25
Jan

Blogging for Business: What Can YOU Tell Customers the Competition Can’t?

The advice is everywhere: You should be blogging about your business! But how does a small-business owner get started? What do I write about? And who has the time? As I’ve written before (see “Three Reasons Your Website Needs a Blog”), blogs are no longer online journals. They are easy-to-use formats for giving your customers/clients, both current and potential, chunks …

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14
Jan

Do You Know Your Target Audience as Well as the Tourism Folks in Jerome, Arizona Do?

Some places advertise their sunsets or beaches. Others promote their hiking trails. Or local wineries. Or ski slopes. Or great shopping and nightlife. The historic (and, some say, haunted) mining town of Jerome, Arizona welcomes visitors with the announcement, “ROAD OPEN 365 DAYS A YEAR.” What a great example of knowing your target audience!

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11
Feb

Why You NEED to Start Sending Out Postcards

I wrote recently about “How NOT to Design a Postcard.” Today I’m giving you four good reasons to start using these marketing tools now. 1) Postcards are a cost-effective use of your marketing dollars. Newspaper ads and radio ads are beyond the budget of many small-business owners. But almost any business can afford postcards – which offer a big impact …

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13
Oct

How NOT to Design a Postcard

Thanks to today’s software and online options, it’s pretty easy for anyone to design and print postcards on their own. Yet the process can still be filled with pitfalls for those without a graphic design background. Below are some of the most common errors – any of which just screams “amateur hour.” And that’s an especially big problem if you’re …

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11
Jul

Three Reasons Your Website Needs a Blog

I listed two reasons in last month’s post “Should You Be Blogging?” why you might consider following the crowd and start a blog on your business website – and one very big reason not to get into blogging! (Specifically, if you have no one on your team who can devote a few hours a week to the task.) Provided your …

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10
Jun

Should You Be Blogging?

So now that everyone seems to be blogging, should you follow the crowd? Here’s why… and why not. 1) DO BLOG… if your business frequently has news items to share. The more often search engines find new content when they check out your website, the more you’ll show up in rankings. And by news, I mean anything your business has …

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14
May

Beyond Facebook: Which Social Media Site Is Best for Your Business?

My take on some of the other social media tools out there that small-business owners might want to take advantage of: 1) Pinterest The mostly female users of this photo-sharing website create digital bulletin boards of their own images and “repin” and “like” images from other users. If your product or service lends itself to visual presentation – original artwork …

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