Category Archives: Marketing

Elevator Speeches That Work

Elevator Speeches That WORK

(Podcast by Guest Blogger, Karen Graves of Your Sales Fix) Good marketing often requires networking. It also requires having a clear message about who you are and what you do. But that’s easier said than done. Often small business owners dread or avoid networking. When they meet someone for the first time they may struggle with how to respond to the question, “What do you do?” They might wonder if the people they’re meeting “get” what they do. If this describes you, this is a must listen to podcast with Karen Graves, Sales Success Mentor of Your Sales Fix.

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The Boldness Of Your Brand

The Boldness of Your Brand

Many of you may already know that Marketing Cafe is the remake of Mirchandani Consulting. We spent the better part of a year focusing on rebranding; working with brand experts, business coaches, and designers to help us hone in on our essential essence – helping small businesses take control of their online marketing. It was a challenging process. It was very tempting to hang on to all sorts of stuff that we could do; we can do design, we can do logos, we can do business cards. After all, we had done all of those things.But it was time to be bold. It was time to draw a line in the sand and say we could do those things – but we do not. We focus solely on online marketing. And you know what? It worked. Here are some of the lessons we learned and how you might apply them to your own…
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Facebook Like

If You Call Yourself A Social Media Expert…Have A Facebook Page!

I apologize in advance for my tirade, but an email landed in my inbox recently that just got me going! The email invited me to a panel discussion about how to use social media to get my business “seen”. I was curious. Marketing Cafe has, in all due modesty, some expertise in this area. But the landscape is ever-changing and there’s always some new pearl of wisdom to be gleaned. What might I learn in a couple of hours at this panel discussion So I read the invitation and went to the websites – and social media channels, of course – to learn more about the panel of 3 experts. If you call yourself a social media expert…

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Which Social Media Account Should You Use?

Social Media Marketing In The Real Business World

We like to write about practical ways to market your small business online and social media marketing has become an integral way to do that. But we still get lots of questions about how all the hyperbole translates to real action on the ground. We recently came across an article from BNet’s Jeff Haden entitled “If a Tweet Falls in the Forest, Does It Make a Sound?” It’s a worthwhile read about what you can really expect from Twitter, Facebook and social media in general. We wanted to share the article with you and add our commentary as well.

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Creating A Call To Action For Your Website

What can your website do? Does it roll over and play dead? Or does it fetch leads for you? Your website can be your businesses best friend but it needs to be taught a few tricks. The trick here is creating a “call to action”; that’s marketing speak for having your visitors do something. So how does one go about creating a call to action? Well there are a couple of key things to keep in mind.

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image of a jumbled of words related to social media jargon

Managing Social Media

By now, you’ve likely set up your social media channels and may be wondering “How am I supposed to keep up with all this?!”Managing social media can be a challenge. But there are a lot of great tools out there to help you manage both your posts and the stream of those you follow. Here are some of our favs. Tweetdeck Tweetdeck allows you to add your Twitter account, Facebook profile and Facebook page (not all tools allow this) all to one “stream”. You can set up multiple columns based on your usage and see what your Tweeps and Friends are saying, comment and post all from one place. Tweetdeck automatically shortens URLs for you so no need to worry about long links in Twitter. And with apps for your mobile device you can use it on the go too (though you will need to set up your columns here…
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Find your subscribers

Which Social Media Sites Should I Use?

When talking to clients about integrating social media into their marketing plan the first question they ask is often “Which social media sites should I use?” The short answer is “Whichever sites your customers are on.”  The long answer is “You’ll need to do some research and make some decisions based on where your customers are.” Don’t Try To Be Everywhere Unless You Really Need To Be The biggest mistake you can make when starting with social media is to try to be everywhere at once. Its hard to be successful when you spread yourself too thin. This is especially true if you are just learning to manage your social media efforts. Focus your efforts on the sites that will yield the most results; those where your customers are most active already. Track Down Your Subscribers on Social Media Here’s a great article “4 Detective Tricks to Find Your Customers…
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Email Marketing List – When Your Email Subscribers Unsubscribe

One of the major topics of conversation around email marketing is list development; how do you grow your email list? It’s a valid and important consideration, granted. But what happens when your email subscribers unsubscribe? Nothing. Well not nothing, but its necessary to put it in context. It Cleans Your Distribution List Generally speaking, when someone opts out of your email list its because they are not interested in what you are offering. If they aren’t interested, why would you want to spend time trying to market to them? Of course other factors could be at play; the frequency of your messages may be too much or too little, the layout could be a problem, the message may be off target. But these factors will likely impact your conversion rate (how often subscribers do what you want them to do) more than your unsubscribe rate. To be successful at email…
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