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Duct Tape Marketing Blog

Small business marketing blog

Do Social Network Profiles Help Your Business?October 30 2008

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Do Social Network Profiles Help Your Business?

Sometimes people question the benefits of belonging to multiple social networks and building out all those detailed profiles on each.

I don’t know that I want to use this post to try to convince you on all the long-term merits of doing so as to simply point this out and let you draw some of your own conclusions.

Google my name - John Jantsch and you will find some of my various websites (good), some interviews I’ve done on other sites, and, as of this writing - my profile on LinkedIn, Business Week Exchange, and Facebook - all on page one o

Are You Waffling?October 30 2008

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Are You Waffling?

Politicians are often accused of waffling between stances on issues in an attempt to broaden or redirect their appeal.

Well, I’ve run across a small business or two plenty guilty of the same.

In an attempt to broaden their market appeal they craft target market descriptions that leave room for just about anyone who pledges to pay the bill, eventually. Or, equally offending, it take 10-15 minutes to explain how they are different, you know, in a way that won’t turn any potential customers off.

Here’s the secret to success in good times and bad - stop waffling. Take a stand and make a marketing strategy commitment you can stick with.

Define your target market as narrowly as is humanly possible. Start by looking long and hard and what your profitable customers, the ones that already refer business to you, look like, think like, live l

Customers Are Your Most Effective Sales ForceOctober 27 2008

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Customers Are Your Most Effective Sales Force

Happy, educated, results oriented customers are the greatest sales force you can employ.

You’ve probably experienced that in some manner by way of a referred lead or two. What I would like to suggest is a systematic way to willingly involve your customers as motivated participants in the growth of your business.

Here are the primary steps involved to raise the level of customer participation.

1) Educate - take the time to do two things with every customer. Teach them exactly who makes a great lead for your business and how to correctly introduce your business to a prospect. Give them the tools to do this whenever the occasion arises. 1a) Get passionate about measuri

R U Collecting Mobile Phone Numbers Yet?October 23 2008

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

R U Collecting Mobile Phone Numbers Yet?

A decade or so ago the cry was to build your email lists. It’s still a very valid tactic today, but now is the time to start collecting those mobile phone numbers too. About 60 billion people have mobile phones and with each passing year the technology improves to the point where it may be the only portal of information for some folks.

First off, just like you wouldn’t spam with email, you certainly don’t want to grab mobile phone numbers from prospects and customers so you can send annoying messages. There are some great reasons to use text messaging however and smart marketers, including small businesses, are starting to discover them.

Services like Mobile Storm and

Two Accounts You Must Have to PlayOctober 22 2008

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Two Accounts You Must Have to Play

It seems like I log in to dozens of accounts all day as I market my business, use online and social media tools and participate in social networking communities.

Although it may feel like I bounce from place to place it finally dawned on me that most of my online business needs are increasingly met with just two accounts. Not sure if that’s good or bad, but I do know you must have access to the tools housed in these two places if you want to play in today’s online world.

Google - gmail, Goodle docs, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Feedburner, AdWords, Analytics, Alerts

Yahoo - delicious, flickr, mybloglog, stumbleupon, upcoming

So, when one of these two buys, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Wordpress we may see a single sign on for life.