Honesty. It's a word that so many of us claim to live by and be a reflection of our lives. And yet, business owners sometimes forget the importance of honesty when promoting their brands. While marketing is often tied to the idea of stretching the truth, padding the truth, or "making it sparkle" to sell, that is not Good Marketing.  Business owners aren't trying to be dishonest by marketing their brands. The Man Men era of advertising taught many people that it is necessary to "trick" consumers into buying from us - and it's simply not true.

Business Owners and Marketers: You have the power to end this ridiculous way of thinking starting here and now.  No one wants to be tricked into buying anything, because they end up feeling deceived and angry later. 

Our goal as business owners is to offer a valuable product or service to the people who want and need...

What's Your Lead Generation Plan?

While I love content marketing, storytelling and expressing business concepts through the written word and images, it’s all useless if you haven’t laid out a lead generation plan for your company. The phrase lead generation can seem overwhelming to non-marketers. I assure you that there is nothing to fear. Here is a quick-start guide to your lead generation plan and understanding a common "marketing funnel" in action.

Quick Start to Lead Generation

Creating Awareness About Your Company / Product / Service

This is the step you are most likely doing right now. When you publish a blog, publish a post on social media, attend a conference, or speak at an event, you are creating awareness of your company / brand. Make the best use of these tactics. When it comes to website content and social media, allow readers...

GUEST POST by Jamie Williams

Would you create a relationship with someone if you felt they were not trustworthy? Are you wasting valuable time working with someone who does not have you or your business’ best interests at heart?

Trust is the foundation of all relationships, both personal and professional. In order to grow that trust, we need to establish the foundation first. Building strong relationships can set you up for success. Below are a few ways to establish trust and create lasting relationships.

As a virtual assistant, I am always creating and maintaining relationships with clients (one being the amazing Candice!). Building trust is key to ensuring the success and growth of our clients. To me, trust is a feeling of security, a way to show someone that I am knowledgeable, reliable, honest, and always have their back.

There are Many Different Ways to...

“Marketing Operations is a broad term that collectively describes the function of the marketing organization, including process, technology, and human resources, that allow marketing to efficiently scale with quality and consistency.”

 – Centric Consulting

“Marketing Operations (MO) is a next-level concept engaged in the actual process of creating, manufacturing and promoting products. A marketing operations department is likely to be a wild blend of creative left-brain thinkers and buttoned up right-brain statistic ninjas, all working in harmony towards a common goal.”

 – Tenfold

“Marketing operations (MO) as a capability has exploded onto the scene because of fast-changing technology, the need for a more transparent, efficient, and accountable view of marketing and big-time pressure from the C-suite for marketing to...

updated September 1, 2022

Why Set Marketing Goals?

Goal setting is the foundation of your marketing strategy and the marketing tactics you use to fulfill on it. If you want people to make purchases, then shouldn't you be tracking conversions?

And if you are posting to social media and writing blogs every week, wouldn't you like to have a clear understanding of what is working (or not working)?

It is logical that you want to see the effect of your marketing tactics and be able to measure that success or failure. This line of thinking leads you to today's topic: Goal Setting. 

How do you create achievable marketing goals?

First, let's look at your business objectives or goals. Wait, you have those setup... right?

Does your company have a mission, vision or values? Usually, your mission or vision represent your passion for what your business...

UPDATED: March 21, 2022

Definition of a marketing content audit

A Marketing Content Audit is a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of your business' marketing. This includes your goals, strategies, tactics, and the results of your marketing efforts.  Evaluation is the first step towards creating a powerful marketing strategy - knowing your current situation.

Conducting a content audit is a powerful way to get more deeply in touch with your brand, products and services; and it helps to refocus your marketing strategy. 

In this article, you'll learn more about the marketing audit, its components and how it is used. 

How To Conduct a Content Audit...

1. Evaluate Your Current Marketing Plan

To begin your marketing content audit, evaluate your big-picture plans. Here are key questions to ask when doing such an evaluation

• What are...

Planning, process, systems, segmentation, and automation...these seemingly mundane concepts are the true key to balancing your customer relationships with your day-to-day business operations.

Customer Relationship Management (abbreviated "CRM”) is a term used to describe your customer communications strategy. It also refers to the software most businesses use for implementing that strategy. Before you get excited about another tech tool (or run for the hills), a smart CRM Strategy begins with people and your customer communications. 

How do you keep in touch with customers, prospects, vendors, and partners? Is it just as ideas pop up in your head? Do you have a specific system for maintaining those relationships?

For many of us, the answer to that last question is sort of or not really. However, maintaining regular communications with your vital business...

Would you like to…

Attract more ideal customers?

Increase your conversion rates?

Create marketing campaigns that generate engagement?

Provide useful resources for your loyal customers?

Build a feedback loop for improving your business?

If if your answer is yes, then continue reading, because this article reveals the powerful tool that so many small business owners neglect. It is highly effective, easy to use, and can completely shift the way you run your business.

What are Customer Personas?

Have you ever heard any of these phrases used before? Target Market, Target Audience, Buyer Persona, Marketing Persona, Customer Avatar

These are the phrases used to describe the semi-fictional character(s) who represent your ideal customer and ideal prospect. Businesses create these characters based on internal data on existing customers as well as external information...

What do you do when your business requires 30+ documents from the client for them to work with you?

Do you email them a list of all the documents and wait for a reply?

Do you repeatedly call the client and ask for the documents to be sent by a specific date?

This is a problem I recently faced in a marketing operations improvement project. The reason I describe it as marketing operations is because the client communication channels is key to the company’s reputation, which is their number one way of marketing themselves – strong processes and communications. The company was already a user of Zoho CRM, so making sure that the marketing operations improvements worked with that platform was important.

The Project Requirements:

• Collect 30+ forms and documents ranging from a simple contract to detailed personal financial information
• Get digital signatures on some of the...