Recent Articles From EvanCarmichael.com http://www.evancarmichael.com/ http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Where-do-you-live-on-the-net-The-importance-of-a-good-address.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Where-do-you-live-on-the-net-The-importance-of-a-good-address.html So many times, we see a small business with an email address that leads to hotmail and the like, or the free ones that come with your Internet connection provider so the hosts name is involved e.g. "yourname@hostname.com." This makes you look like an amateur or a business that's not serious. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Three-BusinessBuilding-Ideas-To-Steal.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Three-BusinessBuilding-Ideas-To-Steal.html One of the great joys of our work is meeting a wide range of successful local business owners. Each has a wonderful story to tell about how they created and developed their firm, and each has special challenges. Each owner has a set of talents that make his or her business unique, and some valuable lessons for all of us on what has worked for them. On the principal that it’s easier to follow someone else’s best practices than spend time and effort making up our own, here are some lessons we can all apply from business people right in our own neighbourhood. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/10-Ways-to-Market-When-cash-Is-Tight.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/10-Ways-to-Market-When-cash-Is-Tight.html About a month ago, Staples and Angus Reid released their latest “STAPLES Canada Small Business National Quarterly Index.” It looks like we believe we are over the hump. 70 per cent of business owners expect at least some improvement to their business over the next six months (compared to 58 per cent in March 2009). Now that you’re feeling better, get out there and make sure that your customers will come to you rather than your competition when they are ready to buy. Chances are you are a little tight for cash, so here are ten low-cost ways to market better that we’ve worked out with help from Joanna L. Krotz, co-author of the “Microsoft Small Business Kit”. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Questions-That-Sell.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Questions-That-Sell.html We are working on a new campaign for a client and spent a few hours today looking at competitive web sites, ads and brochures. After about three hours we looked at each other and said, “Can you remember anything any of these companies said that stands out?” Ken said, “I bet if I took all these brochures, and removed the company name and logo, even our client couldn’t tell them apart!” Every single firm started their pitch with a description of their products and services, and lots of detail on how great they are. Then they added thrilling descriptions of their plants (usually with a picture of the parking lot) and a price list. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/10-Steps-To-Unleash-Your-Lead-PR-Machine.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/10-Steps-To-Unleash-Your-Lead-PR-Machine.html PR (public/media relations) is a powerful small business-marketing tool. By PR, we mean getting positive press mentions about your firm in local, trade and national publications. These mentions are so powerful because they are seen to come from unbiased third parties, so they are more believable. People may think ad messages are just sales hype, but when they read about how great you are in the local business journal…well, it must be true! http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/What-to-do-with-a-cold-lead.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/What-to-do-with-a-cold-lead.html We have a client who has so many requests for quotes on his desk he is way behind on filling them. At first this seems like a problem we would all like to have. So many leads we can’t get to all of them! But there is a down side to this story. Our client has no way of sorting the leads into those that are “hot” and need immediate attention; and those that are “cold”. Maybe these cold leads are from qualified people, but who knows when they are going to close. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/How-Copying-Canadian-Tire-Can-Help-Grow-Your-Small-Business-Big-Time.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/How-Copying-Canadian-Tire-Can-Help-Grow-Your-Small-Business-Big-Time.html Canadian Tire CEO Stephen Wetmore is growing his “smart stores” Some store sales have grown between six and eight per cent, and some departments have more than doubled. You can grow your retail business by copying some of his proven ideas. Here’s how: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Dont-just-sit-around-on-the-Internet-put-your-web-site-to-work.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/Dont-just-sit-around-on-the-Internet-put-your-web-site-to-work.html So your business has a web site. Great! As we’ve said before, “It’s a credibility issue—these days a business is expected to have a web site.” But wait a minute, what’s the site doing for you? Sure, your web site is helping your customers get to know, like and trust you by building awareness, providing information and shortening the selling cycle, but could it be doing more? YES! http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/7-Ideas-Owners-Must-Consider-About-Succession-Planning.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/7-Ideas-Owners-Must-Consider-About-Succession-Planning.html Statistics show that 70% of entrepreneur-owned businesses do not survive the founder. Did you work this hard, for this long, to see your life’s work implode? http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/How-changing-an-email-subject-line-added-56-in-sales.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/3800/How-changing-an-email-subject-line-added-56-in-sales.html We subscribe to a results company for its marketing research results. We get to see data we can trust on issues of real importance to our clients—like this investigation into how to make the subject line of an email work best. It’s common sense to say that emails reaching out to clients and prospects won’t work if they don’t get opened, but this experiment demonstrates that there are other things you can and should be measuring if you don’t want to leave money on the table.