Check the health of your brand in this branding reality check-up with Jay Ehret and tagline specialist Jim Morris (a.k.a. Tagline Jim)

This branding reality check up helps you analyze how your business is doing in three core branding functions: Branding Foundation, Brand Identity, Brand Integration. If you find your brand is not healthy, register for the free branding webinar on January 20th: Branding U - Revive, Refresh, Revitalize your brand for 2010: Webinar Registration

Also, get information on Jay's full day webinar: Building an Awesome Brand, to be presented in Dallas on April 23rd at Optimization Summit 2010. Get more information and a discount code here: Building an Awesome Brand

SHOW NOTES

Get complete show notes, including links and the Branding Checkup Examination on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://budurl.com/BRCheckup

Will the social media bubble burst? What's the real value of inbound marketing? What's the effect of price advertising? Should you be pitching journalists?

Marketers at the Roundtable:

• Spike Jones of Brains on Fire
• Jay Ehret of The Marketing Spot (host & moderator)
• Chris Wilson of Fresh Peel
• Joan Stewart the Publicity Hound

Get complete show notes on The Marketing Spot blog:  http://bizy.be/stOEe

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Coming to The Marketing Spot Blog in January, "Building a Better Brand" series of articles and webinar. Be sure to subscribe to the blog to receive details: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

Featuring customer experience expert John DiJulius and host Jay Ehret. DiJulius is author of the book: What's the Secret to Providing a World-Class Customer Experience. Discussion about the customer satisfaction crisis and how your business can provide a world-class customer experience.

John DiJulius is hired by some of the top companies in the world to help them provide one-of-a-kind customer experiences. Companies such as: The Ritz Carlton, Lexus and Panera Bread. But John is also an entrepreneur. He founded John Robert's Spa, one of the top 20 salons in America. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, DiJulius discusses key takeaways from his book on how you can prepare your employees to deliver a world-class experience. And when you do, you can charge customers and 'experience tax.'

See the complete show notes, including links and selected quotes on The Marketing Spot Blog: What's the Secret to a World-Class Customer Experience?

My recent appearance on Matthew Ray Scott's The Stategic Incubator show. We discuss my take-aways from the BlogWorld and New Media Expo, SXSW what to get out of conferences and conventions.

The Strategic Incubator Podcast: http://strategicincubator.com/updates

My recent appearance on Fred Castaneda's Finance 4 Startups & Struggling Entrepreneur podcast. We discuss the importance of having a marketing plan and how it's constructed using the four essential spots of small business marketing: Branding, Experience, Conversation, and Promotion.

Struggling Entrepreneur Podcast: http://www.strugglingentrepreneur.com/
Finance 4 Startups: http://finance4startups.com/

Guests: Al Lautenslager - Author of Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days, Stephen Denny - President of Denny Marketing and author of the Note to CMO blog, Connie Reece - Chief Community Officer of New Media Lab and blogger at Every Dot Connects. Host: Jay Ehret - Chief Officer of Awesomeness at The Marketing Spot and author of The Marketing Spot blog.

Topics discussed:

• Marketing Plan, their importance, purpose and direction
• Social Media Strategy and the mantra of "Listen First."
• The effectiveness of social media marketing
• The Marketing of books by authors and publishers.

Complete show notes, including links and quotes, can be found on The Marketing Spot blog at this link: http://bizy.be/mPrNN

Tom Hopkins joins Jay Ehret to discuss how sales and marketing work together in the small business. Hopkins is recognized as the world’s leading authority on selling techniques and salesmanship. He is author of the best-selling classic: How to Master the Art of Selling.

Sales and marketing must work together in every organization, no matter what size. Tom gives some perspective and advice on how that can work in your business. He also addresses the sales profession and the myth of the natural born salesperson. His message is that anyone can, and must, sell.

