From the Trenches: An Entrepreneur's View of Marketing

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Episode #39 of Power to the Small Business podcast.

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It's easy to get marketing advice from a marketer, not so easy to get front-line marketing advice from a small business owner who know's what she's talking about. So we shift the paradigm in this episode of the Power to the Small Business podcast, to bring you a discussion with Megan Duckett, an entrepreneur with the heart of a marketer. Megan is just like most small-business owners. She learned about business and marketing after she started what is now a successful theatrical curtain business: SewWhat.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Megan Duckett shares what she's learned about marketing in 13 years of building a successful business. Get a taste with this 34 second preview. If you like it, listen to, or download, the full episode below

Guest: Megan Duckett – Owner of SewWhat, Rancho Domingo, California
Length: 24 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the player, click here to listen to Power to the Small Business
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #39 (for personal use only)

Press the play button on the Box player above and get started. Comments, questions? Please share it in the comment section below or call our brand new audio comment line: 254-433-8529.

Show Notes:

Selected quotes from Megan Duckett:

“You have to understand what you’re selling, you have to know the people you’re selling it to. It’s just not enough to have a good idea, I don’t think that flies.”

"Price point and service don’t always meet in the middle. You cannot be the provider of the greatest service and the lowest price point.”

"If you can re-direct your mind to consider the customer’s need, not was is easiest for (you). Making decisions that make the customer’s day simpler, friendlier, easier…. A client will pay more for that type of value."

Show Links:

Megan Duckett's Company: SewWhat

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Classic Spot: The Customer Experience Map

The customer's experience may be a small business' important marketing function. Rewarding your customers with a memorable experience goes way beyond providing good service. Here are some classic articles from the Marketing Spot Blog archives to help you create your own remarkable customer experience.

Building Customer Loyalty

Why is loyalty so elusive? Because good customer service is not good enough. The answer lies in the 100% Solution presented in this audio slidecast:

The Word-of-Mouth Spark

The customer experience is where you convert preconception in to customer evangelism. Here is an illustration of how that works: Critical Intersection: Your Customer's Experience

People need something to talk about. That something is not good service or good people. The spark to word of mouth is created by memorable moments, those out-of-the ordinary interactions you have with your customers. I call them: Magic Spots in The Customer Experience

The Customer Experience Map

But the real secret to creating a remarkable experience is to map it out, start to finish, using a theme to tie all the elements together. I have created a tool to help you design such an experience. You can download the tool, complete with a tutorial, for free: The Customer Experience Map

What's remarkable about your customer's experience? How are you inspiring loyalty and sparking word of mouth? Share your ideas in the comment section below.

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What's Unconventional About Your Customer's Experience?

People will go out of their way to experience something that's unconventional. Why else would 30,000 people descend on Atlanta clad as Storm Troopers and Starfleet officers for Dragon Con, an event billed as "the largest science fiction and fantasy convention in North America." Actor Ben Browder (Farscape, Stargate SG1), who was appearing at Dragon Con, said "It’s like Mardi Gras in space."

You could write it off as a just a gathering of geeks, and there was plenty of that, but Dragon Con is also a clue to delivering memorable customer experiences that keep people coming back. It doesn't require outfitting your staff with Vulcan ears, sometimes all it takes is a departure from the norm. Something unconventional.

Photo credit: Master Scorpion

T Scott Gross calls it Positively Outrageous Service which he describes as; "surprise, fun, unexpected, not necessary, playful, caring, entertaining, outrageous." Read those adjectives again. When is the last time you had a retail or service experience described as "surprise, fun, unexpected, not necessary, playful, caring, entertaining, outrageous?"

it doesn't take much to be unconventional. Underwood's Cafeteria in Brownwood, Texas serves up some pretty tasty bar-b-que and some mighty fine cobbler. And just like in most cafeterias, they have servers come around to refill your beverage. But here's where they get unconventional. They also have servers prowling the floor with fresh, hot-out-of-the-oven rolls, hot enough to melt the butter as soon as you slather it on. But wait, there's more. Another round of servers pull up to your table with a bucket of whip cream! "Whip cream for your cobbler, sir?" I challenge you to say no. Pray that Underwood's doesn't open in your town or you will gain an instant five pounds.

