Author: Lisa Chapman

Guide your Business Marketing

Are you an Information Junkie? I certainly am. I find myself online searching and researching, sometimes going down rabbit holes that are really just wild journeys off the beaten path.

I find sites and authors with marketing information that interests me, I click on links, switch tracks, click on more links and before I know it, I don’t even remember what I was looking for in the first place. But it was FUN!

Infographics for Marketing

Especially captivating in my online travels, I sometimes hit upon what I call the “motherlode” – a pocket of information that is just jam-packed with concise, meaningful, practical, valuable content that is actually worth saving. That’s why I’m sharing this post with you. It’s the motherlode of online marketing infographics.

“Ten Awesome Infographics to Guide Your Marketing Plan for 2014” is a post written by Belle Beth Cooper, Content Crafter at Buffer. Here’s a summary of Belle’s ten best (in her own words):

1. 20 Captivating Marketing Statistics that will Drive 2014

This infographic from WebDAM looks ahead to 2014 to explore the trends and changes we can expect. One statistic that really surprised me was about the growth of internet advertising: by 2015, this will make up almost 25% of the entire ad market.

2. Email Cheatsheet

Marketo‘s email marketing infographic has some really interesting stats, including how the time you send an email affects the open rate. One that jumped out at me was that 75% of smartphone owners say they are highly likely to delete emails they can’t read on their phones.

3. How to Increase LinkedIn Engagement by 386%

This infographic from Quick Sprout has some really handy tips for getting involved in LinkedIn. It includes useful stats like 60% of LinkedIn members are interested in industry insights and posting on weekday mornings will help you to reach more people.

4. Tumblr Numbers: The Rapid Rise of Social Blogging

In case you thought social blogging was dying, this Mashable infographic will clear things up. An interesting point about Tumblr’s userbase is that the demographics are almost evenly split between male and female users.

5. Infographic: The Lifecycle of a Web Page on StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon has been around for a while, but I didn’t know that much about how it worked. This infographic from Column Five Media breaks down the lifecycle of a web page on the service and sheds light on some interesting stats. For instance, 51 pages are added to StumbleUpon every minute. That’s a lot of content.

6. The Ridiculously Exhaustive Social Media Dimensions Blueprint

This infographic from Tent Social is a more practical one which will hopefully come in handy for your marketing efforts in 2014. It includes details on the dimensions recommended (or required) for images and videos on each social network. And it’s being constantly updated, so it’s a good one to save as a reference.

7. Geosocial Universe 3.0

Geosocial isn’t quite on the tips of our tongues these days like it once was, but it’s still a big part of how we use social media—particularly from our mobile devices. This JESS3 infographic explores the Geosocial Universe and looks at what services are popular and growing, and what percentage of their users are on mobile.

8. Social Media Shortcuts

Another practical infographic—this time from the team at quintly. This one includes some handy, time-saving shortcuts for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

9. Blogging statistics

Some of the most interesting stats about how the blogosphere operates and more interestingly, how much money the biggest blogs generate every year. Here’re some great tips to get your blogging up to date.

10. 25 Awesome Content Marketing Tools to Use In 2014

Looking for the best content marketing tools in 2014? We’ve got you covered! Here’s a terrific list for you to make finding the best tools the easiest with a concise overview of all of them.

Do you have additional suggestions for timely marketing Infographics?

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is now available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Does Chris Brogan Know How?

I subscribe to Chris Brogan’s weekly newsletter. But he doesn’t really call it a newsletter. And it comes out every Sunday morning. First thing. That’s why I find it so intriguing. It’s not on a business day, so it’s more personal. He always uses my name in the first or second line. And he spends a moment connecting in conversation – consistently talking about the different teas he likes – is drinking now as we speak, or how we’re sitting down to have a relaxing moment to chat (except that we don’t get to talk.)

Chris positions himself as TRANSPARENT. That’s why when he sells something, it doesn’t really feel like he’s selling. He’s promoting himself in a way that doesn’t FEEL like promotion. In fact, he wants each and every one of us to feel that he’s accessible and trustworthy (I think we trust people when they disclose stuff about themselves and act in a humble way. That’s what Chris does.)

