ADUTAINMENT: Advertising as Entertainment
JellyBasket.com - JELLY by the CASE or as a GIFT BASKET.

11 Things Small Business Owners Can Learn From Star Wars
1. Great Things Take Time – Three years passed between the release of each movie in the two trilogies, and a lot of work went in to them.

Successful Dropshipping Business Online
Dropshipping Tips and Real Wholesale Suppliers And Dropshippers: Your small local businesses when taken online can become one of the biggest players in the industry. There are a few huge advantages to this model. First, it SAVES YOU THE COST of building your own inventory. If you're like most people starting a small business, you don't have much capital with which to play with. The last thing you want to do is tie up your cash in inventory that you may or may not be able to sell. Not having inventory also means no leftovers. If the product you sell suddenly becomes outdated, obsolete, or just plain un-trendy, you aren't the one with a house full of stock that nobody will buy. Many online retailers find themselves having to offer deep disco...

ZAPP! Gum Announces Free Apple iPod? Shuffle Offer to First 5,000 Team Members who Join its Pre-Launch Network Marketing Program
Company rewards both customers and team members as it successfully transitions from its direct marketing model into its long awaited Network Marketing Platform. Pre-launch Enrollees to benefit from priority placement and kick-off incentives after signing up at www.MyZappGum.com/TeamZapp.

Business Development - Increase Your Business Right Now
Business is nothing but simply developing your economy through various activities Growing of business is not merely increasing your production and earning good profits, but it?s all, from keeping an eye on the market to the publicity of the product

Performark Chooses to Extend Business Intelligence Partnership with SwiftKnowledge
After an evaluation period of the leading Business Intelligence tools, Performark selects SwiftKnowledge as their Business Intelligence tool of choice. SwiftKnowledge Version 8 toolset includes a higher quality customer oriented presentation tool along with more advanced analytics.

Internet Marketing ? What You Need To Know To Prevail
Surprisingly, many people don?t know exactly what it is! Most times when people think of Internet marketing the first thing that comes into their minds is ?It?s a way of making lots of money fast by joining programs or selling stuff?. Other people believe Internet marketing is nothing more than a bunch of schemes to scam people out of their money.

Just Ask! Using Surveys to Improve Your Business
Just ask!You can learn useful information about your business, customers, and potential customers by conducting a survey. If you have a list of e-mail addresses of your customers and prospects you can send them an e-mail containing a link which leads to a survey on your site.

Timeless Marketing Truth: How To Add Character To Your Marketing And Bring Your Message Alive
Making a character out of the advertiser brings the message alive. Maxwell Sackheim is most famous for inventing the Book-of-the-Month Club. But before that, he invented some dramatic, and dramatically successful, advertising.

Working From Home -- The Online Business Reality
According to a recent Harris poll, 72% of American households are thinking about starting a home based business. This is quite frankly a staggering statistic. Almost three quarters of Americans are unsatisfied with their current employment situation for one reason or another. Many of these unsatisfied workers are turning to the Internet to fuel their work from home dream jobs.

Business Directories: The Place To List Your Local Small Business When Looking For Local Customers
One of the oldest and most effective ways to market yourself online is through local small business directory listings. Small business Internet marketing requires starting with a listing of your small business in the major general directories then listing them in niche and industry-specific directories appropriate to your small business. It is a time consuming process to list your small business in the right directories, but a necessary one to ensure good rankings for your website.

Dial-up Vs. Broadband Video
The decision to pay the extra fees and move from dial-up to broadband usually involves meeting three wants: faster downloads, faster uploads and live streaming video.The transmission of live streaming video is dependent on bandwidth, video codecs and the ability to transmit as many frames per second as possible.

Search Engine Marketing Industry Leader High Rankings® Conducting SEM Seminar
High Rankings®, a Search Engine Optimization & Marketing industry leader, is hosting a Search Engine Marketing seminar March 15th-16th in Minneapolis, MN featuring company founder and CEO Jill Whalen.

