A marketing tale across three years of Halloween. This year I am celebrating Halloween in Atlanta, I am from New Orleans and love holidays that involve costumes.  2009 was a Las Vegas Halloween and 2008 was Washington D.C. As you travel between cities you notice the personality portrayed in costumes. In Atlanta, it was a fairly safe party of Halloween costumes from the local Party City with a few risque options coming out later in the night. Vegas as you have already guessed... Full Story

I have figured out why blogging is so hard for small businesses. You get started and you feel enthusiastic then slowly your days are filled up with new client projects and blogging gets pushed to the side. A successful business to business blog generates prospects, those very prospects can take an independent away from blogging and future development of leads. Interesting paradigm to battle in a small business or sole proprietorship. I frequently tell clients to not start a social media... Full Story

I am attending the Fast Casual Executive Summit this week and focused on learning the latest in best practices. On Monday, the CEO of Fresh City presented on how his company grew their catering business by 40% last year (that's right in 2009).  It is now 18% of his business. This is the summary format of what his team focused on to achieve those goals. Good input  for any fast casual concept seeking to grow their catering business. Manage what you measure. Fresh City... Full Story

When it comes to marketing your legal practice online, do you understand exactly what you need to have a successful website? Most law firms fail to incorporate all the elements that are crucial to a successful website. So what are the elements that your law firm's website needs? 1.  Website Visibility. Web visibility (or popularity or optimization) refers to the overall visibility of your website on the Internet.  Typically there are two ways a potential client can find your... Full Story

This week in my ongoing effort to expand my knowledge of best practices in Fast Casual restaurant management and marketing, I am attending the Fast Casual Executive Summit. Why am I  attending? Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to work with restaurant clients and learned how competitive the category really is. Expanding my marketing knowledge for those clients is important. And I have a deep down interest in one day owning a restaurant or a chain of... Full Story

Digital Marketing: Facebook Launches Groups - Advertising Age - Digital. As I read the article above this morning, I was reminded again that Facebook cannot continue the growth it has experienced, and the luster with long-time users is wearing off. (I base that on personal experience, my network on FB is much quieter now than it was a year ago.) In fact I went to Google Trends to see what was happening with Facebook domestically. Their trend line has stopped its dramatic and exponential... Full Story

360+ Most Famous Business Taglines Ever Tagline Guru's Lists Been thinking taglines this week as I work with a new customer in a completely new market. What makes a tagline work or not, the varieties are endless. You write up a strategic Campaign Brief, identify all the important messaging factors and turn it over to a copy-writer hoping for "the" answer. In the end, you simply need to have defined your brand and the answer will come. Full Story

Clutter-busting. Look at your website with an outside eye. Have you slowly cluttered up the main landing pages such that they are no longer easy to understand and follow? Ongoing edits can slowly change the nature of your messaging and derail your original marketing strategy and calls to action. Take that hard look or ask someone from the outside to do it for you. Remarketing. "Remarketing is activity intended to encourage renewed use of a product in which market interest has declined."... Full Story

The question arises frequently - do we need to be engaged in social media? After clarifying what the person defines as social (which is still subject to debate in the world lexicon), I stop to to think of when you should not have social media in your overall marketing plan. • Few Customers:  If you have a tiny customer base (perhaps you have only 5 customers) that you are actively engaged with on a daily basis. • If the people you are trying to talk to can't access the Internet. ... Full Story