What every entrepreneur needs more than anything else, after they have built an innovative new product or service, is visibility, credibility, and trust by customers, potential employees, and future business partners. In my experience as a business advisor, one of the best ways to get all of these, is to publish a book on the […]
Marketing Your New Business
Planting Your Brand’s Seeds
Branding. What is it and how do you define it? In most cases, people mistake the word branding to mean one of two things. A logo or a tagline. Both are tools you use to communicate your brand but neither is your actual brand. Brand has been described in many ways. Advertising icon David Ogilvy […]
The Importance of Small Business PR
If PR to you conjures up images of Ab Fab types quaffing Champagne at client meetings without doing anything productive you could be forgiven for shunning the idea of PR. But there are some very good reasons not to—as Rose Calendars explains. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), defines PR as “the planned and sustained […]
The Name of the Game
A new business opened up around the corner and I couldn’t help but notice the name. It is A-1 Iowa Plumbing and they’ve hung a big banner announcing that they’re open and ready for new customers. The name is a good reminder of several common naming mistakes that I thought were worth sharing. Whether you […]
Community Building
Most recently, we looked at the idea that content marketing efforts often stop short of actually building a community and by doing so, brands miss out on the incredible benefits of that strategy. The phrase “build a community” is nebulous so I wanted to give you a concrete example to spark ideas as you look […]
How to Create a Brand Name That Sticks
Have you ever wondered how companies develop their brand names? How did marketers come up with Twitter, Hulu, or Uber? According to MSG Management Study Guide, A brand name “is one of the brand elements which helps the customers to identify and differentiate one product from another. It should be chosen very carefully as it […]
6 Proven Ways to Market Your Business without Breaking the Bank
Small-business owners are well aware of the highs and lows of owning and running their own business. They all know and remember that initial high of forming the business idea in their head, planning everything out and fully committing to the idea. They also know the lows of struggling to find a loan, figuring out […]
10 Ways to Make Your Business Memorable with a Story
The entrepreneur’s challenge is to effectively communicate their value proposition, not only to customers, but also to vendors, partners, investors, and their own team. Especially for technical founders, this is normally all about presenting impressive facts. But in reality facts only go so far. Stories often work better, because humans don’t always make rational decisions. […]
4 Critical Steps to Create a Small Business Brand Identity
In any type of business, building a strong brand identity is a key part of creating a thriving company. That goes double for small businesses, who rely even more on their reputation and the goodwill of their customers than their larger competitors do. Still, building a brand’s identity from the ground up is no easy […]
What’s Your Story? Did Someone Else Create It?
It is an old warning in the entertainment industry. Define your persona the way you want others to view you—before someone else defines you by comparing you to someone not as flattering as you would like. Sometimes you win when others define your story I have a friend in the music business who worked hard […]
