Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

Spock Costume World exceeded its benchmark goals for October, 2011, in less than 15 days.

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

Too often, business owners can get caught up in the craze of the latest fad. As a business owner or manager, I'm sure you've heard two phrases before - ROI and "Know Your Numbers."

Check out the...

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

Sometimes I just run across an article that moves me to excel at customer service. And I want to share that with you today.

We've all been there - the customer who creates great stress in their desire to have their perceived wrongs be righted by the company you work for. You may feel your company is in the right, but anyone who has done customer service for a while knows that being right and satisfying the customer aren't always the same thing.

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

If you're planning on a change in location for your business any time soon, or even just interested in ideas for planning your future, making the right choice in office space is critical.

The article below has some excellent tips for choosing the right space, and we'll sure be considering these tips with our next move.

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

California has passed yet another law to make doing business hard for businesses, according to a May, 2011, article in Entrepreneur magazine.

The cash-strapped state has found yet another element of doing business that they disagree with. The California Supreme Court has upheld a new law claiming that the collection of a zip code while processing a transaction in a store constitutes an "unlawful request for personally-identifiable information."

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

If you've spent the time and money to develop an email list for marketing for your business, you need to make sure you've considered these best practices in order to maximize the benefit from your list.

Three of the most overlooked elements in email marketing are how the Subject Line ties into the open rate, how email content ties to the Subject Line, and how the Unsubscribe process can impact your list in a negative way.

Be sure to follow these best practices to avoid a negative hit to your subscriber reach.

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

One of my job responsibilities is to manage the email and help desk customer support. Susan handles direct client calls since she works with them more directly, but my job gives me the chance to really develop excellent customer service strategies.

I read this article by software developer and business owner Joel Spolsky. Susan recommended it to me for our company's use. I found Joel's approach refreshing, and also quite enlightening.

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

One of the things I hear asked all the time from clients is how they can share the positive experiences people have with their company and their products or services.

It's a phenomenon we run into all the time. People love your business, but they don't like to take the time to do a review, or write it down, or maybe they just get busy and forget. So they ask us how to get the word out.

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.

Every business owner is this economic crunch is asking themselves the same question. Where should I spend my marketing budget? You've got a limited amount to spend, and you're wondering where it should go.

I guarantee you if you talk to the Yellow Pages guy, he's out to protect his commission. He'll tell you all the usual reasons you can't risk losing your market reach by stopping your Yellow Pages advertising. Oh, and it's time for renegotiating your usual hundreds-to-thousands-of-dollars-a-month advertising contract. Complete with scare tactics.

You'll probably think I'm a little nuts, given our business, but he does have a point, except for the scare tactics. A small one, but a real point...

Thank you for following The Local Marketing Expert. Please be sure to leave us some feedback if you would like to share it. We appreciate you taking the time if you do so.