They know this fear exists, and they overcome it. They define the moment with mental strength, faith and confidence, and they seize the opportunity to make a difference.

“You may delay, but time will not.” -Benjamin Franklin

Everyone has been there at one time. You come up with a great idea and set a goal for your business. You say, “I’m going to do this now!” Then a little fear may set in, and the next thing you know, you are talking yourself out of doing it.

You see all the obstacles that may be in the way and negativity blocks your mind to act and to achieve what you set out to do.

Either that, or you get distracted by things around you like tv, phone calls, and aimless internet surfing and surfing….yeah, you know what I mean. Pretty soon, your entire day is wasted and you haven’t accomplished what you set out to do.

With positive thinking and committing yourself to action, you can make a golden opportunity to break away from the limitations and make positive things happen for you personally and your business.

Complaining and doubting will only detract you from your ultimate objective, and drain the energy you will need to work and achieve success. It’s important to develop the positive attitude of seizing the moment when it comes along.

Here’s an idea…Evolve your marketing. Carpe Diem!

The evolution of digital marketing has forever changed the way marketers strategize and execute campaigns to build and manage a brand. Balancing traditional and digital communications channels requires effective strategy, writing, design and relationship building.

Let’s face it, entrepreneurs and micro businesses do not have the big budgets or the time to create and manage big integrated marketing campaigns. It’s critical to focus on the essentials of what you can do and what time can be given to certain tasks.

It’s through meaningful engagement and the introduction of useful content in the right channels that will help you influence your audience and earn ongoing relevance.

Seize the moment by evolving your marketing strategy.

Do it today or the opportunity may just pass you by.

These are people who will sing your praises to others every chance they get because they have forged a solid business relationship and are very satisfied with your products and services – long-term business advocates.

By using digital marketing as a referral “platform,” online referral marketing can be much more rewarding than traditional face-to-face referral marketing. And, when used in conjunction with each other, it is even more powerful.

In the “olden days,” before the Internet was thriving, referrals were generated with an old-fashioned handshake to close the deal and then…they tell two friends, and so on, and so on – ahh, you remember.

Now, a simple, viral “check me out” will do the same and more. With Twitter, for example, you get to answer the simple question of, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. Quite the challenge for those with a little more to say (ummm…marketers…).

However, you will find many “soon-to-be” business advocates who want to follow you to hear more about you and your business and to show you a good reason to follow them.

A few quick tips:

• Try to tweet 5 to 8 times per day or how often you can manage

• Use HootSuite’s to schedule your tweets and to track your tweet clickthrus for measurable ROT-Return on Tweeting

• Use one or more of the Twitter directories (WeFollow or Twellow) to locate potential users to follow based on their interests and geography

Learn more about the rules of Tweeting and its viral role in generating referrals, and with just one little tweet, you’ll be on your way!

With the vast number of social media channels, the opportunities for referrals are endless. Social media gives you a voice to speak and be heard.

You can post your referral advertisement online and track your conversion rate very easily. As you create satisfied customers, the referral cycle builds a larger circle of satisfied customers and business advocates.

It’s through meaningful engagement and the introduction of useful content in the right channels that will help you influence your audience and earn ongoing relevance and referrals. Visit Lacewing Communications and learn more.

This is a major drain in energy that typically happens at the 20th mile when a runner has exhausted all of his or her energy reserves and is simply physically incapable of going any further.

It is a depletion of glycogen and carbohydrates that affect muscle operation. The preventative measure is to take in a lot of starches and sugars shortly before a race, but often runners will hit the wall anyway despite their efforts.

Hitting the “proverbial” wall can apply to many things we do in our business as well. Maintaining “marketing endurance” is a challenge. Here are a few tips:

• Watch the Walls. Be prepared to hit the walls a few times – because you will. Don’t give up and stare at the walls, watch them. This involves reviewing best practices in your industry, and learning from others’ mistakes and the walls they have hit. Keep updated on what is happening by joining blog communities, networking at events and local business meetings. Read business news that applies to you and your company.

• Break Through the Walls. Don’t get discouraged when you hit a wall. Put action plans in place to break through using your strengths in marketing, PR and social media. If you don’t have these strengths, surround yourself with experts that do. Take a course, join a committee or attend a webinar or seminar that will help you build strength in areas you may be lacking.

• Tear Down the Walls. You will find the right time and endurance to tear down a wall or two with a big idea. Perhaps you are ready to host a webinar, make a podcast or start a magazine or radio show? These are not that difficult to do once you find the right resources and methods that work best for you and your company. Maybe simply starting a small newsletter or blog can prepare you for a major tear down. Start small, but dream big and don’t be afraid of the walls.

Consider balancing traditional and digital marketing. Integrated marketing campaigns with a consistent message can generate the measurable results, which are essential to build your business and marketing strength quickly and effectively.

Whether there is a small hole in the wall to peak through or you knock it down, we’ll see you on the other side soon!

At a multi-colored glance (careful, you may need your glasses!), you see nearly every instance of where you can blog to your heart’s content and also learn how to leverage content and multi-media online like the pros.