Complete Show notes can be found on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://bizy.be/tD958

Megan Duckett has a great perspective on marketing, but she's not a marketer, at least not professionally. Megan is an entrepreneur and she owns a pretty cool small business called Sew What that makes custom theatrical curtains. She was recently the winner of the Dell Small Business Excellence Award and has some really sensible thoughts about marketing. Take a listen as host Jay Ehret discusses marketing with Sew What owner, Megan Duckett

Complete show notes are available on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://bizy.be/fRsf9

Simon Salt of IncSlingers joins Jay Ehret to discuss strategy and tactics for your online brand. How do you build an online brand, protect one that already exists, and prevent damage to your online brand?

Complete show notes, including links, can be found on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://bizy.be/eZBCQ

Subscribe to The Marketing Spot in iTunes: http://bizy.be/ZgRdM

Impact of economic uncertainty on marketing, spam and social media, customer service is the new marketing, social media blindness.

Four marketers sit down at the Marketers' RoundTable to discuss important small business marketing issues. Guests are Paula Pollack of the Pollack Marketing Group in San Francisco, Steve McKee of McKee Wallwork Cleveland in Albuquerque, Esteban Kolsky of ThinkJar, and Jay Ehret of The Marketing Spot

Show notes & links: http://budurl.com/MRT1

Mitch Joel discusses digital marketing and his new book, Six Pixels of Separation. Joel says that everyone is connected, so connect your business to everyone. In the book he makes the case why your company should be marketing online and why it's not too late to start now.

Mitch Joel joins host Jay Ehret to talk marketing in the world of new media, while not forgetting the traditional ways. Complete show notes and links are available on The Marketing Spot Blog at this link: http://budurl.com/6PixelsPod

Press the little play button in the lower left-hand corner or subscribe to the show in iTunes and listen any time you want.

Guest: Sri Nagubandi. Basic search engine tactics to improve results in organic and local search: he Fundamentals of SEO, Most important on-site elements for SEO, Getting started with SEO for your website, Local Search. Plus advice on analytics, WordPress and content creation. See complete show notes http://budurl.com/BasicSEO

To get started listening, click the little, tiny, itty bitty green play button in the lower left hand corner or do it from this link: http://budurl.com/BasicSEO

Remember to subscribe in iTunes and let the show come to you!

On the 10th anniversary of The Experience Economy, authors Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore analyze the state of the customer experience in today's economy. They share tips on how small businesses can stop being a commodity and charge premium prices by participating in the experience economy.

For complete show notes and links: http://budurl.com/ExpEco

A lively discussion on what local businesses can do to market more effectively. Local marketing specialist Bob Lauck and host Jay Ehret discuss 5 areas of focus for small businesses. You can see show notes and links on The Marketing Spot blog: http://budurl.com/localmkt

Personal branding is not right for all businesses. But it is very appropriate for businesses when the personality is the center figure.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Peter Montoya joins Jay Ehret to discuss personal branding:
1. What is personal branding?
2. What are the steps to building a personal brand?
3. What tools do you need to build a personal brand identity.

Complete show notes and show links are available on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://budurl.com/PerBranding

Word of mouth may be the most powerful form of marketing for your small business. But it's becoming the forgotten marketing discipline because of the attention being focused on the sexy social media tools. In this episode Jay Ehret hosts Word of Mouth Enthusiast John Moore as they discuss John's recipe for sparking conversation for your business. John shares practical examples, timely advice and startling statistics. Get the links and complete shownotes on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://budurl.com/WOMpodcast

Are you wasting your time on social media? Facebook and Twitter are all the rage, but are they really viable marketing tools? Bryan Person, social media evangelist for Live World discusses the best use of your social media time with host, Jay Ehret.

The time you have to spend on marketing is limited. You must choose wisely and that means choosing the right social media channel for you. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Jay Ehret and Bryan Person discuss how to avoid wasting time on social media marketing.

Get complete show notes on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://budurl.com/dytb

It's time to take the mystery out of email marketing because it just might be the most cost-efficient marketing tool for small businesses. For this episode of Power to the Small Business, we've assembled a panel email marketing experts. They will share their advice on email marketing best practices.

* How to get started.
* How to collect email addresses.
* What to say in your email.
* What service to use.

