Don't Be A "Nowhere Man"

Are you Marketing in a Nowhere Land and making Nowhere adjustments to your marketing position and Customer No-Service?

Seth Godin writes about the success of a show in which the performer is not acting but being.

Trying To Put The Garage inside the Car

Some things work one way but not the other. Apartments go inside buildings, but buildings do not fit inside apartments. In HTML, div goes inside body but body will not fit in div.

In marketing, Variant testing may be used to tweak an established brand, but an established brand should not be sacrificed for the sake of the results of short-term Variant results.

Anne Holland wrote an article on this topic for her Marketing Sherpa column.

Playing Nice

Community and Alliances are key to long term internet marketing.

But you need to know how to build community and what to do to avoid destroying your relationship with your community.

Jason Drohn offers advice on how to be successful in Social Media marketing. (For the record, Point 5 in his tips should always trump point 9 whenever a question arises over suitability of a new venue.)

How To Establish Your Brand

Branding is NOT the ingredients which you use to support or build your brand.

Your Logo is not your brand. Your Value Proposition is not your brand. Your catch slogan is not your brand. The sign outside your office is not your brand. The design of your website is not your brand. These may help you in supporting your brand (and may not) - they may even make the difference in whether you have a brand or not - but they are merely tools to help you promote your brand.

Your brand is the long-term mental impression which your public has of you. What they remember about how you treated them, what they remember about the goods or services which you sold them, their overall impression of their experience in interacting with you.

Brad VanAuken wrote a good checklist to help you in your efforts to promote your brand in the minds of your public.

How You Say It

Different Media and Different Audiences call for a different style of communication.

The above rule is very difficult for some business owners to grasp. If you have ever seen a Presentation chart crammed with as much info as could be written on a letter size sheet of paper, you know that it is ineffective.

McDonalds usually runs several different campaigns for one new menu item, because they know that what motivates a mother of three does not motivate a teenager.

Susan Getgood wrote an article on the need to know the difference between a Press/News release and an announcement to your userbase.

When to Spend

If you have done any business networking, you have probably run across the amateur who has signed up with an "Anyone Can Do It" type business. Occasionally, some of these entrepreneurs through dedication and persistence develop a credible and profitable business. But a large percentage of those who sign up, are not really dedicated to their business.

Frequently, you can tell who they are, by their attempts to avoid investing in their business. For example, the back of their business card tells you that they got it from a free business card service that sells the exact same design and graphics to hundreds thousands of other amateurs.

Crystal Williams writes an article about the areas in which she thinks an entrepreneur should avoid "Cutting Corners." Disclosure: I still use my residential phone as my business phone.

Don't Pretend to Be Who You Aren't

Have you ever gotten a business card from a one person company that attempted to make it appear that the company was much bigger?

Credibility is key to trust. If I learn that you are not credible then it is harder to trust you.

Admission: Qwerty is a one person consultancy. Sometimes a plural pronoun creeps into my writing or my conversation. I try to avoid this, but it is about as difficult for me to avoid as it is to get a native born Georgian to quit saying "All you alls" or a Wisconsinite to quit saying "Ya betcha." (Those comments are made with affection and not with disparagement. I live in Georgia and have family in Wisconsin.)

Search Marketing Gurus posted an article on Truth In Marketing. (Hey, SMG, let us know which of you are writing each post.)

Clients Decide Your Optimal Price Point

How much should I charge for my services? This is a common question with startups.

The real answer is based on how much your prospects think that your service or product is worth. Therefore, a better question is: "How can I increase the perceived value of my product or service?"

Ryan Allis wrote two articles to answer that question. (First Article, Second Article).

Site Design is more important than ranking

Have you ever clicked on a link and been disappointed when the target site loaded?

If your website's design is unprofessional or obstructive, all the SEO and PPC in the world will not raise your ROI.

Jackie Baker wrote a very important article on why Site Design Drives Conversions.

Marketing Advice from Google Guy

When a Google sales executive offers advice on marketing, the smart entrepreneur pays attention.

Chris Brown reports on ten marketing points made at a recent American Marketing association convention by Google guy, Ted Souder. Read It.

Tactics Killed The Goose

In war, it is extremely important that the officers keep the differences between Mission, Strategy and Tactics clear in their minds. If a strategy does not further the War's ultimate mission, then it is not beneficial. If a tactic does not further the current strategy it is also useless.

Occasionally, a tactic is not only useless it is also detrimental and costly. It can even destroy the mission.

Search Engine ranking is a tactic! How you rank in a search engine may or may not affect the profitability of your business. If your website is very profitable, be cautious concerning making changes to your website solely for the purpose of moving one or two places in ranking.

Qwerty recommends very highly the article: Should You Change Your Copy When Rankings Fall? by Karon Thackston

The Spirit of the Game by Seth Godin

If you succeed by playing by the rules honestly, you have nothing to hide or of which to be ashamed. Those who try to win by breaking the rules are afraid to let their deeds be seen by others.

If you resent competition or fear it, ask yourself how fun it is to play solitaire. I once won an award because no one else entered the contest. I did not talk about that award much afterwards.


Seth Godin says in The Spirit of the Game: "If you keep working to beat the system, you'll end up with no one to play with. Work the system, and you'll win now and later."

Tightening Your Niche Market by Terri Dunevant

One lesson I have learned in business networking is that the entrepreneur who tries to offer every service that they possibly can, quickly loses credibility with other business owners.

Business owners know from experience that both time and money are limited. Expertise in a field of knowledge requires a lot of time and keeping up to date with industry changes requires financial investments.

This article on Jonathan Farrington's blog by Terri Dunevan offers questions and strategies for identifying your most profitable marketing focus.