You even get a science lesson as you enter Twitter’s own ecosystem! You can discover the unique behaviors of its inhabitants. In a delicate balance, twitterers help to sustain one another in regular patterns of blogging and networking.

The origin of Twitter’s ecosystem will intrigue many and will also blow others’ minds. You need to understand the past in order to ‘follow’ the future of its system evolution. How better to do this than to discover Twitterverse?

Twitterverse also helps centralize communication and relationship management tools, incorporate trend analysis in your marketing, and find avenues for stream management and event coordination. And don’t forget the mobile stuff – techies will get lost in app after app.

Whether you prefer to climb the TweeTree or run with the Dingos or become a TweetDroider, there is an ecosystem within Twitter that is right for you and your followers. Joking aside, the Conversation Prism and Twitterverse are must-have guides to help you understand just what the heck is going on with online conversations.

Find the best practices for your business and industry and don’t forget to check out what’s Happn.in in your city. Knowing the Local Chirps may help with building local awareness.

Businesses often begin with one parent brand and then develop a family of companies, or sub-brands, which inevitably creates a challenge to choose the best name, logo and website design that will clearly communicate their unique organizational structures.

A uniform system is necessary to help people distinguish between your brands and various products and service offerings, and to help them make informed decisions.

Right from the drawing board, an architect analyzes all aspects of a design against project objectives and benchmarks, including the viewpoints of customers and other stakeholders.

Take Microsoft for example, which reorganized its marketing department earlier this year with several key appointments. This huge conglomerate is taking a more holistic view of its overall branding and marketing strategy.

In February, the company re-organized their marketing and creative leadership departments, promoting key leaders within its structure.  Under the new structure, the marketing team works horizontally across all campaigns to build the Microsoft brand, and it takes a more collaborative approach with its agency partners.

As a best practice, a holistic vision for your brand architecture will define and order the relationship of your sub-brands. This applies to any size business. As you build sub-brands, a portfolio of products or services, this type of strategy helps prepare for growth, innovation and changes with your business and in your marketplace.

Consider your ideal brand portfolio from an integrated, holistic perspective — from names to brand identities, and from print and packaging to website design, and more.  

We are taught at a young age in school that failure is something terrible to be avoided at all costs. Everyone is afraid to fail. The word ‘fail’ evokes negative emotions, anxiety and a gloomy outlook.

No one wants to hear it or experience it. You failed! Now, bury your head in the sand in shame.

But, wait a minute?  Does failing at something actually mean you’re being successful?

The businesses that implement lots of ideas will most likely have many failures, but the chances are, they will reap some impressive successes too. By trying many different things, we improve our chances that one of them will be a home run. From there, we develop more confidence; learn new things and can move on to running the bases into home again.

We all need to realize that everything we do does not have to be a success. Believe it or not, if everything we do succeeds, then we are truly failing. Why? We are not taking enough risks. Taking risks is part of the territory. The innovative leader encourages a culture of experimentation and risk taking, and is not afraid to fail.

Tap into the positive power of failure because it’s not permanent. It is an opportunity to learn something that you did not know before. Take time to analyze what went wrong and put measures in place so it doesn’t happen again. Then, move on to the next exciting venture in your business.

When you take your failures personally and see each one as a challenge to your confidence and your ability to succeed, then you will inevitably fail more often because you will become weaker in spirit with each one.

Remember this next time you are struck by failure in your business. Hold your head up and know that each failure can lead to broader knowledge and greater things.

Be cautious when taking risks, but take them in your marketing. You may fail at some of them, but it will lead you to a path of successes, and you just might knock a few into the stands along the way!

Q: Tell us about your business.

A: Sure, I am the founder and president of Lacewing Communications. We’re a marketing and design company based in the greater Cincinnati area. We’re essentially an internet-based company and service clients in the US and we also have international clients.

I started Lacewing Communications about two years ago after leaving an extensive corporate career. I joke around and say that I took a leap of faith off the corporate ladder and kind of jumped right into managing my own business. But, it’s been wonderful working on my own, I’ve met amazing entrepreneurs and share in their passions for their businesses.

What makes us unique is that we work with business owners who don’t have big budgets and can’t go to large marketing or advertising agencies. It’s evident that business owners need to be practical with smaller budgets in today’s economy. And most often, they need the essentials like a logo design, business cards, website or a brochure or marketing collateral. We help our clients manage their budget allowances and still provide high-quality services.

About Lacewing

We collectively have over 20 years diverse experience. And, my colleagues have backgrounds in corporate, advertising agency and areas of technology to support today’s growing needs, specifically with website and interactive marketing. So, we really are a full service company and provide integrated marketing from strategy to implementation.

Q: You say on your website that “differentiation always leads,” explain that.

Absolutely. Companies need to define their unique selling position, which is demonstrated by their brand and the promises they make to their customers about their products and services, whether you are marketing to businesses or consumers. Differentiating your company today is very challenging with evolving technologies and a proliferation of internet-based businesses.