This podcast is a panel format with three excellent email specialists sitting on the panel: Stephanie Miller of ReturnPath.net, Julie Niehoff of Constant Contact, and Chad White of Smith-Harmon.com

You can find links and show notes on The Marketing Spot Blog: http://budurl.com/EmailMktng

Congratulations! You're a new entrepreneur. Now what? Best-selling author Jason Jennings says you should get after it, Hit the Ground Running. Jennings has written four books for entrepreneurs. His latest, Hit the Ground Running gleans the battle strategies of 10 of America's top CEO's.

In Episode 28 of Power to the Small Business, Jennings gives three rules for new entrepreneurs. It's not about tactics, it's about strategy. See complete show notes and links on the blog: http://budurl.com/RulesforNew

In the online world, Internet riches are often talked about, but rarely achieved. The conventional wisdom is to tell your story and to tell it loudly. Websites and social media channels are filled with gurus, experts and blowhards trumpeting their own greatness. And that tactic fails miserably. So what's a business to do?

Best-selling author David Meerman Scott says people get it backwards. Rather than raving about yourself online, create a World Wide Rave. The most powerful way to get your story out there is to let people tell your story for you. If you people are going to talk about you, you have to be interesting and create content that people want to talk about.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, David Meerman Scott tells us how to get a world-wide rave started. He also shares examples of local businesses that have authentically tapped into online riches.

See complete show notes and links on the blog: http://budurl.com/WorldWideRave

Small businesses are marketing in a great period of transition between the old traditional media, and the so-called "new media." Do the traditional platforms still work? Or are TV, radio, newspaper and outdoor dead? Then there are the social media evangelists trumpeting its magic marketing curative powers. The result is confusion.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, I talk to four small business marketing practitioners about the state of small business marketing. Where are we today and what does the future hold? You may find some of their answers surprising.

Complete show notes for this episode are available on The Marketing Spot blog: http://budurl.com/hutc

Small business owners often play a dual role of both marketer and manager. That can rip your marketing mind in half. Left-brain management thinking is at odds with right-brain marketing thinking. Best-selling author Laura Ries says to be a good entrepreneur you need to be a right-brainer.

In their new book: War in the Boardroom, Laura and her father Al Ries tell you how to win this war and revive your marketing program. In this episode, Laura Ries says that "The key to success for any entrepreneur is going to be marketing." You have to understand these forces that bog down your marketing program. She offers advice on how listen to your gut and encourages you to embrace your right-brain marketing mind.

See show notes and links on The Marketing Spot blog: http://themarketingspot.blogspot.com/2009/03/laura-ries-war-in-boardroom.html

The neat thing about delivering a remarkable customer experience is that it can be the foundation of a strong brand. Or a community of brands. Unless you live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the best experiences you've never had is from a community of businesses you've never heard of: Zingerman's

Zingerman's Deli is a featured company in Bo Burlingham's Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. Co-founders Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw have grown a community of businesses in Ann Arbor founded on the mission of delivering a great experience. That community is now nine businesses strong and will probably swell to 13-14 by the year 2020.

Ari Weinzweig is Co-founding partner and CEO of the Zingerman's Community of Businesses. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Ari shares how Zingerman's explored their mission to discover a brand based on experience. Ari says real mission statement contain the answers to four questions.

For links and show notes: http://themarketingspot.blogspot.com/2009/02/customer-experience-brand.html

The social media evangelists are preaching: "Social media is the way, the truth, the light!" But is it right for your business? And if it is, how do you get started?

Guest expert David Berkowitz is Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for 360i, a social media marketing company based in New York. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, David explains how get a social media program started and how to analyze whether or not a particular channel is for you. David says that while most of these tools are free, the time commitment can be enormous.

You can find complete show notes and links on the blog: http://themarketingspot.blogspot.com/2009/01/starting-social-media-program.html

Your website traffic should not be a mystery. There are tools to help you track and analyze website traffic. Those tools are called web analytics.

Tina Bean is Sales & Marketing for VisiStat, a real time website visitor tracking service. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Tina Bean explains what web analytics are and what they can do for your small business website. Tina says that, "everyone with a website needs web analytics."

