Recent Articles From EvanCarmichael.com http://www.evancarmichael.com/ http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Effective-Marketing-Building-Block-1--Have-Something-Good-to-Say.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Effective-Marketing-Building-Block-1--Have-Something-Good-to-Say.html Before spending a dime on any form of marketing, a company first needs to be crystal clear on what makes it worthy of the customer’s business. This may sound like a “messaging” issue but it’s not. At its core, it’s an issue of business and marketing strategy. So what does it mean to “have something good to say” and how do you get there? Having something good to say really means that you’ve understood your customer at a very deep level, and have aligned everything about the way you do business to satisfy or exceed the needs and expectations of your customers. This goes well beyond the traditional “features, advantages, benefits” of your products or services. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/The-Three-Classic-Marketing-Challenges-Faced-By-Small-Businesses.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/The-Three-Classic-Marketing-Challenges-Faced-By-Small-Businesses.html The other day I met with a client who was complaining that his marketing wasn’t doing a thing for his business. So I asked him three simple questions. 1. Do you have something good to say? 2. Do you say it well? 3. Do you say it often? His reactions to these questions were telling and reveal three of the major challenges small businesses face in doing effective marketing. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Local-Search-Continuing-To-Gain-Steam.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Local-Search-Continuing-To-Gain-Steam.html comScore Networks recently released the results of an analysis revealing the size and growth of the U.S. local search market. According to the study, 63 percent of U.S. Internet users (or approximately 109 million people) performed a local search online in July, a 43-percent increase versus July of 2005. Two out of five local searchers (41 percent) were looking for information on a local service in their home area. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Still-wondering-if-search-engines-really-matter-in-YOUR-business.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Still-wondering-if-search-engines-really-matter-in-YOUR-business.html A recent study by Internet research firms Marketing Sherpa and Enquiro called, "The Role of Search in Business to Business Buying Decisions" strongly demonstrated that search engines are now the dominant force driving most business buying decisions. A key finding indicated that 93.2% of respondents based their buying decisions according to their online research. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Cold-Calling--Fish-or-Fowl.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Cold-Calling--Fish-or-Fowl.html In my last post, I talked about how marketing should be used to create leads, NOT sales reps. But what about cold calling you ask? Cold calling is a sales rep role and responsibility yet it creates leads, right? Wrong. Cold calling is actually a form of Marketing NOT sales, since it creates leads not customers. Unfortunately, cold calling is the most expensive and least efficient method of creating leads that exists. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Sales-and-Marketing--Yin-and-Yang-or-Oil-and-Water.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Sales-and-Marketing--Yin-and-Yang-or-Oil-and-Water.html Have any two areas of business ever been more mixed up and misunderstood than sales and marketing? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken to clients who have complained about their marketing when it was really a sales problem; OR gone on about their no-good lazy sales reps when what they really had was a marketing failure! So let's first clarify the definition of sales and marketing, then we'll tackle the more interesting topic of their inter-dependence. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Search-Engine-Marketing--The-Importance-Of-The-Easy-Sale.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Search-Engine-Marketing--The-Importance-Of-The-Easy-Sale.html In our previous post, we discussed the concept of the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) two-step, and ended by introducing the concept of the “easy sale”. What’s the easy sale? That’s the offer on your Website that allows your prospect to sign up for an e-newsletter / request a whitepaper / complete a scorecard – anything that allows them to learn more about your company without the risk of having to speak to a live human being – or worse – the dreaded “Sales Representative”. In return, you capture their contact info (email address minimum) which now allows you to continue marketing to this prospect on an ongoing basis and puts you in control of the sales cycle. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Search-Engine-Marketing--A-Primer-For-The-Busy-Executive.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/607/Search-Engine-Marketing--A-Primer-For-The-Busy-Executive.html One of the hottest topics in marketing today is Search Engine Marketing or SEM for short. What is SEM and why is it so hot? The purpose of this post is to give the busy SMB owner a quick high level guide to the key things he/she needs to understand about SEM.