And when he started selling ads in his newsletter, he was totally upfront about it, even asking his readers where the best position is. Are they better placed at the beginning? At the end? Middle?

Chris promises to answer all emails. So I sent him one. And by gosh, he responded. Not only did he respond, but he thanked me for contacting him – twice! And he really truly IS transparent. Here is the list of disclosures on his website:

Chris Brogan’s Disclosures and Relationships

• I am President and CEO of Human Business Works, a business design company.
• I work for New Marketing Labs, LLC, a social marketing and media company, and the Pulse Network, as Entrepreneur in Residence.
• I am co-Founder of PodCamp, an unconference series.
• I have written for Entrepreneur Magazine
• I write for SUCCESS Magazine
• I have written for American Express OPENForum
• I am an advertising partner for Federated Media. (Check there if you want to place ads with me).
• I am on the Advisory board for Hubspot
• I am on the Advisory board for IZEA
• I am cofounder of Third Tribe Marketing (affiliate link)
• I sometimes use Amazon Affiliate links to point to books I’ve reviewed.
• I’m an affiliate for Premise (affiliate link)
• I’m an affiliate for Screenflow (affiliate link)
• I’m an affiliate for Aweber email service.
• I’m an affiliate for Mark Dykeman’s Unstuck (ebook)
• I use Skimlinks to monetize some product sales on this site.
• I am an affiliate for the Genesis WordPress theme.
• I am an affiliate for Hootsuite.
• I am an affiliate for Fill Your Stadium.
• I am an affiliate for 1automationwiz.com
• I am an affiliate for Fear to Fuel
• I am an affiliate for Chris Pearson‘s DIY Themes site for the Thesis WordPress theme.
• I am an affiliate for Inmotion Hosting for sites other than chrisbrogan.com
• I am an affiliate for the Standard WordPress theme.
• I am an affiliate for Chris Garrett’s Guest Posting ebook.
• I am an affiliate for Teaching Sells, from Brian Clark (Because I think the product is worth it).
• I am an affiliate for Scribe SEO, also from Brian Clark (but am still getting the hang of using it).
• I am an affiliate for Chris Guillebeau’s Empire Builder Kit, because he’s good people.
• I am an affiliate for Rapid Videoblogging
• I am an affiliate for Beyond Blogging (because I’m in the book).
• I am a proud affiliate of Tourism Currents (because my friends Becky and Sheila put a lot of work into it).
• My site hosting is sponsored by Rackspace Cloud (*and* I’m an affiliate for them, now).
• I am an affiliate for The Biz Web Coach (Jim’s a friend)
• I have occasionally put affiliate sales links in posts older than 10 days. If they are explicit ads for a specific product, they are products or services I endorse. Those links are explicit.
• If they are Google Adsense, it’s whatever Google thought was relevant.
• I took money for an ad from CEA
• I took money for an ad from eBillMe
• Pure Digital gave me a Flip video camera to review.
• Nikon USA gave me a D60 to review (later to purchase).
• Nikon USA gave me a D300s to review (so far).
• Garmin sent me a Nuvi 200 to review (to be returned).
• BatchBlue gave me an upgraded account to review.
• FreshBooks gave me an upgraded account to review.
• Saddleback Leather sent me a messenger bag to review.
• Kodak sent me a Zx1 to play with, and then the new one .. forget the name.
• Hanes paid for a trip to Walt Disney World for me to meet and talk to them about their products and efforts.
• I am sent NUMEROUS books to review. I’ll only review the ones I like, unless I suspect you might like it, too.

This is quite a disclosure list! Did you notice all the affiliate relationships? He probably wouldn’t have them if they didn’t make him money. You know, in my opinion, all these things are working for him. And he’s willing to disclose much more.

How to Make More Money

So what does it have to do with Making More Money? Well, Chris’ newsletter this week is entitled, “How to Make More Money”. The very first line starts with: “I’m so happy, Lisa!” – remember, using my first name right away. But enough about that. Chris sells a course for folks who work hard online but don’t make the money they hoped to make. It’s called “Mastering the Digital Channel.”

