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Is marketing necessary if you ARE exceptional?

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:39:40 +0000

Telus Mobility Holiday Campaign

Did you know that when participants in a survey are given a hypothetical question – which product is better? And then given a real choice to own one of the products, the decisions will be different most of the time? People will buy from emotion, not fact.

If we(you and I and other small businesses) don’t have a professional marketing department, what are we to do? Is it enough to be exceptional?

Here’s some good news: people use the web for primarily positive reviews of products & services! So if you are exceptional, it is likely to be spread around. But how fast and wide will it spread? And will your positive reviews be able to compete in the face of big marketing budgets?

I have heard it said that the internet is the great equalizer. From big companies to small, we’re all boiled down to a website or twitter account. What this means, I think, is that we have the “discovery” part of marketing all down pat. We can compete with the discovery of even the biggest companies. Google is the great equalizer. If I have great content, I provide material that is share-able, and follow some best practices for website usability and design, I’m golden.

Is that enough?

This list comes from the free e-book you can download from DuctTapeMarketing, called 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success(just click on the top bar to subscribe and download the free ebook).

1. Discovery. When people discover you (your website) do you have a planned response in place?

2. Presentation. Are you different? Do you stand out? Do you provide answers to the questions they might not know to ask? Do you provide value?

3. Nurture. People are not ready to buy for a number of reasons. But do you keep them ‘warm’? Do you stay in their thoughts? Continue to provide value?

4. Transaction. Once they buy, you have to fulfill your promises. This one transaction sets the tone for the future relationship with your company

5. Review. What went well? What do you improve? Ask.

How do you compete? I suspect most of us are good at one or two of these areas. And most of us will find one or two of these areas that we can easily improve simply by being intentional.

Want More?

10% Coupon for Genesis by StudioPress for Developers

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:29:55 +0000

Now is the time!

If you’ve been thinking about purchasing the StudioPress / Genesis package, and humming and hawing over it – now is the time! The price is going up next month! We are not usually early adopters into software – I like to play it safe for a little while – see how it does, if support is going to wane, what the reviews are going to be like.

Mashable calls Genesis the “best of the best” among premium frameworks.

Adopting early into StudioPress has been one of the best decisions of my career!

Here’s what you get for $299 at the moment:

incredible support!! Way beyond the normal support in forums – these developers expect that Genesis will be taken and twisted to our clients’ needs and are ready to help.
44 professionally designed themes (with PSDs)
unlimited upgrades to each and every one (they tend to keep the child themes updated before adding new ones – so the child themes are always up to date both design-wise and code-wise)
Search Engine Optimized by Greg Boser (we still use SEO for WP by Yoast plugin)
Secured code by Mark Jaquith
small selection of custom widgets, we add some more of our own
Free upgrades for life (Genesis 1.8 came out with built-in responsiveness)
Free themes for life (see #2) & any additional ones
Over 65,000 installations so far, so people like Bill Erickson and Nick the Geek are developing awesome advanced tutorials

This package is NOT for those who cannot ‘speak’ php or edit a file via FTP.

I have heard many, many complaints from people who think Genesis will be “easy” to edit. And it is easy, if you know php. Instead of having to write templates, have them go out of date, and then have to re-write them on every major upgrade or security release, you can let the Framework do that heavy lifting. As a developer, we only need to ‘hook’ into those things we want to change, and the framework does the rest.

If that sounds like greek to you, contact me! I’d love to work with you as your developer! You can still have the benefits of the Genesis Framework – you might just need a little help to get it customized to your liking.

Get 10% off Genesis

Before the price increases January 31!

Use discount code TEN to get 10% off between now and then. If you can edit php, and you are a WordPress developer – this is a must!

Go to StudioPress

Bulk Editing of Posts and Categories, Tags, and other Terms

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:47:43 +0000

We’ve found two plugins that make editing a batch of posts and categories a snap! First, use Term Management Tools by Scribu to turn all those categories into a nice easy to manage hierarchy of main categories, sub-categories, and tags.

Then use Batch Cat by Lenin Lee to add /edit / remove the appropriate terms from the posts in bulk.

I just edited several hundred categories and 1,700 posts in about 30 minutes.

We heart plugin authors!

To install plugins:

go to Plugins -> Add new.
Search for the title.
Match the author against the results.
Install and activate.
Visit the corresponding Tools or Settings page to configure.

Trendy New App – Instagram for the iPhone

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:53:57 +0000

Instagram is a new iPhone app that is making some waves.

Features of Instagram iPhone App

easily toggle the flash
toggle between front and back cameras
use filters (like a sepia ‘retro’ tone or a black & white)
share photos instantly through a number of networks
add friends from your networks so you can follow their instagrams
‘favorite’ an instagram and keep a list of the most popular ones (works like pinterest)
and its FREE

Get it at the App Store

On your iPhone, click here to download the app.

Instructions

Find the instructions here.