Get complete show notes on The Marketing Spot blog:
http://themarketingspot.blogspot.com/2009/01/marketing-basics-web-analytics.html

How do you solve the branding puzzle, especially if you're an existing business? Your brand is your company's most important asset, so you need to do it right.

Alina Wheeler is the author of Designing Brand Identity, now in it's second edition. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Alina Wheeler gives us four simple questions to answer. Answering those four questions is the start to designing your brand identity.

Show notes and links are posted on The Marketing Spot Blog: TheMarketingSpot.blogspot.com

Mobile marketing was supposed to be hot in 2008. What happened? We're not really much closer to using mobile tools on a local level than we were when the year began. Part of the reason is that it's somewhat of an unknown for small businesses. Some of the big questions are "What is it? How can I use it? How do I get started."

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Kim Dushinski answers those questions and simplifies mobile in to something more understandable. Kim is the author of The Mobile Marketing Handbook. and her company is Mobile Marketing Profits in Denver, Colorado. Kim says there are certain mobile tools that are better for small businesses than others. Also, mobile marketing is not right for everyone.

Can social media be used as a marketing tool for your business? Many social media evangelists say yes. That may not be necessarily so for the small business. The first challenge is to navigate the confusing social media landscape. The second challenge is to figure out how to use social media.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Dave Evans helps fit all the pieces together of this marketing puzzle. Dave is a social media consultant with Digital Voodoo in Austin, Texas and the author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day. Dave says that social media can be a very potent marketing tool if you know how to use it.

Listen to the episode to learn: What is social media? How to use social media to market a business? How to develop a plan to use it social media.

Viral marketing gets too much credit. Slap together a hilarious video, slap it on YouTube and then people all over the world will rush to see it. Problem is, that very rarely leads to quantifiable business. And that type of viral marketing is practically useless to a local small business.

JD Hinton writes songs, is a performer, and he lives in Central Texas. Last month he hosted an amazing event that he simply refers to as a wine concert. But it was much more. It was actually a jazzy, bluesy, eclectic event. The event sold out in four days and was was marketed almost exclusively by a form of viral email. There were no jokes, no funny videos, no amazing claims.

Listen to how JD did it.

Word of mouth is often called the most powerful form of advertising. But the concept perplexes many small businesses. What is it? How does it work? Can it be controlled?

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, word-of-mouth expert Jackie Huba provides some answers to those questions. Jackie is the author (with Ben McConnell) of Creating Customer Evangelists and Citizen Marketers. She believes that customer evangelism should be a primary concern of your business. Huba advises that you build word of mouth in to the DNA of everything you do in business.

See complete show notes on the blog: http://themarketingspot.blogspot.com/2008/09/word-of-mouth-tips-from-jackie-huba.html

Guest: Michael Dowd - Outrider.com

Is the search engine world already changing? Just as Google establishes itself as the monster of search, will it now have to conquer a new frontier? There are two different worlds of search: the PC and the mobile search space. While they may have similarities, they are not exactly the same. Listen to the podcast as Michael educates us on what you need to know about search in the coming mobile revolution.

Different ads and different organic search results show up in your mobile browser when you search. Meaning you can search a term in mobile and the same term from a PC and get different results and different ads. Usually, mobile optimized websites show up first in organic results. Non-mobile optimized sites are not given as much weight in mobile search.

PPC or search marketing works much the same way on mobile search as it does on traditional search. Now is a golden time to get into mobile search marketing. You can get in early and establish a high quality score because click-through rates should be higher.

Go into mobile search marketing with your expectations tempered. Advantages now are efficiency and low cost, but there just aren’t as many searches as traditional search. So for the next couple of years you may spend more manpower on the campaigns. But when mobile search begins to get populated, you will have established yourself.

To get started with mobile search, begin with the traditional powerhouses, Google and Yahoo, then start experimenting with other search engines. Yahoo has really been the mobile search innovator between the two, especially with the Yahoo Go product. Yahoo Go is a widget for your mobile phone that serves as the gateway to the mobile Internet.

Just about every industry has a place in mobile search. No-brainers are automotive, fast-food chains, malls, grocery stores, anything with a store locater. Use mobile marketing to provide coupons and widgets to your customers.