Maybe it’ll help you make more money. Thank you, Chris. I hope it’s a cash cow for you, too.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is now available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

@NFIB – National Federation of Independent Business

NFIB (“The voice of small business”) is America’s leading small business association; promoting & protecting the right of its members to own, operate and grow their businesses. NFIB started out small. One man, Wilson Harder, founded the organization in 1943. Harder began with a home office and sold the first memberships to his neighbors. Harder’s vision was to give small and independent business a voice in governmental decision making through policy advocacy.

Today, they help businesses grow and flourish in many ways, including helping business owners with marketing and advertising. Recently, one of their articles caught my eye and I think you’ll enjoy learning about the companies that’ve been helped.

According to NFIB’s article, “Using Instagram, small business owners can instantly put a face to their businesses’ name—and watch their customer relationships and sales flourish as a result.”

Instagram’s developers describe their platform as a “quirky,” “fun” and “beautiful” way to share photos: You can snap a picture on your mobile device, apply a vintage-inspired filter, and then instantly push that content out to multiple social media channels simultaneously.

But beneath the app’s playful appeal is a powerful way to market your services and connect with customers. Using Instagram, small business owners can instantly put a face to their business —and watch their customer relationships and sales flourish as a result

Three business owners explain how they have adopted Instagram as a marketing tool.

Build Your Brand

Michael Satterfield, owner of Morgan’s and Phillip’s, an automotive-inspired apparel retailer, uses Instagram as a window into his business as well as his life. Satterfield’s Instagram feed reflects what is important to him on a daily basis. For him, that includes his dog and grilled pork burgers as much as it includes the T-shirts he sells.

He insists that when people feel personally connected to a brand, they’re more likely to “follow” your business on Twitter and Instagram and “friend” you on Facebook. Each social media channel is another venue to advertise your product.

“We just posted new shirts for summer,” Satterfield says. “And we’ve already gotten ‘likes.’ It’s a great way to showcase things, especially if you’re a visual-based company.”

Share Your Expertise

Valeen Parubchenko, director of Private Picassos, which provides private art lessons in New York City, uses Instagram to document her students’ art projects from start to finish. Many of her business leads come from parents sharing and commenting on the photos, as well as people who happened to stumble across them in a search.

“I don’t do any paid advertising, so it’s a way to encourage your client to do the marketing for you,” Parubchenko says.

Harness the Power of Hashtags

Hashtags, which look like the pound symbol, corral search results into relevant categories and conversations on Instagram’s website. For instance, Satterfield may include the tags #classiccar or #hotrod along with the tag #morgansandphillips, so people who are searching for photos of classic cars will stumble across photos of his automotive-inspired apparel.

“Direct sales will come from using the correct hashtag,” Satterfield says. “When you log in, you’ll be notified if you have comments [on the photos]. Maybe people are asking when or where [the product] is available. Instantly reply to those and point people to your website, where they can buy the shirt.”

Meghan Ely, owner of OFD Consulting, a wedding consulting firm, uses hashtags to connect with her industry peers.

“I might be at an industry event or a conference and I’ll upload and tag a photo [from the event] with the appropriate hashtag,” Ely says. “That way, I can find clients and colleagues who are doing the same thing I am.” This type of real-time photo sharing can spark a conversation, deepen current colleague and client relationships and let potential clients know that you’re keeping up with trends in your industry.

Have you tried Instagram?

Thanks to National Federation of Independent Business for content

Follow this 3-step method for building a self-generating list machine.

Ever wonder how they do it? Seems that every day you run across internet marketers who clearly have extensive email lists. And it appears to be to working for their business, because they use the list again and again. It’s impressive, but it’s not a secret. It’s actually quite simple – and easy!

This system is used and promoted by David Frey, the Founder of MarketingBlogger.com and the author of the best selling book, “The Small Business Marketing Bible”. (David Frey is a marketing guru. He must be, because he graduated high school 497th of 512, with a D-average – but wrote a book on how to make straight A’s in school “MaketheGrade.com”!) Here’s how he builds lists:

#1 Create a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet solves a very big problem for your target audience. That makes sense, right? What do you do when you sit down at the Google search bar? Well, you type keywords for the problem you’re trying to solve. For example, you’re in the skin care business. What are people looking for? A solution for clearing acne. A solution for covering acne. A way to save money on acne treatment. You could name a dozen more. These are all Lead Magnets. Now write an article or other informational content about it that you can offer online, simply by asking for your visitor for their email address.