Then, there's Bush's Chicken, a regional chain of fast-serve chicken restaurants in Texas known for their sweet tea. But also a little unconventional. Pull up to the drive-through and you'll find that little speaker box missing. There's no chance to order your chicken the conventional way. Instead, you will see several servers in red shirts running from car to car taking orders. Bush's treats your car like your table. A server takes your order, runs back inside and assembles it, then brings it back to you without sacrificing too much time.

The retail and service experiences that get remembered, anticipated, and talked about, are the unconventional ones. Do you have a Mardi Gras in Space? What's your departure from the norm?

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Setting the Right Customer Expecations With Your Brand Promise

In a recent blog post, Susan Abbott tells us how expectations color the customer experience:

"...it is delivery against expectations that largely determines whether your customers are unhappy, just okay, or advocates for your organization."

True. And the expectations your customers have are set by their preconception of your business. That preconception is established through your brand, as Susan explains:

"The whole point of branding is to create a set of expectations. It's the brand promise, right?"

Yes. The brand promise is where the expectations balancing act begins. And, it's where many an entrepreneur's stomach is tied up in knots. You want a big brand that creates excitement and attracts customers, yet that also creates big expectations.

The Expectations Balancing Act

1. Big Promise = Big Expectations = Big Disappointment

A small business will make a big brand promise, because it wants to attract a lot of people. So the promise will include words like "The best," "The most," "The greatest" and so on. The intent is to appear larger than life, the result is to create expectations that cannot be met. What's the alternative?

2. Small Promise = Little Expectations = No Disappointment

So if you never want to disappoint customers, do you set expectations so low that you'll never fail? Those types of brand promises include generic words like "dependable" and "quality," Unfortunately, this is not the answer because it does not create a preconception of your business that attracts customers. So what should you promise?

3. True Promise = Realistic Expectations = Customer Satisfaction

Promise what's uniquely you. Too many entrepreneurs approach branding and customer attraction from the wrong side of the equation. The thinking is "what can I promise that will attract customers?" The thinking should be: "What promise can I alone make?" Each business has it's own unique personality. You, as the business owner, have your own exclusive combination of capabilities and values. Build your promise around that combination and you have a true brand that will establish realistic expectations.

Set the right expectations by setting true expectations. Promise what is uniquely you. It's a key fundamental of branding.

Which expectations equation are you using? What promise are you making?

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Micro-Scripts: A Big Marketing Lesson for Small Business in the Health Care Debate

A guest post by Bill Schley

Small business can learn a ton from watching the big political contests going on in the capital right now. Why? Because everything comes down to a do or die vote-- a “one day sale for 100% market share.” No time to waste on anything but ultra-effective communication.

Republicans have been winning today’s marketing battle, because once again, they are the masters of the Micro-Script. That is—a very short set of vivid, memorable words that conger up a story, that people can instantly repeat.

For example, the right side of the aisle has given us: Death Panels, pull the plug on Grandma, “the efficiency of the Post Office with the Compassion of the IRS,” Rationed Care, It’s socialized Medicine, Government Care, It’s the French Plan, Obamacare and on and on.

From the left side…even after the President’s speech to Congress… I challenge you to think of one. The Republicans have furnished everyone with simple word ammunition that people can easily say, remember and most of all repeat in order to persuade others.

Think of how important Micro-Scripts would be for your small business or any business. Vivid, take-away language that not only keeps re-playing in the customer’s head-- but that customer champions can repeat to their colleagues and their boss, to sell you up the organization.

Great marketer’s invented Micro-Scripts – and the best use them today. Airborne—The cold preventer invented by a second grade teacher. Or "It’s made from sugar so it tastes like sugar. Or "Friends don’t let friends drive drunk."

Small businesses create some of the best Micro-Scripts I’ve ever seen--just by taking their honest passion and business knowledge —and translating into the kind of words one customer would say to another across the back yard fence. Or in a one sentence email. They also listen—and hear great Micro-Scripts told to them by their loyal, satisfied customers.

Today more than ever, it’s not what people hear, it’s what they want to repeat that gets you all the traction and breaks through the noise, even makes you go viral. And what people like to repeat are Micro-Scripts.

Bill Schley is President and Chief Creative Officer of David ID, a brand development firm in Connecticut, USA. He is an award winning marketer, author and speaker on branding and communications. His new book, The Micro-Script Rules is due in 2010 (a free eBook is available to download).

