Shoestring Marketing Tips

50 Press Release Topics for Small Business Owners

public-relations

Writing and publishing a press release is still one of the hottest Shoestring Marketing strategies around. Not only are press releases great for SEO purposes, they’re also a quick and easy way for your prospects to find out about your small business products and services. Best of all, you don’t need “big news” in order [...]

3 Unique Video Ideas for Small Business Owners

multimedia

Online video is hot, hot, hot right now. Personally, I think it’s because so many folks are just so busy that they would rather watch a quick “to-the-point” video than read through a 500-word article. That being said, most small business owners still don’t incorporate video into their marketing efforts.  There are two main reasons [...]

5 Branding Tips for Creating a Bold Small Business Promise

branding

Many small business owners mistakenly think that branding is simply about slapping up a well-designed logo on their website and then waiting around as the sales start pouring in. Here’s the truth of the matter. A brand isn’t about a logo. It isn’t about the color choices on a website. And, it isn’t about a [...]

50 Best WordPress Plugins for Small Business Owners

websites

One of the most powerful aspects of using WordPress as your small business blogging platform is the plugin capabilities. However, since there are literally thousands upon thousands of plugins available, it can also be incredibly overwhelming. I wanted to make it a bit easier for you to navigate this thick plugin jungle, so without further [...]

Is Your Small Business Brand Putting People to Sleep?

branding

Just for fun, I decided to take a few minutes to surf through the internet looking for interesting small business promises (better known as the small business tagline). In just under fifteen minutes, I was able to find the following five brand promises: 1) We’re #1 in customer service. 2) We’ll help you succeed. 3) [...]

121 Free Shoestring Marketing Tools

121 Free Shoestring Marketing Tools

Many small business owners swear that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone has to pay. Translate that notion to the small business world and we’re led to believe that it takes money to make money. Back when I first started my own small business, I had no choice but to be incredibly [...]

Is the Customer Always Right?

customer-relationships

You’ve heard the old adage: the customer is always right. You can take that stale, old advice and throw it straight into your circular file because if you have customers, then you know that they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can be enchanting, funny and utterly delightful. Or, they can be [...]

Are You “Wooing” Your Prospects?

customer-relationships

Here’s a strange question for you. Do you believe in dating before marriage? My guess is that you’re rolling your eyes and saying, “Of course, you should date before you get married! Are you crazy?” The reason I’m asking this crazy question is because many small business owners expect their prospects to commit to a [...]

10 Steps to Writing Emails That Get Results

copywriting

I remember the good ol’ days of email marketing. I would send out an email and 75% of my prospects would open it. (Can you imagine?) Then, along came the spammers, the CAN-SPAM laws, the smartphones and the competition. And suddenly, email marketing was a whole different animal. In today’s noisy and cutthroat email environment, [...]

How to Recover From a Small Business Marketing Disaster

How-To-Articles

A few years back, I was one of the very first people to begin using Twitter as a marketing tool. I was generating dozens upon dozens of quality leads every day, so you can imagine how thrilled I was with this brand new marketing platform. Against by better judgment, I l spent hours a day [...]