On this episode of Power to the Small Business, we welcome Holly Kolman. Holly is passionate about the coming mobile revolution. She tracks it, writes about it, and advises on it on her blog: Mobienthusiast. Are you prepared for the coming mobile revolution? You should prepare because it gets closer with each passing month and each new iPhone sold. The good news is you can prepare rather easily and Holly's going to tell us how.

What you are getting in this episode is short, concise, and yet so important to reaching your customers in the future. There are very few opportunities to be the first in the game, this is one of those opportunities. The opportunity is called the mobile web.

The Mobile Web vs. The Desktop Web: More than 270 million smart phones will be sold worldwide next year. Smart phones are those web-enabled mobile phones like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Moto Q. As the use of smart phones rise, so will the use of the mobile web. That's a great opportunity for the small business, but it's also a challenge.

Websites display differently on mobile devices than they do on your desktop or laptop screen. The desktop web is a long, graphic-rich, application intensive experience. That won't work on a mobile device because that website will take forever to load. And it will look like a jumbled mess on the mobile screen when it does load. But what to do? Holly thinks you should develop a mobile website as a companion to your existing site.

Holly Kolman shares with us some basic tips on mobile web design. Learn what you need to be doing right now to prepare for the mobile revolution.

On this episode of Power to the Small Business, we welcome Jim Morris. Jim creates compelling, evocative advertising. He also writes a weekly column for the Advertising for Peanuts blog. His specialty is creating taglines. His most famous tagline is for Flintstones Children's Vitamins: We Are Flintstones Kids, Ten Million Strong . . . And Growing. Jim has created taglines for both large and small companies.

I asked Jim about the importance of having a tagline. He believes that a good tagline is the single-most powerful, condensed, compact expression of your brand that you can have. Taglines are show their value when you need to get your brand in front of people and connect with them in little space and time. The tagline is the first articulation of your brand.

However, taglines are not explanations and they shouldn't tell a long story. It needs to encapsulate the feeling you want people to have about you. For that reason, you should take great care in creating one. The key is having a clear sense of what your brand is.

Listen to the podcast to hear the do's and don'ts of tagline creation. Then go to the blog to see more show notes and comment on the episode: TheMarketingSpot.blogspot.com

One of the most pervasive, misused marketing techniques is building artificial communities. That's because many online businesses fancy themselves the next Facebook, Twitter, or the early years of AOL. What results is a steady stream of friend requests to a constant deluge of new web communities. It's really impossible to keep up. And it's not very effective.

The new wave of community builders doesn't really understand what building a community is all about. Marketers don't help by presenting community as the magic marketing tool. But good news; we found two local business owners that have built successful communities. These communities are not about friend requests, they're about enhancing the customer experience.

On Episode 13 of Power to the Small Business, we talk to two entrepreneurs who have built successful communities. Eric Brown is Founder of Urbane Apartments in Royal Oak, Michigan and he uses both online and offline elements to build a hip community of young adults in his eclectic brand of apartments. Gina Ford is owner of The Grape Wine Bistro in Waco, Texas and has built her community the old-fashioned way: through customer involvement and without the internet.

Howard Schultz rode in on his white horse in January to reclaim his throne as CEO of Starbucks. It wasn't just the media anointing Schultz, Howard put himself front and center and promised to return Starbucks to its glory. In his first Transformation Agenda Communication, Schultz listed as one of his priorities:

"Re-igniting our emotional attachment with our customers by restoring the connection our customers have with you, our coffee, our brand, and our stores."

The fact that Schultz called his communication a "Transformation Agenda" hinted of big things to come. Naturally, most people expected a transformation, including me. We are now four months into the transformation and it is difficult to see the re-ignition of emotional attachment that Schultz promised. Granted, Schultz didn't promise immediate results. Instead, he said it was a 12-18 month timetable. But exactly where is Stabucks positioned on Howard's transformation time line?

Becky Carroll of Customers Rock! and I have teamed up to reExperience Starbucks and blog about the transformation. Becky joins us for episode 12 of Power to the Small Business to discuss the Starbucks transformation status.