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Building, Protecting, Destroying Your Online Brand

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Episode #38 of Power to the Small Business podcast.

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15 years ago, branding was a lot different. Websites were new and shiny and there was no such thing as social media. Now, your brand is likely to be everywhere, and you must be diligent. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, we take a look at your brand online. Simon Salt of IncSlingers helps us understand how to build, protect, and avoid destroying, your online brand.

Guest: Simon Salt – CEO of IncSlingers, Austin, Texas
Length: 24 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the player, click here to listen to Power to the Small Business
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #38 (for personal use only)

Press the play button on the player above and get started. Comments, questions? Please share it in the comment section below or call our brand new audio comment line: 254-433-8529.

Show Notes:

Selected quotes from Simon Salt:

“In the same way your brand exists in the real world, it very much exists in the online world.”

"The most obvious way to destroy your brand online is to disregard your audience.”

"People’s expectations now of a company… is that there’s going to be an element of interactivity."

Show Links:

Simon Salt's Company: IncSlingers
Simon's Blog

Tutorial: The Brand Promise

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A 6-Pack of Quick, Easy, and Free Marketing Tactics

So your marketing budget is empty and you're getting itchy. You need to do something. Here are six things you can do today, and they're all free.

1. Add analytics to your website

Website analytics will change your life. You will be able to see how visitors use your website, what brings them to your site, where your visitors are actually located, and how long they stick around.

How is this about marketing? Well, it helps you adjust your site copy, content and product offerings. You will be able to see what pages get the most traffic, and which pages visitors avoid. You can even see what search engine terms bring people to your site. Google Analytics is free and fairly easy to install on your site. If you don't want to do it yourself, get your website manager or the most techy person on staff to do it for you.

Once you get comfortable with Google's Analytics, you can check out some more advanced, for-pay, analytics packages. I use one called VisiStat, that gives me live analytics and allows me to drill deeper into the numbers. VisiStat normally offers a one-week free trial, but if you use the promo code: MSPOT, you will get a 30 day free trial (up to 100,000 page views).

2. Email Your Existing Customers

You should be collecting email addresses from every customer that allows you. Now use those email addresses to email your customers! Send them monthly announcements of new products or feature clearance items.

Here's the big email success secret: (ssshhh) Ask your customers to buy something. You will be surprised how often it works. Almost every time I get an email from Shoestring Winery, I make a purchase. Why? Because I love their wine and they ask me to buy.

If your email list is small, you can send emails from your webmail account or from Outlook. However, most services will let you send a limited number at a time. If your email list contains hundreds or more addresses, you should try an email service. iContact offers a 15-day free trial and Constant Contact offers a 60-day free trial with no credit card required. They also let you do fancy things with your email like adding pictures, and giving it a newsletter look.

3. Claim all Your Online Listings

Up to 30% of all search queries include city, state, or zip code. That means people are looking for information locally. Enhance your search engine visibility by claiming all your free listings. Each of the search engines lets you claim your listing and add basic information, pinpoint your location, and even add pictures and video. All for free.

Optimize your local, online business profile and then claim your local listings here: Google Local Business Center, Bing Local Listing Center, Yahoo Local, Yelp for Business Owners,

4. Create a Facebook Page

This week, Facebook surpassed the 300 million user mark, with about 70 million of those users in the United States, 19 million in the UK, and 12 million in Canada. As many as half of all Facebook users access their accounts every day. If you have a customer base that is active on the Internet, it makes sense for you to create your free Facebook page.

Facebook pages are not regular Facebook accounts (profiles). Profiles are for people, pages are for business. Unless you are a Facebook whiz, it can get a little confusing. First read these free eBooks about maximizing your presence: How to Use Facebook for Business (PDF) and About Face. Then create your own here: Free Facebook Page.

5. Use the Telephone

In the age of email, personal conversations stand out. You already have a telephone, so use it to connect with customers. But don't just call random phone numbers and say "I'm just calling to check in on you." Have purpose for your call that benefits both you and the customer. A really effective tactic is to ask for feedback.

After a purchase, within one day, one week, or whatever criteria you decide, place a follow-up phone call to your customer. Ask them: 1) Do you have any questions about your product and how to use it? 2) What did you enjoy / not enjoy about your purchase? 3) How can we improve your experience with us? 4) Are there any additional products or services you would like to see us offer?

