How (and Why) to do Qualitative Audience Research
Qualitative audience research is a goldmine of customer data that can add many benefits to your marketing. It goes beyond the numbers and looks for feelings and opinions that aren’t always easy to uncover… and they all contribute to growth! It can close the time that...
Before you find your customers do these four things
The worst thing you could do is to have your marketing work and you’re not prepared for the resulting traffic. It’s one of the first questions I ask in a consulting call – how much additional work can you handle? Sounds like a good problem to have, right? But it’s...
Focusing on the Right Things (in Your Marketing)
Focusing on the things that make your business money will help you do more … of what makes you money. Make sense? Of course! However, sometimes it’s more difficult to put into practice than it sounds. There are a few places to look when assessing your marketing....
Marketing Dashboard: A Necessary Tool for Growth
A marketing dashboard let’s you have all your numbers at your fingertips and not only saves time, it also allows you to see correlations and trends more easily. Much like in a car, all the guages on your dashboard are there so you can keep track of what’s...
Building Trust vs. Authority in Marketing
Does your marketing inspire trust? Does your marketing demand authority? The difference between trust and authority when it comes to marketing your small business is oceans apart. And although both are seen as desirable for a business to have, it’s only one of these...
B2B Marketing Tactics: Driving your Lead Nurturing Strategy
A lead nurturing strategy is a must-have for any business wanting to maximize b2b sales. In fact, in any b2b business you should be implementing some sort of inbound marketing to attract leads. This shouldn’t mean that inbound is your only sales tactic. But when...
B2C versus B2B Marketing Tactics
Many people think b2b marketing and b2c marketing is the same thing. You know, ads, social media, events, etc. They all do the same tactics. Well, it isn’t the same- not really. So what is b2c marketing? What is b2b marketing? I’m glad you asked. There’s...
5 Effective B2B Lead Generation Tactics
B2B Lead generation is tough (understatement of 2020)! However, it’s not impossible. The beginning of any marketing tactic starts with good research and b2b is no different. Knowing your target audience is the key to making any of the following tactics successful....
Email Subject Lines that Inspire Opens
Email subject line formula that helps you inspire opens and build relationships with your followers.
A Guide to Tracking your Marketing Conversions
So, you’ve built out a marketing campaign or two for your small business and now you need to start tweaking it to improve the sales conversion rate. Smart move. You should always aim to maximize what you have in place! If you don’t know your KPIs yet then you should...
Why Followers Matter
Many marketers will (correctly) tell you not to focus on the numbers. ‘Vanity numbers’ they’re affectionately referred to. And while you shouldn’t get caught up in your number of followers just for the sake of bragging about said number, there is value in followers if...
Mapping Your Small Business Marketing
Running and building a small business is a tough road. Each day is filled with sometimes simple but sometimes complex choices that drive your business forward (or stalls it). This is where a roadmap can help. When I say roadmap I don’t mean those thick multi-year...
Performing a Content Audit
Create a content audit for your small business and get more traction from your content going forward.
The Impact of Outsourcing your Marketing
Outsourcing your marketing has many benefits to a small business looking for support. Namely, it provides specific and strategic help to allow for growth.
Marketing Automation for Small Business
Small business automation is vital for any professional service business. Learn the ins and outs with a few cautions.
Identifying Opportunities
It can be difficult to know what to choose when faced with what looks to be a golden opportunity but you’re unsure how it fits into the overall plan you have for your business. What would appear at first blush to be tempting may actually close doors down the way...
Knowing where you stand as a small business
Knowing where you stand in the market and among your competitors is vitally important for a business of any size but can offer key insights for a small business. Whether you are starting with an idea or just getting around to this piece of the puzzle, it is an...
Effective Messaging for Small Business
Need help writing a few words about your business that resonates with your prospects? Here to help!
How to Choose a Niche Market for Your Small Business
Choosing a niche in your small business can feel like you’re leaving money on the table when in reality you’re putting more ON the table. Here are a few things to help you find that small business niche.
Where to Market your Small Business
Like many small businesses, you probably rely on referrals. Congratulations on being so great at what you do! Referrals are an excellent source of new business and very little effort goes into landing it as they usually come from a trusted source. However, referrals...
