Blog

My friend Mark Schaefer’s new book on personal branding, Known, tells you how to market yourself in today’s digital world. It’s good advice from someone who knows. Mark has become one of the leading voices in the marketing space after spending a career doing the work on the inside at some impressive companies. He now speaks, […]

Small business content marketing sounds impressive, but to most people the term doesn’t mean anything. Content is vague. Marketing is ambiguous if it’s not immediately confused with advertising. So how do you define content for your small business and how do you prioritize each type? The first step to understand small business content marketing is […]

I gave feedback on a video this week telling the recent small business workshop attendee I wouldn’t exactly call it “social capital.” Before I step on anyone’s sensitivities, please know the purpose of this post is to explain social capital and how to judge whether or not your social media content provides it. Lacking social capital isn’t […]

The top priority in digital marketing for any small business is ranking well in search. It doesn’t matter how much you love social media, how fun it is to engage customers there, how exciting it is to see your open rates on email newsletters climb and the like. Search engine optimization (SEO) is always priority […]

In my Small Business, Smart Marketing Workshops, I tell the audience the strategic point of consumer-facing digital marketing should be to get your prospective customer’s email address. Once you’re invited to their inbox, your chances of converting that customer multiply exponentially. But how can your small business emails avoid spam filters? That question came to […]

A friend and business partner recently said to me, “There’s nothing better than doing business with someone with common values.” An interesting and valid perspective, for sure. It’s certainly better than doing business with someone whose values don’t align with your own. Finding value relationships is probably more important in business-to-business or long-lead/long-term relationship businesses. For […]

Your small business email newsletter may be the most important weapon in your digital marketing arsenal. Once you have a prospective customer’s email address, preferably because they gave you permission to email them, you have an invitation to the most effective digital method of driving business. But to hold on to that fertile ground, you […]

There’s a big hurdle to get over or around in social media for small business. It’s a counterintuitive step we all have to take to prove to our audience that we’re in it for them and not for us. But it’s a confusing and painful step for many business owners to take. The big hurdle […]

As we’ve discussed before, understanding Yelp reviews can be a nightmare for a small business. For years now, there have been countless stories of small businesses claiming Yelp removes positive reviews, won’t take down negative ones that are inflammatory and, even worse, tries to hold paid advertising over small business’s heads in a form of […]

  A home contractor asked me last week how he could make his website better at attracting potential home builders or remodelers. I asked if he currently has a gallery of images to show off his work on the website. He did, but it was 5-6 pictures on a tucked away page that had been […]

A reader asked if she should reveal that she is behind a political-focused Twitter account. She isn’t doing anything subversive – just poking a little fun at politicians. But the gag account wound up on a listing of “accounts you should follow,” and her follower list exploded. Because some media outlets like to quote or […]

The writing assignment is part of my every day life. My digital marketing consulting business often focuses on creating content for enterprise clients. That content comes in the form of corporate speeches, webinars, video discussions and strategic coaching, but also in the form of white papers, blog posts and the occasional social media post. How a writing […]