Lakeshore Garden Space

TONY RUBLESKI, GUEST BLOGGER

I’d like to share with you Five Proven Ways To Stay In Touch With Key Customers, Prospects and Referral Partners

I’ve been traveling a lot lately and I wanted to give you an in-depth article of immense value, if applied, to make up for lost time.

I’m absolutely amazed at the large number of businesses that take their customers, prospects and referral partners for granted. In the non-profit world the same mentality is often seen in relation to donors, volunteers and key board members. I know I sound like a broken record to many loyal readers of this blog, but here are three key reasons why tightening the bond of communication with those who influence, shape or spend money with you is a smart marketing strategy: Read the rest of this entry »

TONY RUBLESKI, GUEST BLOGGER

Here are three timeless marketing principles that work despite recessions, wars, the media, election year slogans and attempts at social engineering (I couldn’t resist sounding a little ’snobby’ by using big terms.) to bring you down and hinder your ability to grow and prosper:

1. The power of stories. For fear of sounding like a broken record to some of you, let me hammer home the point again that using stories in all of your marketing efforts is a wise idea. In the age of fragmented and sped up communication, the lost art of storytelling can give you a decided advantage in the competitive market place of ideas and influence. In the age of digital use video, audio and blogs in addition to your other marketing avenues to spread the story.

Here are some great idea starters to keep your marketing stories fresh, updated and increase the odds of customers, prospects and associates reading or listening to them:

*Before and after examples *Show you solved a problem *Client feedback or testimonials *Employee comments *Your work in the community/industry *Why your organization exists or mission *How your company started or key history or milestones *Updates *Positive articles or news stories about you or your industry

2. Good old fashioned listening to others. Forget focus groups. They’re too easy and often times the feedback can be skewed. Let’s get real. Pick up the phone and make a phone call. Simple, yet highly effective in the age of email, and printed surveys that most people never look at or rush through because they see little value in spending time to fill out. Humans talking to one another will give you feedback that’s priceless for both parties. Read the rest of this entry »

TONY RUBLESKI, GUEST BLOGGER

In my last blog entry I discussed my recent escapades to Disney with my wife and kids. I shared three marketing lessons with a promise to give you five in total.

I find myself in my scenic hotel room here in Colorado Springs about two hours away from giving a dinner speaking engagement. I wanted to reveal the remaining two marketing gems from Disney per my last posting.

4. Pictures to sell the experience. You’ve heard it before I’m sure, but let me remind you that a picture is worth a thousand words. Once case in point involves signage. The parks we visited all used vibrant and easy to read signage with pictures to direct, explain and guide you throughout the park. Many a retailer could pick off a list of brilliant visual signage strategies from walking through a Disney property to gather ideas for helping them attract and let people know how to find them or identify key in-store promotions and offers. Read the rest of this entry »

TERRY MADDEN, ADVISOR

I watch the political process with a mix of curiosity and disdain. It seemingly brings out the worst in people, be it politicians ranting back and forth, talking heads spouting opinions based on nothing, or average citizens writing to the local newspaper editorial page with over the top claims about what they “know” to be the truth. I am not naïve enough to believe that people’s opinions have not created controversy and conflict for more years than I have been alive. It does seem, however, that the stance of “my opinion is actually a fact and you are an idiot” has become increasingly more prevalent and it is disturbing.

Pulling this to a business discussion, this attitude is becoming more widespread in the sales process and I want to caution new and seasoned sales people alike not to fall into this trap. When I started in my career decades ago, the sales process was truly a process. It was assumed that any customer worth capturing was going to take a long time (months if not years) to land. Planning was based on this assumption. Today, the sales process is seemingly more event driven. Managers demand much quicker turning of accounts and are not willing to let time and relationships develop.

To shorten the sales cycle, many professionals are turning to negative campaigns. I am sure this sounds familiar. I have heard from a number of my contacts through the years that my competition has been less than flattering about the companies I have worked for. The premise is always the same. My competitions pitch will be “we are the best company in our industry and all of our competitors are useless and awful”. This is a foolish and, ultimately, failing stance. Read the rest of this entry »

 Web link submitted by Amanda Chocko

 Live It  Del.icio.us  Newsvine  Facebook  Digg This  Others

It’s the online equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising. And just like its offline cousin, it’s the most effective way to get new business.

This advertising mode is known as “link building,” and it involves getting other Web sites to link to your site. It’s like one of your neighbors recommending a good plumber or handyman; it carries more weight than if a person just stumbled across your Web site.

In today’s world, there is much more to good search engine listings than simply optimizing your site for keywords.

In order to keep searchers happy, search engines are always developing ways to make their results more relevant. In the last couple of years, links have become increasingly more important to the engines because they see links as an endorsement of your site by other Web sites. Think about it for a minute: Would you link to a site you didn’t like?

This concept is referred to as “link popularity.”

Based on the links pointing to your site, the search engines either increase or decrease how relevant your site is for particular keyword searches.

Obviously, you want to increase your site’s relevancy, right? Good. That’s the goal here: to make sure you start building the right kind of links for your site in order to improve your search-engine results.

To this day, the best way to build links is still doing it by hand. Here are the steps you should follow when building links: Read the rest of this entry »