Content can be in the form of:

• Videos
• eBooks
• Articles
• Blog posts
• Podcasts
• Audio

Frey suggests that you give it a catchy name, then write 3-4 bullet points about what this product will do for you.

#2 Create a Landing Page

Use a very simple landing page to showcase your product. According to Frey, it should contain:

• A very compelling headline
• A few bullets about the magnet
• An optin form (email address only)
• A graphic of the lead magnet
• (optional) A call to action video
• Admin info (address, legal stuff…)

#3 Drive Traffic to the Page

Now this is where you’re going to be relieved. It’s simple! According to Frey:

“Now that you have a simple, but high converting landing page, all you have to do is drive traffic to that. There are a gazillion ways to drive traffic, but you should focus on mastering only 2 methods.

Just pick 2 methods that work and focus ONLY on those 2 methods.

Here’s a list of possible traffic tactics…

1. Pay per click

2. Article marketing

3. Blog commenting

4. Video submissions

5. Forum marketing

Just pick 2 and focus, focus, focus on those 2 methods. Before you know it, you’ll have thousands of people joining your list. That’s it.

Easy, simple, fast.”

So, there you have it. If you enjoyed this approach, you may want to check out Frey’s other simple marketing techniques that work. He’s gone from D- to Philanthropist!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is now available at:

· Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

· Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Guest Author: Dustin Heap

Defined as less than 500 employees, small businesses today literally make up an astounding 99% of U.S. businesses. Further, according to the State Department, almost 20 million people work for companies employing less than 20 people. In light of these statistics, it’s easy to see the need for savvy small business marketing by owners across the United States. As the marketplace and consumers become increasingly more digital, marketing is even more important in regards to online visibility. Small business owners can follow the tips below to establish a foundation of strong online marketing and increase their visibility in the very competitive online space.

Make Your Site Seen

There are few fundamental elements essential to online visibility. You wouldn’t build a house without a strong foundation and you shouldn’t build a website without one either. Just like with laying a foundation there are some things you first need to avoid to successfully complete the job. Some of the elements to avoid in order to give your website a strong foundation and visibility online include a website without heavy usage of iframes, splash pages, restricted access by login, and Javascript navigational elements.

After avoiding the aforementioned elements there are many things you need to have to build a strong website. One of the major must haves is a website that uses HTML 5 and CSS best practices to ensure that search engine robots can access and “crawl” the website by jumping from HTML link to HTML link. While this may sound foreign and complex to non-digital business owners, most content management platforms today, such as WordPress, come with websites that are designed with SEO best practices in mind. If moving to or creating a new site isn’t an option, then owners should work with their web developer to ensure that SEO best practices are followed as much as possible to ensure maximum visibility from the search engines.

Other quick fixes for website owners can include ensuring that the robots.txt file is not preventing the website from being indexed, optimizing on page tags such as the title and meta tags, and setting up a Webmaster account with the search engines and submitting a sitemap.

With a strong foundation in place, business owners can turn their focus to both onsite and offsite efforts to attract visitors and increase visibility.

Regular Expert Content

One of the best things small business owners can do to increase online visibility is to create unique and expert content on a company blog. Again, this option will be most effective if you’ve made your website search friendly, so be sure to start there. As alluded to previously a 3rd party web developer should be able to include some kind of blogging platform that allows owners to produce content. Even if an entire site redesign isn’t possible with a little bit of custom work this can be put in place as needed.

Creating content by blogging regularly provides many advantages to small business owners. First, it establishes the business as an authority on any given topic. This authority helps communicate to the search engines that your website should appear in search results because it is evident that you would be useful to searchers.

Another by-product of creating such content is that it attracts links. Search engines use links much like votes in an election. The more you have, the more likely you are to appear when users in your area search for your type of business.

Finally, creating this content provides an easy way to answer frequently asked questions, engage with current and potential customers, and communicate company news and promotions.

Regular content creation brings a myriad of benefits and really only requires that someone internally make time to get it written and posted on a company blog.

Business Profile Pages

Another easy and inexpensive way to increase visibility is to list your small business in online business directory sites. These sites include such examples as Yelp, Superpages and many others. While I’ve explained in detail how to build these local listings elsewhere, there are several benefits of doing so that are worth mentioning here.

