Ideapreneur™ + Marketing Director Ally Piper shares some interesting facts about two US President’s pertaining to entrepreneurship. Both George Washington and Abe Lincoln were business owners with different degrees of success. Watch today’s video to learn about their entrepreneurial spirits!

While everyone is talking about Valentine’s Day this week, why not think about how you can “show your clients the love” by providing outstanding customer service and the results they are looking for. This will result in satisfied clients who can’t help themselves from referring your company to others.

Your current clients are your most important unpaid sales force. To maximize that properly they need to be your first priority and need to be shown the love on a regular basis. It’s not hard to do. Watch today’s video to learn how.

It’s not often that people come together as excited to view a TV event as they are the ads that interrupt it. Enter the Super Bowl — the once a year phenomenon where there truly is something for everyone.

This year, each 30-second spot cost $3.5 million. Interestingly enough, back during the first Super Bowl in 1967 a 30-second spot cost a comparatively affordable $42,500 (which is the same rate for a 30-second spot on a Boston station during American Idol about 6 years ago). While the rate seems high, it averages out to be about only 3 cents per viewer. But it is important to note that, according to Ad Age, a 30-second spot on a “regular” Sunday Night Football game costs only about $512,000.

This blows the marketing budgets of most small businesses and nonprofits out of the water. And while most of us will never be forking over major dough to the networks for airtime during the Super Bowl, we can still learn a lot from the big brands about how they turn 30-seconds into memorable entertainment and brand awareness.

And it isn’t a challenge to be taken lightly when you are playing to 110 million viewers.

To maximize their investments this year, a lot of advertisers leaked teasers of their ads online and used YouTube to build buzz. Even the morning news last week featured a short clip with Matthew Broderick reprising his infamous role as Farris Bueller. The only clue it had anything to do with the Super Bowl and wasn’t a promo for a new movie was the date that flashed on the screen at the end. It turned out to be a commercial for Honda.

Some advertisers, like Audi and Bud Light, attempted to pull viewers in even further with Twitter hashtags and Facebook tie-ins. According to a story from ABC news Monday morning “Dubbed the first “social media” Super Bowl, the game activated 11.2 million social media comments on sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to Bluefin Labs, making it the biggest televised event in social media by a more than touchdown.  (It beat out the record set during the August MTV Video Music Awards of 3.1 million social media comments).”

Critics are saying that Doritos’ “Man’s Best Friend” spot was the most popular, an contest entry that cost about $20 to produce! My favorite ad by far was the Audi Vampire Party. I thought it was clever and a little bit different. Plus it never hurts to play off what is hot now and thanks to the Twilight series we have seen the popularity of vampire stories greatly increase.

Take a look:

I encourage you to take some time this Marketing Monday to enjoy the 2012 Super Bowl spots and see what you can learn from the big brands on how to tell a story, be memorable and entertain all in 30-seconds. View all the ads on Mashable

Want to actually achieve your goals this year? Watch today’s video to learn what sets goal setters and achievers apart.

There is an easy and effective way to spy on your competition and keep track of your online reputation. Watch today’s Marketing Monday video tip to learn how you can start using this free service in your business today.

BMP - A Microsoft Windows image format. It stands for bitmap. The images you see when Windows starts up and closes, and the wallpaper that cover the desktop, are all in BMP format. BMPs, like JPGs, GIFs and TIFs, are images made up of many small pixels and lose quality when you adjust the size of the image.

EPS- A type of postscript file, EPS stands for Encapsulated PostScript Format. This vector file format is most commonly used when printing high quality graphics at a professional printer. It allows graphic images (not photos) to be resized without jagged and fuzzy edges. This means you can make your logo as big or as small as you like without compromising print quality. Perfect for print jobs like ads, letterhead, business cards etc. To use an EPS on your computer, save the image first and then insert into your document.

GIF - A compressed graphics file that is used to display images online. Normally, graphic (not photos) images on web pages are in GIF format, rather than JPG format, so they will load faster. PNGs are also low-resolution files, great for web and computer use.

JPG or JPEG- Pronounced “jay peg,” this is one of the most common types of image formats that is used on the Internet. The format is either abbreviated as JPG or jpeg from Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPG technology was designed for compressing either full-color or gray-scale images of natural, real-world scenes. It works well on photographs, naturalistic artwork and similar material. When a standard image is compressed into JPG format, some of the decompressed image isn’t quite as sharp as it was before.

TIF or TIFF- Stands for Tagged Image File Format. A TIF can be used for basic printing and transferring digital images among various applications. An excellent file format for desktop publishing and programs like Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

Before we get too much farther into the New Year, it is time to make a commitment to yourself and your business to be more consistent in getting your message out there and in setting time aside to work ON your business. In today’s Marketing Monday video, I share some simple strategies that you can use to be more consistent. Try these and 2012 will be an amazing year for you and your business.

If you’ve ever been a salesperson, you know how important it is to understand your customers’ wants. The most successful salespeople get in a conversation and ask their prospects what they desire before attempting to sell to them. They are trying to identify whether they have a solution that would meet those needs.

As a small business owner, you have to do the same thing. If you just ram your product down their throats, you won’t make money. You first have to identify their needs, and then tailor your product to meet those needs. Here are four tips to help you do that:

Get in their heads
This is actually a method the world’s best copywriters use. Put yourself in your prospects’ shoes, and imagine how they live their lives. Think about every detail. This will help you speak to them on their level, because it enables you to know what they want.

In order to do this properly, you have to know who your ideal customer is. Not sure yet? Go figure that out before moving forward with marketing your business.

Research what other businesses are emphasizing
One of the best ways to determine your customers’ problems is study the products and services offered by your competition. Notice what benefits they are emphasizing. If you see multiple products and services all emphasizing the same points, then you know it’s something important. Then focus your energy on creating a slightly better solution than anyone else.

Conduct a survey
This is one of the simplest strategies, but it is very effective. Use a free survey site like Survey Monkey or Survey Gizmo and develop a short survey where you ask your clients and potential clients about their problems. The tough part is figuring out how to fix them!

Visit forums
Find online forums within your niche. Here you will be able to read about the main issues your potential clients are struggling with. If you see certain questions coming up again and again, you’ve found an excellent opportunity.

The bottom line is, identifying your prospects’ problems is critical to developing a marketing plan that gets you the results you are looking for.

In today’s Marketing Monday video, Ally shares an important lesson for all small business owners who want to take their business to the next level. Watch and enjoy!

If your customer said you can only publish her first name and she simply said, “This is the best XXX I’ve ever tried,” you probably shouldn’t post it on your website. Testimonials need to come from real people with real names and talk about real things. Make sure your testimonials have concrete detail about what your customer liked about your product and what results it produced for her.

Where possible, include the following with your testimonials:

• Full names (first and last)
• Location (city and state/province)
• Photos – Before and after photos, if applicable, can be very effective
• Other proof of results – For example, if your product helped a child’s grade improve in school. You can show photos or scanned images of reports showing the improvement.

Don’t be shy about asking. Respect their decision if they say no, but you’ll never know until you ask.