The Marketing Spotlight

Yes, it has been a while since I’ve updated this blog. I apologise. Life has been interesting, and it has led to a new book project: Getting Happy…when you wish you were dead.

Sometimes happiness is found through a field of sorrow and pain. Or maybe it always is and that’s what makes it possible to appreciate the happiness?

Since this blog is about marketing, let me fill you in on how the marketing is going to work (I hope) for Getting Happy…when you wish you were dead. This blog, www.themarketingspotlight.com, will have updates about what we’re doing to market the book, how those efforts are working, and suggestions for how you can do the same things.

A new site, Read the rest and post a comment

Welcome to this week’s episode of Social Media: Cheap and Easy.

A listener question that has been coming up a lot lately is “How do I connect social media with the rest of my marketing?”

Smart business owners are wanting to let their social media contacts know they have a print newsletter. It’s their most powerful marketing tool, and they want to move potential customers onto a mailing list. When you consider that over 70% of people still prefer to marketed to through mailed promotions, you can see how these business owners are definitely on the right track.

So we start the show off this week with how to connect your offline and online marketing. There are several things you can do to move people off social media sites (EXTREMELY good idea since you don’t own the list when it’s on a social media site), and there’s one particularly important thing you should NOT do.

Making this one mistake can completely destroy Read the rest and post a comment

There’s a lot coming at us in 2012. From mobile marketing and social media, and from an election and poor economy. So we need to be prepared to make good use of our marketing and advertising dollars.

This week, we start with a social media reality check.

Yes, mobile phones and social media are growing presences in the marketplace. They are, however, no where near as big as the cow-pattie gurus want you to believe they are. The idea that you “must have” a Facebook Page or risk losing out to your competition is poppycock. And the numbers back me up – listen to the show and check my sources for yourself.

You can listen right away by streaming the audio, or click “Download” and take the show with you on your phone, tablet or MP3 player.

We also take a quick look at a company that’s doing social media very well. It’s Collective Bias, and their primary social media tool is blogging. All of their results are trackable, and highly Read the rest and post a comment

Welcome to 2012, and the first episode of Social Media: Cheap and Easy for the year.

This week, I’m making some predictions. Nine of them, with maybe a bonus one thrown in at the end because “10″ sounds so much better than “9.”

We kick off with an economic prediction for 2012 because business owners are always interested in what the economy is doing, right?

Prediction #2 is about Cause Marketing. We’ll see it rise in 2012, and I give you a couple of
good examples to follow. Plus a key piece of advice for making Cause Marketing work for you.

Prediction #3 – The Rise Of The Machines – or at least digital assistants. You too can have the crazy person look by talking to your technology. But all joking aside, I think programs like Siri are great. Although they’re likely to reduce productivity, and increase the frequency of bathroom conversation.

Prediction #4 – A resurgence Read the rest and post a comment

As predicted, the leaders and achievers are standing out from the OWS crowd.

GlobalRevolution.tv has moved from a tarp in Zucotti park to a second floor office in NoHo (North of Houston), and is being led by a former Wall Street derivatives trader, Vlad Teichberg.

On the other side of the country, OWS protesters are depriving the working class of their pay checks by blockading ports.

As surely as oil floats over water, and cream rises to the top of milk, it is inevitable that leaders stand out in a movement. Even while they’re insisting that it’s a team effort. In this case, it’s Vlad Teichberg who has become the face of GlobalRevolution.tv.

GlobalRevolution.tv started out under a tarp in Zucotti park. After weeks of frustration due to equipment theft and fighting the elements, they made the wise business decision to seek a secure – and weatherproof – site for their budding media Read the rest and post a comment

The Web is Dead, Social Media is Saturated, and Social Business is Our Future…

At least this is what George Colony, CEO of Forrester Research, thinks. He unveiled these predictions during his presentation at LeWeb in Paris this year. I caught this story through the Logic & Emotion blog, and decided to include it in this week’s episode of Social Media: Cheap and Read the rest and post a comment

Article first published as Small Business Conquers the Corporations on Blogcritics.

Little Dudes and Divas is going head-to-head with the likes of Nordstrom, Macy’s, Babies “R” Us and even Diapers.com.

This small business does 90% of their sales through the internet and the rest through their brick-and-mortar store in Rockaway Park, N.Y. Even with the bulk of their business being done online, the founders of this company say their greatest strength is relationships with customers.

Steve and Susan Karasanti founded Little Dudes and Divas seven years ago. They sell clothes and accessories for infants and toddlers – everything from diapers and stroller blankets to diaper bags car seat covers – and now have 3 employees. They ship around the world and are always ready to help a customer find what Read the rest and post a comment

Vlad Teichbert and GlobalRevolution.TV are the first capitalist effort of OWS. And Vlad is getting the media attention to make it work.

Having been covered by the New York Times and Huffinton Post, and even getting his own caricature in The New Yorker, Vlad has gone from being a derivatives trader working for Deutsche Bank to OWS pariticpant to budding media mogul. Although he currently lives in a squat with his pregnant wife, Vlad hopes the media project takes off and provides an income.

Read the rest and post a comment

As I have been predicting, the Occupy Wall Street movement is splitting.

The leaders and achievers in OWS are producing a live media outlet (article from New York Times) while the OWS wanna-bes and masses are organizing protests that hurt the working man (article from USA Today). Listen to this week’s show to know what’s happening and where the OWS movement is going.

Then we look at one small business that is succeeding – online – against Read the rest and post a comment

Several things have happened over the last year that are now resulting in great rewards for Small Business Marketing. And with those rewards come some risks.

The first is a service called ValuText. You can guess from the name that it lets you send text messages to people who have opted-in to receive them. And it does far more than just that.

ValuText allows you to be very targeted about who receives your message, and when. This gives you huge potential for creating events and promotions specific to your location, the day of the week, even a change in weather.

It also carries a significant risk for how you use it. Many retailers are going to be caught in a laziness trap. Be sure you rise above the crowd, and leave your competitors behind, by injecting personality and experience into your use of this very practical and profitable service.

Listen to this week’s Read the rest and post a comment