The traditional rules that apply to standard print-on-vinyl outdoor billboards don't work so well with electronic digital signs. Read the rest of this entry »

The amount of business being done online is phenomenal. As a marketing professional with more than four decades of experience, I admit that I am often overwhelmed by the new technologies.

This is the primary reason that I have begun partnering with a passion. It is no longer possible to keep your arms around all available resources—everything in house. Unless you are a major agency with lots of capital, you cannot stay up to date. Using third parties to handle technology or market segment assignments is critical.

The Difference for Retailers

When you finally realize that a brick and mortar storefront will no longer reach even a fraction of potential customers, you have to deal with getting up to speed with retailing on the Internet.

Advertising on the Internet yields a ROI (Return On Investment) that can be 50 times that of other forms of traditional advertising.

Many business owners and managers think all they need is to put up a website and wait for the orders. It is so very much more complex than you (or I ever) imagined. The amount of planning and implementation can be daunting.

As a marketer one of the most distressing things I see is a local retailer with a desirable (perhaps even unique) product mix that doesn’t know how to leverage their existing stock and offerings to the world at large.

Get Out of Your Own Backyard

Before you begin you must come to the realization that as a small business owner you cannot possibly handle the design, implementation, and maintenance of an online store. If you can assign a full-time, web-experienced person to the task, then you might have a chance. Hiring your nephew or a part-timer to do this project is a joke without a punchline.

It’s easy to search the web looking for “shopping carts,” “retailing websites,” “e-commerce software,” etc. but I can assure you that it will be only a few minutes into the project that you come to the conclusion this stuff is way over your head. That’s why I use out experts to contribute to any project. It’s ultimately the most efficient route to getting what you want.

Take the time to contact a handful or vendors and ask them for a proposal on getting your retail website up and running. Otherwise you are wasting valuable time, energy, and money.

Honestly, after more than 40 years in the marketing business I still have moments when I ask myself, "What really works?" In today's world with millions of messages being thrown at each of us daily, just sorting through what we see/hear is overwhelming. And after all of the technology and slick marketing we do, the best way we get business is word-of-mouth: referrals. Read the rest of this entry »

How to get the most from your company website. What to do and what to avoid. Read the rest of this entry »

A business card can be anything from simply a way to convey contact information, to a piece of art that reflects the personality of your business. The revolution in digital color printing has dramatically increased the choices in business card design, and drastically lowered the cost, making a business card a powerful and effective way to advertise. Read the rest of this entry »

Why do you get so dang much mail everyday? I won't call it junk mail. If it's something that interests you, it's not junk. You get so much direct mail advertising because it generates response. What works and what doesn't is the Holy Grail of direct marketing. And I think you know they have not found that yet. Read the rest of this entry »

When is the last time you wrote a news release? Not just a blurb on your website, or a Facebook entry. The hard copy paper news release still has value. If for no other reason than so few are produced and sent these days, and electronic emailed or posted releases are easier than ever to disseminate. Read the rest of this entry »

Unlike most professionals in the marketing business, I learned my craft from the top down. Although I had been in the business of promotion my entire career, I did not work as a professional public relations practitioner until early 1980 when I started my first PR firm. Honestly, I had little idea about what to do. Read the rest of this entry »

An entrepreneur has a dream—an idea for a new product, or business that has been bouncing around inside his or her head for a long time. Some way, somehow, the funds are obtained and that dream starts its journey to becoming reality. As a marketing person I pay more attention than most to new businesses opening. And closing. I've opened and closed a couple of my own, so I understand the hard work that it takes and the disappointment when things don't go as expected. Read the rest of this entry »