Six Stages of a Website Makeover for 2009

Considering a Website Makeover for 2009?  If a website redesign is part of your 2009 marketing and branding program, before you begin updating and rebranding your website, here are some things you may want to consider:

Navigation: Making it easy for the reader to find what they are looking for.  Not everyone thinks the same way and not [...]

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A Lesson in Focused Marketing - County-by-County, Precinct-by-Precinct

If you had a product to sell nationwide, at first glance you might consider blasting out mass media nationwide in big sweeping layers to coat the entire country. This mass approach may have some merit.
But last night’s historic election showed that pinpoint marketing — focusing strategically on key segments — makes the difference. It’s [...]

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Marketing Green and Sustainability: Treading Carefully!

Do you remember when food got lighter? Lite. Fat-Free. Fewer Carbs. It seemed like everywhere you turned there were alternatives that were better than the other stuff that had too much butter or cream or shortening. When you read the labels, things got confusing. Something that was supposed to be very healthy [...]

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SEO SEM - Defining the Alphabet Soup in Internet Marketing

Everytime I turn around it seems there are more initials and terms in Internet Marketing.  Here’s a few I compiled with my version of their definition. 

SEO - Search Engine Optimization - about 60 different things you can do to help your website get ranked higher in Google, Yahoo and MSN.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing - beyond [...]

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Add Impact: Use Specific Tools for Sports Marketing

Using specific tools in sports marketing and personal fitness: Extremely motivational and competent, her story is really inspirational.

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5 Tips for Getting Testimonials to Build Referrals

Ever feel like word of mouth advertising is your best way to build the business? Then your business may benefit by gathering testimonials from your satisfied customers.
Of course the best way to get terrific testimonials is to do a wonderful job. If you haven’t done a great job, don’t ask for a testimonial, fix your service [...]

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5 Ways to Evaluate and Select the Best Marketing Consultant

How can you go about getting the best marketing consultant for your business?
Many organizations and companies look for experts when they need to create and execute a strategic marketing plan.  So, how do you find a marketing consultant — and secondly, how do you select the best marketing consultant for your situation?
 When looking for a consultant, some [...]

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ABC Akron Bloggers Community Share Blog Marketing Tips

The Akron Bloggers Community got together yesterday at the Arabica Coffee Shop in Stow Ohio to swap marketing tips and catch up with new events in our blogs and businesses.
Just a few of the highlights:
Stephen Hopson will be the closing Keynote Speaker the National Tractor Association Meeting next month. UPDATED 7/1/08: Stephen’s Keynote speech is [...]

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Using the Power of Branding for Price Differentiation

Sometimes when I talk to clients about branding, they listen patiently and then ask about sales.  I know they want sales, but they need branding to help them get there.There are lots of reasons that branding helps with your marketing.  And good marketing makes the sales effort so much easier and smoother. 
 Building awareness is probably the [...]

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Tips for Getting Started with a Company Blog

 Just this past week two different people have asked me:  How do I get started blogging? Do you have any resources to share? If marketing has moved into the Web 2.0, how do I establish the conversation?  What’s the best way to brand my company on the internet with a blog?
 I am happy to share [...]

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Make Marketing Part of Your Business Routine

When I get into the office each day, I have a routine:

Download email off the server
Check phone messages
Double check appointments for the day & the next day
Look at my to-do list from the night before
Say “hi” to everyone  & if the weather’s not so good - hang up my coat.
Get a cup of coffee.

By the [...]

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PR & Marketing: Chicken or the Egg?

Is PR a function of marketing?  Or is it a separate function all on it’s own?  Or is marketing a function of PR?
This is a subject that I struggled with, deeply, for about a year or two after I graduated from Kent State.  You smile. Okay, I was naive.  At the time, I believed back then [...]

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B-B Marketing — Keeping Your Sales Literature Up-to-Date

Yesterday was spent updating sales literature for a client.  It was both easy and hard at the same time.
What made it easy was we have a format - logo, product category, name, markets served, benefits, photo, specs, contact information.  It helps to support the branding for the company.  A brand, even for a B-B focused [...]

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Why Use the Yellow Pages for Your Marketing? Here are 3 Good Reasons

The Yellow Pages have become dinosaurs.  Just look at the pile of them that sit by the back door of my office building.  They’ve been sitting there for 2 months and no one in any of the businesses has even bothered to pick up their office copy.  
More and more consumer and business buyers alike search [...]

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Word of Mouth is the Best Marketing

Beyond all the fancy marketing techniques of SEO and Web2.0, all the competitive analysis and regression plotting — isn’t the best marketing of all when a friend tells you to try something because they liked it and thought you might too?
Two different posts inspired me to write about “word of mouth” this morning:

 Why Conversational SEO [...]

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