You’ve heard it before: social networking sites are useful tools for finding and connecting with new clients. But what are the best ways to do that? How can you use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to find new clients? In this blog post I’m going to let you in on a few secrets and give you a guide to getting started on these social networking sites. LinkedIn Linkedin is a powerful networking too...

One of the areas we always receive a ton of questions is in the world of branding. It’s one of those areas of marketing that everyone’s heard of but if you ask them to explain it (or how to do it) they give you kind of a blank stare. Here are some branding tips for small businesses and entrepreneurs: 1) Placement of your logo. Too many small business owners stress over what their logo ...

Customer loyalty for a small business is as much about brand perception as it is about brand behavior. Your loyalty efforts can go a long way towards bringing people back into your store, but you can’t expect their return alone to bring profits. For that you need to continue driving value, service and incentive, sometimes all at the same time. The Wall Street Journal does a good job in this ...

Do you have something you want to share with your small business customers in a newsletter format? Have you ever thought about doing a newsletter but aren’t sure how or where to get started? Join the #smbiz Twitter chat on Tuesday, June 30, from 8-9 pm EDT. We will be talking everything newsletters: –How newsletters are good for new customers and existing ones –Newsletters as a c...

I love the movie, “Jerry Maguire.” It’s very inspirational and exciting even if you’re not a sports fan. But a small business owner can learn an important lesson through one of the messages delivered within the script. Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, is a 35-year-old sports agent working for a popular player management firm. When he leaves his firm to go out on his own...

I recently had lunch at a local eatery not far from my house. As I always do with small business owners I come across, I had a conversation with the owner of the deli if/how they were utilizing marketing. What I learned was actually quite impressive and encouraging. This particular small business owner is already doing email marketing to customers. But they’re also actively collecting busine...