Small Business Search Marketing

Viral marketing. Branding. Marketing in general. Here are nine great quotes about reaching customers that you’ve never heard before.* They come from smart people at Big Ad Agencies, but there’s plenty to chew on even for the smallest of small businesses.

I don’t know if this idea worked, but I love the clever thinking. Even if it didn’t work, the small business owner gets an “A” for effort and creativity. It’s social media marketing with a huge twist. Here’s the story:
Guy owns an auto repair shop. Goes to Costco and fills a cart with huge masses [...]

A new survey of U.S. small business owners confirms what I’ve thought to be true: Social media is growing as a marketing tool. The “FedEx Office Signs of the Times Small Business Survey” polled 500 small biz owners across the country in early April. When asked how they plan to grow their businesses in 2010, [...]

This is pretty cool, not to mention very clever. Hopefully I’ll explain it all well enough that it makes sense. Ready?
360SEE is an art/furniture gallery in Chicago. The owner’s dog, Homer, hangs out in the front window, plainly visible to passersby walking outside. Homer is little and pretty cute, and people tend to stop and [...]

Marketing success is all about numbers. We measure what we do in terms of

revenue (i.e., numbers)

profit (more numbers)

visits/pageviews (again, numbers)

fans, followers, subscribers (more numbers)

etc.

But different numbers matter to different businesses. The key is to know which numbers matter to your business in your situation.

Awards and recognition are great … but other than putting a smile on your face and a spring in your step, most honors don’t amount to much for a company’s bottom line. Unless you promote it.
If you’ve been recognized by Google as a “favorite place”, now’s the time to start promoting it. And I don’t [...]

The folks at WellcomeMat, a video portal (of sorts) for the real estate industry, have put together an interesting report on the state of video marketing in real estate.
According to the survey, “the use of video by real estate professionals and companies is up 95% in the first half of 2009 relative to the [...]

Emarketer recapped an interesting report about the relationship between money spent on marketing and expected revenues.

From the eMarketer article:
According to the “Small Business Marketing Health Check” report from Hurwitz & Associates, there is a correlation between small businesses that are doing well and greater marketing spending.
Almost two-thirds of small businesses that expected increased revenues had [...]