Discover the Best Marketing Secrets

Anita Campbell, small business expert extraordinaire, is founder of the Small Business Trends blog and host of Small Business Trends Radio, as well as a community leader at Work.com. It pays to let Anita know about the interesting and innovative things you are doing in your business - she always has good ideas and suggestions and she may even decide to interview you.

Anita has just posted great new marketing secrets from various marketing experts including Seth Godin (make promises and keep them), Yvonne Divita (show enthusiasm), David Powers (people don’t like to be sold - if they did, they would spend all their free time in car dealerships... instead, people want to be informed, they want to be educated), John Battelle (the best kept secret in marketing is to invest your time in eliciting and responding to your customer’s feedback, even if it’s negative...it’s the secret to building a network of evangelists who keep on giving back to your business), and Jennifer Laycock (use flickr to expand your online presence).

If you have your own great marketing tip, you can share it as well and increase your visibility at the same time.

Comments

[Patrick Badstibner]

Here is one that most miss it is not about the money itis about the passion. If you are not passionate about it it will show in everything you do, and your customers will notice.

[Susan]

Shara,

Thanks for posting the link to Anita's terrific article. Her very first idea from Seth Godin hits one of the biggest secrets: keep your promises. As a firm of one, that is the toughest thing to do. If you get busy, you run out of marketing time. If you keep meeting with new clients and doing the marketing, you run out of time to keep your promises to your current clients. It's a very tough balancing act.

Later in the piece, Anita advises, in her own tip, to treat PR people with respect. Since I've had a Web site for over seven years now, I can attest to this. They are just people trying to gain attention for the people and projects they represent. I usually try to respond although I receive well over ten pitches a day. What I admit I hate, however, is phone calls. A phone call interrupts my thought processes and is extremely intrusive. I have difficulty getting back to concentrating on my current project. Email I can handle when I have time late in the evening.

My own marketing tip? Establish a long term Web site with a newsletter and blog, an articulated purpose, and a consistent mission that you update daily. The invitations to write speak, and consult come regularly these days.

[Shara Karasic]

Thanks Patrick and Susan. Patrick, you are right that a successful business requires passion, and Susan, congratulations on your long term web presence.