You will be surprised at the positive reaction you receive. You will also form a personal bond with the customer that might create some word of mouth. Plus you'll probably get some good ideas to improve your business.

6. Place an ad on craigslist

craigslist is the wildly popular online classified ads site used by 55 million Americans. But it's more than just a place to buy furniture. craiglist allows commercial ads for local businesses under the "services offered" category. Here's an ad I posted last night for The Marketing Spot.

To place your free ad, you will need to set up a craigslist account. First, go to your local craigslist site by using this web address: http://(yourcity).craigslist.org - replace (yourcity) with your actual location. Create an account, and then post an ad under the "services offered" category.

Are you using all these free marketing tactics? Do you have other suggestions? Add them in the comment section below.

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10 Best Small Business Marketing eBooks

About a year ago I started collecting marketing eBooks. As of last week, I had 95 of them stashed away in my eBooks folder. That's a treasure trove of marketing advice and a data base large enough to create a "best-of" list.

Notes to eBook Authors: In reviewing 95 eBooks, I developed a few best-practice suggestions
#1 Create your eBooks in landscape format. Computer monitors are wide, not tall. It is difficult to read an eBook with a portrait format.
#2 Include a link back to the eBook's web address so that readers can easily share it with their friends.
#3 Include practical, actionable advice. Use eBooks to teach, not as a platform to tell people what you think.

I developed a scoring system to make the selection process as objective as possible. Here are the criteria used to select the best marketing eBooks:

• The content must be useful to entrepreneurs and small business owners
• It must deliver useful, practical advice. No manifestos and no theory only.
• The eBook helps the reader understand the concepts behind the advice.
• Free, and available to download with no registration or membership of any kind.
• Easy to read
• Not just a commercialized, self-promotion piece
• Most Important, it positively answers the question: Will you be a better marketed business by reading the publication and following its advice?

Based on that criteria, here are my ten best small business marketing eBooks, including download links. These are the ten best I have seen. Do you have a suggestion that's not on this list? Would you rate these eBooks as helpful to small business? Use the comment section at the end of the list to add your voice.

1. How to Use Facebook for Business - from HubSpot

Excellent resource for the Facebook novice. Even tells you how to get started advertising. Thorough with lots of helpful graphics. Could be a little stronger on tactics.


Download Link: How to Use Facebook for Business (PDF)

2. The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Studies Create New Customers - By Charles Brown

Really well written. Explains concepts as it gives instructions on how to create your own case study. Read this and you will know how to do it.

Download Link: The Plot Thickens (PDF)

3. New Rules of Viral Marketing - By David Meerman Scott

Great examples and step-by-step suggestions. You won’t get exact how-to advice, but it will create ideas and give you a major shove in the right direction.

Download Link: The New Rules of Viral Marketing (PDF)

4. Twitter for Business - By John Jantsch

Honest assessment of whether or not you should use Twitter for marketing. Good basics on getting started and using Twitter for business.

Download Link: Twitter for Business (PDF)

5. Email Marketing Metrics Report - From MailerMailer

Not just a metrics report, it’s a blueprint for better email marketing. Combines metrics with lessons learned from those metrics and translates them in to tips. Surprisingly, it’s better than MailerMailer’s Starter Guide eBook. (Although that’s a good companion)

Download Link: Email Marketing Metrics Report (PDF)

6. About Face - From The Advance Guard

A step-by-step how-to on getting the most from your Facebook Page. The only way it could be better is if they did it for you.

Download Link: About Face

7. Marketing Apple - By Steve Chazin

While this is not hands-on how-to advice, it is very practical on how to position your business and your product.

Download Link: Marketing Apple (PDF)

8. Converting the Believers: How to turn website visitors into buyers - From usereffect

Explains the big concepts then breaks them down into practical examples. Leans a little on the selling products online side, but good for all businesses trying to convert visitors on their website.

Download Link: Converting the Believers

9. The Twitter Power Guide - By Christopher S. Penn

If you want to use Twitter as an active marketing strategy, read this eBook. It's filled with advanced tactics and is not a book for Twitter beginners.

Download Link: Twitter Power Guide

10. Where the Hell Are You? - By Lindsay Polson

The eBook purports to be about advertising a restaurant, but it has some good lessons on business signage and guerrilla marketing tactics.

Download Link: Where the hell are you?

