Beyond Niche Marketing

Recession? What Recession….

Kathy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:38:58 +0000

If you’ve watched the evening news or listened to the radio – you’ve heard that we’re in a recession. Everything is bleak – the sky is falling. It’s just a matter of time before these dire economic times put you out of business. As a result, business owners have pulled back on advertising expenditures and [...]

Customer Satisfaction’s Role in Marketing

Kathy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:06:15 +0000

Customer satisfaction plays a HUGE role in the success (or failure) of your marketing campaign. Creating a successful marketing strategy begins and ends with knowing your target audience. If your target audience is leaving messages like the one to the left – well no viral marketing messages can overcome a lack of customer service. Make no mistake [...]

The first step to marketing a small business

Kathy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:18:39 +0000

The journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step….Confucius The first and most crucial step in creating a marketing strategy for your small business is to identify the reason WHY people would want what it is you’re selling. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling products or services – if you don’t know WHY [...]

Great Moments in Niche Marketing

Kathy — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:52:24 +0000

The other day, I was over at the ARS Technica blog – reading about the latest iPhone news when a banner ad in the blog’s header caught my attention. So much for “banner ad blindness” or the old “online banner ads don’t work” because this one did. The banner ad that caught my eye and earned [...]

Niche Marketing Strategy for Small Business Owners

Kathy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:16:28 +0000

Creating a niche marketing strategy is AMAZINGLY simple - in theory. To create a niche marketing strategy you simply decide what “niche” or segment of the market you want to target with your marketing message. In other words, instead of targeting EVERYONE with your marketing message – you create marketing messages which speak to SOMEONE in particular. I [...]

Exposing Deceptive Marketing Tactics with Social Media

Kathy — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:08:03 +0000

As the web matures and users become more web savvy, it’s becoming more dangerous than ever to engage in deceptive marketing practices. In the post Blogs and the Art of Deception I wrote about a website which was designed to look like a blog. Instead of “testimonials” the faux blog contained hard coded “comments” [...]

KFC Coupon Disaster: The Power of Unlimited and Free

Kathy — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:32:28 +0000

Free is a powerful, powerful promotional tool and one that must be used properly. I’ve often said that a great advertising campaign will cause a well run business to prosper and a poorly run business to fail more quickly. Unfortunately, the recent KFC Coupon Debacle is a GREAT advertising IDEA that was implemented POORLY – and [...]

Are you using these proven marketing techniques?

Kathy — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:39:57 +0000

The email had a promising headline – “[Insert your name] – are you using these proven marketing techniques?” I should have known better than to expect it to yield something useful – after all, it’s an email and nothing useful comes in via your email – right? What followed was a self serving attempt to sell yet [...]

Speaking the language to create effective advertising messages

Kathy — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:00:50 +0000

Marketing and advertising are how a business communicates with customers. Communication is the “essence” of marketing. Learning to effectively communicate with your customers begins with speaking your customer’s language. In my book, Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results I take you step by step through this [...]

Reaching out to Bloggers – Tapping into Social Media Marketing

Kathy — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:23:15 +0000

Imagine the thrill of getting the phone call from Oprah’s staff and finding out that she’s chosen YOUR product or service as one of HER favorite things and she’s going to promote your product or service on her show. This kind of exposure has been known to catapult minor players into multi-millionaires overnight. Ah- heady [...]