Fellow Duct Tape Marketing Coach Joe Dager recently had a nice post about using the marketing hourglass to determine your marketing constraint. In his post, Joe discusses the importance of knowing your conversion rates and what they tell you about the effectiveness of...
Deciding not to do anything is a decision, and like all of our other decisions, comes with consequences. Most of us have big dreams when we start our business. We want to solve a big problem. Have more free time. Live a certain lifestyle. After a while, it is easy to...
Inbound marketing activities are those activites that help you "get found" by people looking for your products or services. Like any marketing tactic, inbound marketing activities are most effective when they are done consistently and systematically. Using a...
Creating alliances with strategic referral partners is a great tactic, particularly for professional service providers, to grow your business or practice. Some professionals struggle with building referral partnerships because, for a variety of reasons, they are not...
Public relations is an important and power lead generation tactic for professional service firms. The press release is still a powerful tool for reaching out to the media. Just like any other marketing tactic, we need to be strategic about how we use press releases in...
During a recent presentation about referrals and networking, the subject came up about what to do when someone you meet doesn’t let you talk. We were discussing a technique in which we begin by asking someone what they do for a living. The expectation being...
Recently, I've been talking to several business owners and independent professionals who are frustrated with the results they get from attending networking events. Networking came become a huge drain on our time - particularly if we are not consistently generating...
Referrals and face-to-face meetings are the preferred tactics for marketing professional services. Most professionals will tell me that the "other marketing stuff" doesn't work, but if they can get in front of the right person, the usually close the...
Here are some of the most common mistakes I see when it comes to marketing a professional service practice. Skipping strategy and charging straight ahead to tactics – One of the fastest ways to lose money and become frustrated with marketing is to fall into the...
This post is as much of a reminder to myself as anyone else. I’m preparing to wrap up a series of workshops on using social media for small business and I’m struck by how much time we have spent discussing these new tools for talking and very little time talking about...