The first benefit is that these “local citations,” as they are called in online parlance, are vital to ranking for geographic related searches. This simply means that you are more likely to appear for searches done by people in your city or town by having these types of listings online.

Another benefit is that sometimes the listing on the external site ranks highly in the search results by itself. This is because a website like Yelp is viewed as very authoritative by Google. Thus, by listing your business there, your business profile may be the one to show up. When this happens, you instantly get more visibility and there is a good chance that users will then click over to your actual website.

Lastly, having many different business profiles set up gives your customers the ability to leave a positive review of your business on their preferred website. These reviews will then be seen by more potential customers and potentially lead to increased sales. In fact, 52% of consumers are more likely to buy from a local business with positive reviews and 72% trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations from friends or family.

While online marketing may seem daunting to an owner or business first getting started, it doesn’t have to be. By implementing a solid foundation, creating regular unique content, and creating business listings online a small business owner can make a huge impact on the bottom line for a small cost.

Author Bio:

Dustin Heap works at Signs.com as a digital marketer. Signs.com is leading custom sign shop offering custom signage to clients across the United States. Dustin has previously worked both on the organic and paid side of search and with small businesses in a wide variety of industries.

Guest Author: Darren DeMatas

5 Steps To Create a Balanced Content Marketing Strategy

What is Content Marketing?

There’s no doubt that content marketing is growing momentum as an industry buzzword. But what is it really? Simply put, content marketing is creating and distributing customer-centric content that is relevant, educational, minus the sales pitch.

According to eMarketer, more and more companies are shifting their focus to content marketing and using it as a lead generation tool. But why?

Content marketing helps you connect with your target market in an unobtrusive manner. By understanding how your customers discover and connect with your services, you will be able to guide them through the decision making process and position your company as a solution to their problem. If you are looking to build a content marketing strategy, these 5 steps can get you started:

1. Identify Online Communities Where Your Customers Are Active

Social networking within your industry can build credibility with your peers, but you can’t stop there. Look for discussions and forums in your customers’ industry and you will find a wealth of active online communities that are mostly ignored by outsiders. A good place to start is Google+ and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an optimal tool as it will actually tell you how active a certain community is.

2. Listen To Discussions And Identify Customer Pain Points

Once you join the community, you can search within the community for terms related to what you offer. While you are listening to conversations, you will identify customer challenges that you can help solve. After you have surveyed the community and understand how much they talk about your service, you can start to engage your audience. The crucial element is: do NOT hard sell. Don’t even talk about your company in these communities. It’s tempting, but you have to resist the urge to send a link to your “get a quote” page.

3. Plan Content Marketing Around Customer Challenges and High Impact Search Terms

When you are active in online communities, members will start to look up your social profiles. Make sure that you have plenty of free advice for them waiting. It is critical to time your engagement with strategic posts both on social media and blogs, where you have more control over the messaging.

A business blog can help customers discover your content. You should have identified a series of questions that emerged from your listening. Now is your chance to respond and connect with your audience on your blog. Your blog posts should include topics you uncovered during your listening and high impact traffic terms. To figure out high impact search terms, look for keywords with high search volume and low competition. A great keyword research tool is the Google Keyword Planner. This tool will give you search volume and keyword ideas. Another useful tool is Google Trends. With this tool, you can compare trends of keyword searches over time. These tools can help make sure you base your blog content strategy on topics that are gaining popularity. You wouldn’t want to put all that effort into content that no one searches for, right?

4. Content Building

There is always a new challenge facing a customer. If you spend adequate time refining your listening and content creation, you will end up with valuable customer-centric content worth paying for. By giving it away, you will generate targeted leads of people that need your help. Once you attract them to your site, offer them a free white paper or eBook. You can also ask them to sign up for your newsletter. Email marketing is a powerful way to nurture leads and convert them into customers.

When developing an effective content marketing strategy, don’t limit it to just the internet. Sales collateral, brochures and even datasheets should incorporate the key messaging you’ve created during the content development process. Consistency between digital and traditional media is critical for building trust and credibility.