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Polished Authenticity

You may have noticed that transparency is all the rage. Some say transparency is the new marketing. But do you really need radical transparency to be a good business? More importantly, do your customers need to know everything about you to be your customer?

Transparency

Transparency means disclosure, I agree to a certain extent. But you don't need you to disclose everything. In this age of transparency, many believe that the line between personal and professional is erased. I say keep that #2 eraser in your desk. There are times when transparency gets in the way of your cause, or your message. Too much transparency can hurt you. Customers don't need to know everything about you to do business with you. They just need to know what's important, and they need to know you're who you say you are.
Don't be transparent, be authentic.

Authenticity

Fakery doesn't work, and least not for long. This is why most advertising is ineffective. In the world of advertising, every business is perfect. It's filled with big boasts and claims of perfection. Too much hype is not part of authenticity and grows old quick.

It's authentic intent that earns trust and loyalty from customers. Businesses that struggle with customer trust should examine their intent. Do you just want to sell stuff to customers or do you have a greater mission in mind? There's nothing wrong with just wanting to sell stuff, it's what Wal-Mart does. But it's inauthentic to declare a higher purpose when there is none.

Real authenticity comes from communicating and delivering your values in everything you do. Take an inventory your customer interactions. Are you communicating what you're really about? Do your values show through? Authentic companies have a customer family that can accurately describe the heart and soul of that business.

So authenticity means being real, but it doesn't mean you have to be boring. You should polish your authenticity.

Polished Authenticity

Being polished means not letting things get dull and scuffed. Time to inventory your business again.

Are you presenting your authenticity in an appealing way? While you gotta be you, you should be the interesting you. What can you do to make your authenticity shine? Start with your your values and your mission and apply some theater. Look for innovations and new ways of doing things. If you're mission is to provide the best customer service, apply some polish to your customer service system, like Best Buy did with TWELPFORCE.

Customers don't need to know everything about you, they just need to know you're for real. You can be authentic without being too transparent, and you can be authentic without being boring.

Are you authentic? More importantly is your authenticity polished?

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Superman, Clark Kent, and Your Brand Identity

Your branding thinking might be all wrong. Building a remarkable brand identity isn't done asking the "What?" and the "How?" questions. Instead, super brands are created by asking the "Who?" and the "Why?" questions. And the most famous love triangle of all shows us why...

(Email & Feed Readers: Click here to see the video)

Now, Brand Your Business!
Jay Ehret of The Marketing Spot offers a special one month branding consulting package to build your true brand. For more information, call 254-399-8093 or email jay [@] themarketingspot.com

Related articles on brands and branding:
The Basics of Marketing: What is a Brand?
Branding is About Self Discovery
Growing In to Your Identity

For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

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Time is Your Enemy

This is a guest post by Tamsen McMahon

They say time is money. Most of us take that to mean: "Spend more time, spend more money"--like that's a bad thing. Like every minute that ticks by is money out the door or money that we could be making, and aren't.

But look at it the other way: what if spending more time meant making more money?

Think about it: what successful business ever got that way by spending less time? Success may have come quickly (or at least appeared to), but time was not the cause of success. Yet a lot of us put far, far too much stock in time.

The other day I was reading a pre-release chapter from Gary Vaynerchuk's http://garyvaynerchuk.com/ upcoming book Crush It! http://crushitbook.com/. Gary is well-known as a small business marketing success story: he went from running a local wine shop to $50 million in sales, all through a daily wine blog integrated well and thoroughly with social media (Facebook and Twitter, in particular). But while most people focus on his 2006-to-now meteoric rise, he points out that the path to his current success started when he was...16. (He's now 34.)

Gary pairs two seemingly opposing forces together as secrets of his success: hustle (the willingness to work slavishly hard for what you want) and patience (the willingness to wait for all that work to pay off). What he doesn't say--but what is very clear--is that he took time out of the equation. As he explains, "How did someone like me, who is so obviously not a patient guy, cool my heels for so long? Because I was 100 percent happy. I loved what I was doing. I knew down to my core that my business was going to explode, but even if I had fallen flat on my face, I would have had no regrets because I was doing exactly what I wanted to do, the way I wanted to do it."

He was willing to work very, very hard to make himself, his business, and his service the best they could possibly be. You can't do that if you're trying to do it faster. Faster is the enemy of better.