Three things to do for marketing success
Marketing success isn’t easy for all service businesses.Convincing prospects of buying the intangible can be a true challenge if you’re new to marketing. Afterall, you’re the expert in your service and not necessarily in promoting your service. Catch...
Is Your Marketing Creeping Out Your Prospects? Creepy Marketing 101
How to creep out prospects: Schedule a first time meeting at your prospect’s favourite cafe Send push-notification every time they walk by the store Send a prospect an email, even though they never opted-in for your newsletter or to be your subscriber...
Building an Effective Marketing Strategy – from scratch
It can be tough to sit down and craft your own marketing strategy as an entrepreneur or small business owner. After all, you already have a few balls in the air: sales, client work, overhead, finances, etc. The process of defining a marketing strategy is an excellent...
Social Media Management is Much More Than Posting Content
Many people think that social media management is easy based on the idea that social media is only about posting content. In my opinion, social media management is not easy, and it is much more than just posting and sharing content on social media. If you want to grow...
The Dark Social: What is it and Why Should You Care?
I recently attended a local marketing event hosted by Institute of Communication Agencies, where Adam Pattison, VP of BBM for the Americas and EMEA, was speaking and the topic was one I hadn’t heard much about – Dark Social. The name alone conjures thoughts of the...
Simple Ways to Build Awareness for Your Business
Building awareness is the first step in marketing your business. Making sure your prospects know you exist and what you offer is the first part of selling. It’s important to be the business that stands out from the pool of competitors and to spark interest in...
Qualifying Your Prospects
Gone are the days where you can simply dump more leads into your sales funnel to produce more sales. To make the most of your sales time you should be spending time with only those prospects that are genuinely interested in your product or service. But how do you...
The Importance of Targeting Your Prospects
For any organisation it’s fair to say that you wouldn’t turn away good business. So why limit who you market your services or products to? Seems like common sense, right? It’s not. It’s actually very poor thinking when it comes to your marketing. To market to a wide...
Avoiding the Spam Filter: 7 Best Practices for Successful Email Marketing
I’m sure we all have seen spammy emails for those work from home job ads. It’s spam. If you see spam in your inbox, your first instinct is to trash it and forget about it. Seeing spam in your email is the worst, but many email clients do a good job of filtering...
Why Your Website is Important
It’s a cornerstone of any business – the website. It can attract prospects, generate leads, build credibility, and even make sales on your behalf! Yet there are still those businesses out there that consider their website a waste of money and not worthy of...
Short, Satisfying, and “Snackable” Content
What’s your favourite snack? Choosing just one can be hard because there are so many options to choose from. (If I had to pick only one, it would be spicy shrimp chips.) Snacks are great because you can eat them quickly and it satisfies a craving or hunger. I’m...
How Much Should you Budget for Marketing?
This is a common and complicated question that I get asked a lot. And to be honest it’s different for each client. However, the guidelines are always the same. Base your budget on a percentage of your revenue It’s common to use anywhere from 3-10% on marketing...
Defining and Redefining Your Business Processes
At a certain stage of growth, you will need to look at how you are doing your business – what are the processes involved and can they be more efficient to bring better growth or revenue to your business. Establishing your processes for the first time and identifying...
Creating an Employee Culture
Investing in staff seems to be a dying practice for organizations. As an employee’s time at a company becomes shorter and shorter (compared to previous generations) I can understand that companies are reluctant to invest in development. Instead I see a lot of other...
7 Easy Ways to Promote Your Event
Creating and running an event can be an insane amount of work but the planning is only half the job. The biggest and most stressful part is the promotion. Getting the seats filled or tickets sold will make or break the event so a certain priority needs to be placed on...
Finger Puzzle Failures in Marketing
It’s like a finger puzzle – as you start to panic, the act of pulling and jerking only tightens the grip of the thing you’re trying to get out of. I’m talking about a failed marketing campaign. The panic you can feel as the end comes near (and you’re not where you...
5 New Year’s Resolutions for Small Business Growth
Now is the time to start setting your goals and resolutions for next year. I don’t know about you, but I usually fall flat on my resolutions by about March. However, when my resolutions are connected to goals I usually do much better at them. Here are a few you may...
3 Best Holiday Ads for 2016
As a marketing consultant I pay special attention to the ads running around the winter holiday season. Sometimes the ones I like also resonate with others, but I pay special attention to when they don’t because that’s where I learn. Below are my picks of...