Dan Roam, Author of The Back of the Napkin

How much would you pay to become creative and innovative? You may only need to pay $16.47. That's the Amazon price of Dan Roam's new book: The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. Roam contends that any problem can be solved with what he calls "visual thinking," a simple system of drawing.

Don't like your drawing ability? That's ok, because Roam says it's not artistic ability that matters. It's time to open your mind to new possibilities and opportunities with visual thinking.

Episode #10 - Power to the Small Business

This is first of a special, two-part series on getting publicity for your small business. Part 2 will be a blog article posted this Tuesday, April 29th on themarketingspot.blogspot.com

Have you ever seen a story in the newspaper or a TV news segment featuring a local business and wonder, "How did they do that?" It's not as difficult as you think, you just have to know the code. On this episode we feature two people who have captured the publicity most businesses crave, but can't seem to get.

Bob Bly has been called "America's Top Copywriter." He is author of The Copywriter's Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells. In this episode of the podcast, Bob shares the keys to writing direct mail that gets results.

HotSpots:
- What is direct response and direct mail?
- What’s the most effective format for direct mail?
- How to get response using direct mail.
- Writing effective copy for direct mail.
- What gets attention?

For show notes, see themarketingspot.blogspot.com

Amber Benedict of Hanapin Marketing and co-author of the PPC Hero blog says it's easy to get started with search marketing. All it takes is $5, fifteen minutes and Google Adwords. But that doesn't mean you should to it.

Like many of the shiny, new marketing tools, search marketing gets a lot of hype. But before you dive in, take 25 minutes to learn whether or not this hot marketing trend is right for your small business.

Ed Erickson Erickson of Erickson Market Research says that market research can be used to decide how you your market yourself. It can be key, he says in finding the differentiating factor.

But many small businesses think that research is a pipe dream, best left to the big boys. Surprise! It doesn't take a lot of money to conduct research. Market research is really about gaining customer intelligence. The best way to do that, says Erickson is through your customer.

Jay Ehret hosts this discussion on market research for small business. HotSpots in the podcast include: How small businesses can use market research, Discovering the benefits people will buy, How to ask your customers questions that gets feedback you can use, Creating a customer feedback mechanism to track what your customers think, The first steps to conducting market research.

What's he going to do? Former and current Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz rode in on his white horse last month to rescue the coffee giant. Howard plans to reanimate the company by getting back to the Starbucks experience of old, or maybe even better.

While Howard was the wizard behind the Starbucks success until 2000, these are desparate times. Starbucks stock dipped 42% last year.

Becky Carroll of the Customers Rock! blog joins Jay as they discuss the customer experience and their joint blog project to reExperience Starbucks

Most businesses live in Commodity Hell. Your products and services are quickly imitated by competitors large and small, and not just on a local level.

What are the keys to overcoming commoditization? Oren Harari says there are four and we discuss them in detail during the podcast. They are:
1. You need to continually reinvent what you do with customers.
2. Winners do strategy on the run.
3. Intangibles are more important than tangibles.
4. You need fun in your business, because people find it fun to create.

Enjoy the show and share your comments

Steven Van Yoder joins host Jay Ehret to talk about publicity, credibility, public relations and how your small business can get slightly famous.

Van Yoder is author of Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity In Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort. It's a book about setting yourself up as an authority in your industry and getting free exposure for your small business.

The show covers:
1. Having a clear understanding of your target group.
2. How to maintain visibility.
3. Embracing credibility instead of advertising.
4. Obtaining a position as a thought leader.

Power to the Small Business Podcast with Jay Ehret. George Parker, author of MadScam: Kickass advertising without the Madison Avenue price tag is the guest. George shares his top four tips to get better results from your small business advertising.

Jay Ehret of The Marketing Spot hosts.

What you need to know about getting, or refreshing, your small business website. Larry Bailin, author of Mommy, Where do Customers Come From, joins Jay Ehret to dispense important do's and don'ts about small business websites.

John Moore of Brand Autopsy joins host Jay Ehret with tips on how to build a remarkable customer experience for your small business.