I know, I know, we all learned that the holy trinity of success is "faster, better, cheaper" (particularly if we can use those words in our marketing!). But when you're developing your business, the trio is different. It's "faster, better, easier"--where "easier" means the level of effort you're capable of sustaining, marketing or otherwise.

And you can only pick two.

If you want success to be fast and easy, your quality will suffer--and you'll get your lunch handed to you when someone with a better product eventually comes along (and they will). If you want that better product, but still want--or need--it to be easy, then it will take longer. If you want it fast and great, you're going to have to turn yourself inside out to do it...and there are still no guarantees.

Because really, it's not about fast. It's about best.

Best will win out every time. Best is the only thing that survives long-term. Everything else is a tradeoff between speed and sacrifice.

So take time out of the equation--and see how fast time flies.

Tamsen McMahon is the Director of Digital and Strategic Initiatives at Sametz Blackstone Associates, a Boston-based brand strategy firm, and is the editor of their blog, 'Round the Square. A self-described intellectual magpie, she finds what shines in social media, branding, and life.

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Marketers RoundTable - A Discussion of Current Marketing Issues

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Episode #37 of Power to the Small Business podcast.

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Hear ye, Hear ye! Interested citizens of The Internet, you are invited to the first gathering of the Marketers RoundTable.

Whereas marketers like to congregate and discuss marketing,

And Whereas I am a marketer with a podcast,

Therefore, let them gather at The Marketers RoundTable to discuss marketing issues for all to hear on Power to the Small Business.

Guests:
Paula Pollock – Director/Owner of Pollack Marketing Group, San Francisco, California
Steve McKee - President of McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Esteban Kolsky - Principle/Founder of Think Jar , Reno Nevada
Jay Ehret – Chief Officer of Awesomeness at The Marketing Spot, Waco, Texas

Length: 34 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the player, click here to listen to Power to the Small Business
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #37 (for personal use only)

Press the play button on the player above and get started. Comments, questions? Please share it in the comment section below or call our brand new audio comment line: 254-433-8529.

Marketers' RoundTable - A discussion of current small business marketing issues:

Selected quotes from the show:

What impact is economic uncertainty having on both corporate and small business decision makers?

STEVE MCKEE: (When the economy recovers) “There’s going to be a huge pent-up demand for all kinds of services, and when the economy does heat up, we’re going to have problems of a different sort…We’re going to have capacity issues.”

PAULA POLLOCK: “There is a huge lack of an ability to pull the trigger…They’re kicking the tires, they’re asking for proposals, they’re looking around… and they say maybe I should just sit back and wait a little longer.”

JAY EHRET: “If businesses have a…marketing consultant, those types of companies are more aggressive anyway. (They) tend to be better business because they’re out there working for business all the time…They understand the importance of marketing as a function of doing business.”

ESTEBAN KOLSKY: “The money is there, the ability to do the projects is there, but the uncertainty of what’s going to happen in the next three, six months, a year, is essentially causing all these projects to be stalled, and is causing companies to not have the resurgence that they need.”

What is the impact of spam on social media?

PAULA POLLOCK: “It is degrading the viability of Twitter, Facebook, and all of these great platforms for those of us that are actually trying to add value."

STEVE MCKEE: “Twitter is the equivalent of the wild west, and we need a sheriff. I think the only sheriff can be Twitter.”

JAY EHRET: "Wherever there are applications like this (Twitter), you’re going to have dishonest people, and they’re going to try to game the system no matter what you do."

ESTEBAN KOLSKY: “If we can start implementing some levels of reputation management so we can verify the person…is actually who they say they are, that would go a tremendous length to avoiding spam.”

Is customer service becoming the new marketing?

ESTEBAN KOLSKY: “The rise of the CMO, Chief Marketing Officer…is due to the fact that we have recognized the customer experience, and marketing essentially, should drive a lot of the operations.”

PAULA POLLACK: “The fact that the boundaries are starting to bleed, I see it as a good thing for the customer.”

STEVE MCKEE: “There never have been boundaries on the customer side…but on the delivery side, we’ve had these boundaries."

JAY EHRET: “The customer experience is an extension of your brand, and it’s also the launching point for word of mouth, plus it’s the number one factor in customer loyalty. So how can you not pay attention to the customer’s experience and customer service and identify it as the most important marketing function of your business.”