Charles Lauller Joins Bizzuka as Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Business Development
Technology veteran to lead Web content management software provider toward international growth

Promotion Strategies: Save with a Marketing PodCast
Just a few years ago, radio was the way to get audio announcements out about your business and a marketing PodCast was nonexistent. Today, the marketing PodCast as a promotion strategy will revolutionize getting your message out but to a wider audience and at much cheaper production costs. The marketing PodCast is derived from the Apple iPod product and is an excellent way to promote your business as part of your overall promotional and marketing efforts.

Probate & Obituary Marketing
I start my marketing with obituaries followed with probate filings and find it just another effective way to acquire property.Short of courthouse research you can go to your local library and go to the reference department and research using what is called a Polk City directory that will list if the deceased party owns real estate.

The Single Most Powerful Small Business Marketing Tool On The Planet

Let me get right to the point. The single most powerful small business marketing tool on the planet is a marketing plan. Now before you roll your eyes and run for the hills let me clear a few things up.

When I talk about a marketing plan I am not referring to those academic exercises found in college marketing books, or the templated mumbo jumbo found in business planning software. I will not be asking you to determine your share of the market today. Give me a break, share of the market, most small business owners just need to figure out to get ten more customers.

A marketing plan is a simple (in many cases one page) document that specifically answers who you are, what you do, who needs it, how you plan to grab them by the throat, when you plan to do it and how you plan to pay for it... in a way that everyone in your organization, network, and client base can clearly understand.

Now that was a mouthful so let me back up a moment. Small business owners are doers, not planners. While doing is better than, say, mildewing, without direction, it leads to "marketing idea of the week" syndrome and stunts any chance a small business has for real growth.

Take one day, follow these 7 simple steps to creating the most powerful small business marketing tool on the planet, and your life will become a much simpler affair. Flowers will grow where weeds had previously resided, your children will say thank you at the top of their lungs, and your favorite baseball team will finally make that run for the pennant.

Well, maybe none of that will happen but you won't be as irritated when it doesn't.

Step 1: Narrow your market focus

Look at whom you are currently doing most of your business with. Figure out why they do business with you and what it is about them that is unique. Write one paragraph that describes what they look like and what they want out of life. Take a good hard look at the rest of your clients and customers and decide if they fit that description of your best client. Start saying no when the phone rings and it's not your target market calling.

Step 2: Position your business

Figure out what it is that you do best, figure out what your target market longs for and tell the world that you do that like no one else ever thought of. Maybe it's serving a niche, maybe it's a form of service, maybe it's a way you package your products. Here's a hint: you probably don't know what it is. Call up 3 or 4 of your clients and ask them why they buy from you.

Step 3: Core messages

Create several very compelling benefits of doing business with your firm and find ways to work them into everything you say and do. Just remember it's not a benefit unless your clients think it is. Your clients don't buy what you sell... they buy what they get from what you sell.

Step 4: Marketing materials

Recreate all of your marketing materials, including your website, so that they speak only of your core messages and your target market.

Step 5: Never cold call

Make sure that all of your advertising, including yellow pages, is geared to creating prospects and not customers. You must find ways to educate before you sell. Your target market needs to learn how you provide value in a way the will make them want to pay a premium for your services or products. You simply can't do this in a 3 x 4 ad. Your ad needs to get them ask for more information... then you can proceed to selling.

Step 6: Expect referrals

You must create a referral marketing engine that systematically turns clients and referral networks into 24 hour marketing powerhouse. The first step in the system is to make providing referrals a condition of doing business with your firm.

Step 7: Live by a calendar

After you complete steps 1-6, determine what you need to do to put them into action and then schedule them on a calendar. Whatever it is that you need to pick a month and pledge to get it done that month. The mistake most small business owners make is to get overwhelmed when they realize how much they really need to.

If you can begin to schedule one or two activities each month you will look up at the end of six months and find that you have a fully developed referral system, new website, and a lead generation system. Slow and steady wins the race tortoise.

So what will have completed when by the time you read the next issue of this publication?

About The Author

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant based in Kansas City, Mo. He writes frequently on real world small business marketing tactics and is the creator of "Duct Tape Marketing" a turn-key small business marketing system. Check out his blog at http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php - gets these kinds of killer tips weekly by sending an email to mailto:subscribe@ducttapemarketing.com