:03 -0400

Are you struggling to get more subscribers to your email list? If so, then you are not alone. The biggest problem that people have when it comes to getting the most subscribers possible is they don’t know the best way to go about doing so. The trick to getting more subscribers is not just about...

Execute Your Video Content Strategy in 8 Steps

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:15:28 -0400

In my previous post, “Using Video Content to Drive Brand Awareness, Leads, and Sales,” I took you through the first four steps of the definitive B2B video marketing strategy. In this second post, we focus on executing your video content strategy, maximizing impact, measuring results, and ensuring that you create sustainable campaigns that add long-term...

Platform helps businesses recruit relevant research volunteers

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:11:23 -0400

Singapore-based UserScout connects willing participants with market research projects in one place.

Name Making: Google it!

Wed, 22 May 2013 20:50:26 -0400

Ever wonder how Google came up with its name? Did they think the name Google would become synonymous with information sourcing, referencing, mapping and everything in between? Is there some sort of history behind the name, or was it just a random choice? Many business start-ups make much ado about what they should name their...

5 Reasons Email Isn’t Going Anywhere

Wed, 22 May 2013 20:35:16 -0400

Welcome to another edition of the “5 Reasons” blog series. This will be a weekly blog series, with a fresh post every Monday. Last week’s topic was “Five Reasons Your Email Isn’t Generating Clicks”. This Week’s Topic = Five Reasons Email Isn’t Going Anywhere Despite what some unrealistic marketers will tell you, email is not...

Reputation Changer Reviews 6 Companies with Sterling Reputations

Wed, 22 May 2013 20:25:15 -0400

When it comes to doing business, reputation is everything—which is why ReputationChanger.com reviews the trustworthiness and esteem of all of the world’s top businesses and brands. The company has compiled a list of six particularly reputable brands, and summarized what sets them apart. Small and medium-sized business owners, take note: There are plenty of lessons...

Amazon vs. Wal-Mart: How Online Strategy Can Meet In-Store Opportunity

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:49:10 -0400

When Wal-Mart announced plans to use its retail locations to fulfill online orders last week, the media and business community broke into a collective game of word association. The word? Amazon. Prior to breaking the news, Wal-Mart was already one of the few companies that could compete with Amazon online. But after unveiling how it...

The Direct Marketing Competitive Edge: How to Establish & Keep It

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:30:51 -0400

According to results from a recent Target Marketing study, 12% of direct marketers surveyed say they intend to decrease direct mail spend in 2013, the largest percentage decrease of any direct marketing method. With fewer direct marketers devoting spending to this category, how can companies that rely heavily on executing direct mail campaigns compete against...

The Power of Surprise as a Marketing Tool

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:15:34 -0400

Do you like surprises? Well, here’s a good one for you: A recent article by Scott Redick in the Harvard Business Review suggests that the element of surprise is the most powerful marketing tool of all. Now we’re not talking about scaring the bejesus out of your customers, but rather, using your content and features...

Agile Marketing Series: A Deep History of Business Management, Part 1

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:07:49 -0400

“Agile” describes a deeper trend in business management: to concentrate on a new way of doing business that strives for innovation while minimizing the risks of traditional all-or-nothing strategic approaches. It’s what I’ve called the anti-Mad Men approach: try anything, but never failing the same way twice. Systematic innovation is at the core of all...