So standing out in this online crowd is very hard. Over 70% of people will now go to the internet to research a product or service including the research they do offline, so finding the best method to set your company apart from your competition online is key.

This really centers on how you are distinguished within your industry, your experience and skill sets, whether your company offers the most advanced technology or whether you stand out because of outstanding customer service, products, etc. And, my company mainly focuses on integrated marketing , where we take a holistic approach to ensure the consistency of message tracks and use outside-in thinking. We help our clients develop a strategy with the right marketing channels, whether it be with online or traditional print marketing. And the right channels vary for each company based upon your size and business objectives.

We primarily work with entrepreneurs, so budgets and resources are low. Many single business owners are doing all the work themselves and have minimal outside contracting, so we hone in on the essentials and what is practical. This approach maximizes the impact of our customer’s brand and differentiate them their marketplace as a leader based on what is right for their particular company and industry.

Q: You also say that “today’s brands are about shaping positive perceptions and fostering engagement.”  Explain what you mean.

Yes. Online reputation and having a positive perception to not only your customers, but the world, is really what today’s brands are about. When you are building a website and social media strategy, you are engaging the public and this can be positive or negative given people’s many different points of view. And the public essentially becomes a somewhat “free” method of advertising since everything is so viral as it filters through search engines online.

You see companies using blogging and video marketing to foster engagement with their audiences. Clients approach us and ask for Twitter, Facebook and weblogs. They want to jump into it and rightly so because it is a powerful marketing tool, but it is also part of branding.

I talk to business owners all the time about thought leadership and you can easily become a thought leader online. Thought leaders are those that develop expertise on a specific topic and they share it freely. They are tracking trends in their industry so that they can insert themselves into conversations, or start new ones. And, when you see thought leaders that set themselves apart, they are interesting, engaging and memorable and that can drive the image of your brand.

We take a step back and look at blogging and social media as an opportunity to create positive perceptions, and consistent messaging needs to be present in order to create awareness about your company and your brand. Again, it’s an integrated approach that goes with all marketing and media channels.

Q: What tips would you offer to someone who is just getting their business off the ground and is looking to increase their visibility and find new clients without breaking the bank?

Yes, great question. Building a brand is the foundation of your business and should come first, whether you are an individual marketing your personal talents or you are a business owner. We recommend concentrating on the core needs – a logo gives your business a visual identity and really captures your entire brand in one design. And then carry the color palette and look and feel throughout all your marketing communications and touchpoints to build awareness and create brand harmonization.

A logo design doesn’t have to be expensive, my company creates custom logos at an affordable cost. We also host and design low-budget websites and offer various packages to help our clients create an online impression. And you don’t need all the bells and whistles like the larger companies that use flash animation, startups can begin with a 3 or 5-pg site that showcases your services and products for a practical cost, and then build it out as your company grows.

Email marketing is another inexpensive method now one of the top ways of marketing. Companies are embedding video and audio clips to boost results for online search engines. And, integrating email marketing with social media helps increase customer reach. It’s another way to foster engagement with subscribers and keep in touch with current clients. You can set up auto responders that send emails on a periodic basis. eNewsletters are very effective and many of my clients do quick Top 5 news clips.

What also makes us unique, is that we work with clients to develop editorial calendars, so that content is planned out on a monthly, quarterly to annual basis. Time management becomes very important when developing emarketing and specifically newsletters. We work very closely with our clients to manage resources for email marketing to keep content fresh and keep things on schedule.

Search engine marketing or SEM is a hot button.

Article writing and white papers are a great way to receive exposure and it helps you to be regarded as an expert in your field. There are many free online news sites and magazines that allow you to submit articles. We’re building permission-based access to newsletters, which help clients build their mailing lists. I mentioned blogging before and social media. These are all free or relatively inexpensive methods of advertising and you can drive traffic to your website. At Lacewing Communications, we write and distribute inexpensive press releases to announce a new business or service, or any other time that clients have some news to tell. There are also a lot of free press release distribution sites that even distribute internationally.

In general – old fashioned networking and meeting people locally can help spread the word about you and your company. Getting involved in committees and organizations can also help you gain exposure.

Read the full interview on UpSmart Magazine, click here.

It’s one thing to be liked, but will this turn leads into clients and turn clients into long-term advocates for your business, driving ROI?

Your branding and marketing must deliver value and respond to your customers. Whether you are an entrepreneur, corporate, non-profit, retail or consultant company, social media gives you a voice to speak and be heard.

The global recession has launched the social media revolution and if you are not participating, you may be losing out on some great face time.

Listen. Observe. Participate.

It can be overwhelming to decide which blog platform, social networks and blog communities are best for you. It’s more than simply Facebook and Twitter. Lack of understanding, minimal resources…and time…are the largest obstacles for starting a social media campaign.

The process of listening and observing in social media conversations will reveal the cultures of the specific communities you may wish to engage and help you understand the basics.  When you’ve got a good understanding, it’s time to  join in the conversation!