Here, we like work with other agencies and specialty publishers, providing valuable hints, tips and services to raise your online and offline profile. From August, we’ll be featuring short articles in the new Start-Up Magazine. A new easy-to-read technology magazine for small businesses, who often struggle coming to grips with, and take advantage of new technologies.

This is a superb publication with some fantastic contributors including Debbie Mayo Smith, who many will know from her Friday business articles in the Herald and numerous books on e-marketing.

Our own articles will look at innovative tools for the startup business. Key topics we’ll cover this year will include:

• Get more out of Google’s Search & Business Apps
• Super-effective Business Websites using WordPress
• The Hidden Gem for Small Biz – Mobile Marketing! 

Also in this incredible magazine you’ll find loads of other money-saving articles on new software, PC security, email marketing, social media, the best telecoms options, online accounting, new networking / partnership opportunities, legal tips, small business marketing roadmaps and more…

To learn more, email the editor, Duncan Campbell, or phone them on (09) 973 5957

John Jantsch, the small business marketing expert behind Duct Tape Marketing, has done it again. This time, he shares a valuable lesson about how to get your customers to market for you through the power of word of mouth. But this isn’t a typical business self-help book…

For starters, The Referral Engine begins with a physiology lesson about how the hypothalamus, a tiny section of our brains, is hard wired to make referrals in order to build credit in the community and connect with others. The book then goes on to explain how you can leverage this psychological need to grow your business.

But the book is so much more than a psychology lesson. It also offers a systematic approach for growing your business through word of mouth marketing, including proven strategies for establishing a referral program and practical tools for putting the system in place. Some of these strategies include:

• Talking with your customers, not at them. Thanks to social networking sites, companies of any size have the opportunity to engage with their customers on their home turf as never before—but the key is listening.
• Leveraging your sales team as a marketing tool. Sales people are the company’s main link to customers, who are the main source of referrals. Getting them on board with your referral strategy is critical.
• Educating your customers. Referrals are only helpful if they’re given to the right people. Educate your customers about whom they should be talking to.

Most obviously centres around digital technology and the net, which is good news for the small business owner, since the costs are generally much lower than marketing via traditional channels. However although Google, email and your website are the most important,  for some businesses, they will still need to allocate some annual budget for traditional print, broadcast and direct mail campaigns.

Marketing guru Dan Kennedy once noted “We’re in a war, and ALL channels are important today.”

The Human Factors

Oh, and let’s never forget the human factors. Here we talk of the tools of marketing. But people buy from people and your business and personality needs to be reflected in every communication you chose to use. Referrals and networking events are especially important for small business growth. But ensure before you leave you encourage everyone there to check you out online, subscribe to your business keyword, email newsletters, Facebook or Youtube channel. The incentive could be to go into a prize draw or a special offer. Once you’ve captured their details online, it’s easy to keep in touch.

Make the connections relevant and memorable. And have a good follow-up system in place. There’s now ample online tools we use that makes this task easy and painless.

We were discussing the fact that the only reason I knew the place existed was because I’d walked past the storefront window and had gotten curious about what was inside.

"No." His face twisted in an uncomfortable grimace of shame. "I wanted one, but… we’ll be announcing in the local newspaper," he perked hopefully. "Soon. We haven’t really done anything yet…"

I notice this problem all the time with brick-and-mortar businesses – lawyer offices, boutiques, clothing stores, restaurants… Owners pour their money into traditional advertising and ignore the internet, or they treat it like an afterthought. They don’t think a website is useful, and they’re all about direct marketing in the ways they know best.

Newspaper ads. Fliers. Brochures. Word of mouth.

And maaaaaybe, if they’re really avant-garde, they had their sister’s 19-year-old son build an amateur website or perhaps one of those nasty $20/mth jobs from the Yellow Pages or web hosting company.

Yeah. Mistake. Big one. Huge.

I see the same mistake happening all the time with new freelancers coming to the internet. Writers, designers, marketers, consultants… No site. No blog. Just some email and uncomfortable squirming. And they wonder why they aren’t getting business.

The problem is that people used to the "real world" or who have physical businesses just don’t know about the power of using the internet as a marketing tool. And even when I explain how much more business they could get out of having a website (or even better, a blog) and get them all excited about it, they don’t have the first clue what to do, or how to do it.

That’s where we can help, putting together a simple online strategy to help brick and mortar business get more customers, and keep them.

However here’s a shortlist of sites and people we like to monitor on a regular basis. Each of these also feature interviews with third party experts, plus regular audio or video podcasts.

Very educational.

DuctTapeMarketing – John Jantsch is a respected author and small business advisor
The Marketing Spot – Jay Ehret runs a regular show with interviews from the best
Dan Kennedy – An organisation that teaches people how to market.  Free and paid-for options.
Winston Marsh – A great motivator, speaker and ad marketing guru from Australia

A bit of PR helps too

Here’s a sample clip from Jay Ehret, on the importance of PR in your marketing mix.