5.Ongoing Repetition

Don’t abandon your communities once you drum up some business. Keep offering free advice. Don’t be the first to share links to your content; let others do so first. When members of the community start “liking” and sharing your comments and links, you are one step closer to being a credible resource to the community.

Online communities and discussion topics will come and go as the market changes. It’s critical that you continue to listen so your content will not be stagnant. No one wants dated solutions to their problems. This is especially true for internet marketing. SEO and social media strategies of yesteryear may not be as effective today.

Author Bio:

Darren DeMatas is a marketing strategy consultant that specializes in internet marketing and brand development. Prior to his consulting work, he was Product Marketing Manager at Web.com/Network Solutions. Darren has 10+ years of marketing management experience and an MBA in Internet Marketing.

“How and when will this generate sales?” That’s what entrepreneurs typically ask themselves when investing in marketing. “And that is the completely WRONG question to ask,” says marketing expert David Newman.

In his new book, DO IT! MARKETING (at this link you can download a free strategic marketing ebook), Newman reveals the right questions to ask, right away, for marketing a small business with a big impact – both online and off. It all builds on these four fundamental insights:

Insight #1: You need to sell the same way that you buy.

When was the last time you snapped up an offer from spam e-mail? When’s the last time you gave your credit card number over to a cold caller who interrupted your dinner? As a customer, you don’t buy from any company based on its spam, cold calls, postcards, or text pitches. So, why do you expect any customer—let alone, lots of eager customers—to buy based on yours? The right question to ask, in Newman’s book: What value have I added to my prospect’s world in order to earn the right to invite them to a conversation and offer my solution to their problems, headaches, heartaches, and challenges?

Insight #2: Referrals rock, but they’re not everything.

“I don’t need to do any marketing because 99 percent of my business is repeat and referral business.” Maybe that’s what you tell yourself. Do you seriously think that referrals don’t check you out online before picking up the phone? What messages are you sending to valued referrals with an outdated website and abandoned Twitter account? The right questions to ask, in Newman’s book: Does my overall online presence reassure and reinforce the referrals I earn? Does it contain the most current, credible, and relevant positioning, content, and resources to make my advocates look better—not worse—for referring me?

Insight #3: Trusted advisor marketing is a four-layer enchilada.

The first layer—at the core—is your reputation. But if you stop there, you’ll have a very hard time attracting new prospects to your doorstep. The second layer is amplification—ways to make your signal stronger (such as social media marketing and niche PR). The third layer is leverage. This is where you begin to capitalize on your trusted advisor assets (such as white papers, podcasts, or a blog) and reach out to higher-probability prospects. The fourth layer is gravity. Though it takes a long time to get it spinning, the power of momentum—which brings more leads, better prospects, and bigger opportunities—is hard to stop. The right questions to ask, in Newman’s book: Do you want to make more sales to strangers? Or do you want people to recognize, respect, and request you by name when they have a need, project, or problem that you truly are the perfect expert to handle?

Insight #4: Your what comes last.

“What should be my company name? What’s the best headline for this sales letter? What tagline will attract the right customers?”… When it comes to your marketing, what is always the wrong first question to ask. Imagine being asked to write a letter. Before focusing on the what, you first need to know to whom the letter should be addressed (your favorite aunt, your high school sweetheart, the President) and then why you are writing. Once you know who and why, what to say is a piece of cake—because you feel connected with the unique recipient of your message for a specific purpose. The right questions to ask, in Newman’s book: To whom am I marketing and why? Figure out who you’re talking to, talk to them for a specific, compelling, relevant reason, understanding who they are and what’s important to them. Say it so they get it – value it – and ultimately buy it. That’s how smart marketing is supposed to work.

Download a free strategic marketing ebook by David Newman: www.doitmarketing.com

Adapted from DO IT! MARKETING: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Boost Sales, Maximize Profits, and Crush Your Competition by David Newman (AMACOM; June 20, 2013; $19.95 Hardcover; ISBN: 978-0-8144-3286-0).

About the Author:

David Newman is the founder of Do It! Marketing, a marketing strategy coaching and consulting firm whose clients range from independent professionals to executives at Accenture, American Express, Comcast, IBM, KPMG, Microsoft, Oracle, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, among dozens of the Fortune 500.