Is social media blindness causing businesses to use the wrong social media tools?

JAY EHRET: “For most businesses, especially on the local, small business level, Facebook and Twitter are not the correct tools to be using for social media marketing. “

PAULA POLLOCK: “What are these platforms for? They’re for relationship building. You’re not going to make a sale on Twitter or Facebook. You’re going to build a relationship.”

ESTEBAN KOLSKY: “The most misunderstood, and under-utilized component of social media is strategy.”

STEVE MCKEE: “All that matters is, does what you’re doing in those media affect your business?”

Show Links:

Steve McKee's Book: When Growth Stalls
Paula Pollock's Company: Pollock Marketing Group
Esteban Kolsky's Company: ThinkJar
Jay Ehret's Company: The Marketing Spot

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Upcoming Marketing Conferences, Workshops, Seminars

Here's my schedule for the next few months. If you need a marketing speaker for your conference, trade-show or industry association event, please contact me. More information is available here: Jay Ehret Speaks

October

BlogWorld and New Media Expo, Las Vegas - (Attending) Great event if you want to learn more about blogging, podcasting and social media. But I think the best benefit is networking with like-minded folks.

Texas Self Storage Association Annual Convention and Trade Show, The Woodlands, Texas - I will be hosting a discussion “Using Social Media to Market Your Business”

Midwest Golf Course Owners Association Annual Conference, Oakdale, Minnesota - Presenting the keynote address on the importance of marketing as function of business.

November

Global Golf Course Marketing Conference, Seoul, Korea - I'm presenting two sessions: Differentiation, and Designing a Customer Experience.

International Association of Golf Administrators Annual Conference, The Woodlands, Texas- I'm leading two sessions on social media marketing.

February 2010

National Golf Course Owners Association Annual Conference, San Diego - I'm hosting a panel of golf course owners about their experience in building a marketing plan, and then leading a session on building your marketing plan.

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What Your Tagline Says

It says a lot about you. It shows whether or not you've put any thought or effort into the mission of your business. It communicates whether or not you have a clear direction or vision about what you offer. Your tagline gives your business a personality and it communicates your purpose. I call it a signature, because I believe that it should be personal and distinct.

A tagline doesn't always have to be cute or rhyme, but it does need to say something about you. Here are some examples of local, small business signatures and what they say.

Power to the Small Business - The Marketing Spot, Woodway, Texas. (This is my signature)
My mission is to empower small businesses with the knowledge and confidence to do better marketing. I do this because I believe marketing is the great equalizer for small businesses. It's the level playing field on which they can compete, win, and became the business they dream of being.

Mock the Elements - Fortress UTV Accessories, Waco, Texas
We don't just make accessories, we make a fortress. These ain’t no backyard parts. If you're a serious UTV owner, we've got your stuff. Hunters, ranchers, construction and maintenance workers; you worry about your work and let us take care of the rest.

Lighting That Defines You - Texas Bright Ideas, Harker Heights and Georgetown, Texas
This is not just any lighting. If you just want cheap lighting you can get that at Lowe's and Home Depot. But if you want lighting you will love and lighting you will show off to your friends, we have lighting that defines you.

Join The Pain Relief Revolution - Montogomery Chiropractic, Belton, Texas
We're not here to simply adjust your back. We're starting a revolution to defeat your pain. There is no normal pain, so let us help you conquer your pain!

Slaying the Used Car Dragons - Mike Knight Motors, Waco, Texas
You know what used car salesman are like. We do too and we don't like their kind around here. We're a professional, straight-up operation. We shatter used car stereotypes and have fun doing it.

Getting the Deal Done - Sheehy Team Investment Real Estate, Waco, Texas
We're always moving forward and we don't mess around. There are no obstacles that can't be overcome and we attack them with a positive attitude. When you work with us, you can have confidence to do more deals because we're getting the deal done.

Our Family Makes the Difference - Sykora Family Ford, West, Texas
When you do business with us, you're going to be doing business with a Sykora family member. Let the other car dealers scream and yell, we prefer to deal with you like we would a member of our family. It's a difference that will make you a loyal member of our extended family.

What does your tagline say?

Related Articles:
A Great Tagline is Your Best Brand Communication Tool
You don’t need a tagline. (You need a good tagline)
Your Signature (Tagline/Slogan)

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