The Marketing Message Blog

Visual Thinkers—This Means YOU!

Visual thinking, has been quitely sweeping through the halls of business picking up converts.  As a devoted Mind Mapper and visual thinking evangelist I was thrilled when Dan Roam's new book "Back of the Napkin" was released.  Many people profess to lack artistic skills and shy away from this topic.  But artistic skill is not what visual thinking is about.

Thanks to Elizabeth Marshall's AuthorTeleseminars.com you can hear Dan Roam discuss his book with thought leaders Seth Godin, Anil Dash and Rich Sloan.  You can't afford to miss this recording.  It will make you more valuable to employers, your own business and others.

Summer Reading List-Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers

During the summer months I thought I'd share with you some business books I believe are worth reading and reflecting upon.  As with any reading list, it's personal and reflects the information I think is important for entrepreneurs and business owners. 

Luckily, I will edit out the time wasters, so you can pick from a list of titles with substantial heft.  The list is not in 'order of importance' since only you know what's important to you.  Hopefully you'll find the 'how' in these books, not just the 'what'.

"First up is Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers" by Jimmy Vee, Travis Miller and Joel Bauer. The authors have distilled a lot of good marketing information into well organized sections. 

Specifically check out Chapter 7 called "Create Irresistible Attraction" where they speak of 'The 'Golden Rule of Intergalactic Marketing is —Give value first."  They go on to describe what types of content you should think about. 

Web Marketing for Small Businesses—Free call sign up

Sign up for the next stop on my virtual book tour for "Web Marketing for Small Businesses: 7 Steps to Explosive Business Growth."

It's July 22nd, 2008 with Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero and Shama Hyder. Click here to sign up for the free call

On Wednesday night we will reveal "How to Build a Compelling Brand on the Web and Attract an Endless Stream of Customers."

Our guests:

Laurie Morgan-Ferrero is a renown copywriter and founder of Red Hot Copy

Shama Hyder is an online marketing expert and founder of After the Launch 

Check this out! Mindjet Connect Service Launches Today

Having been a beta tester, I can assure you that the new Mindjet Connect  service is worth checking out.  It's definitely a life-changer when it comes to productivity.

What is Mindjet Connect you ask?  It's a new service from Mindjet.com that allows you to collaborate online and share MindManager software and workspaces with everyone you invite into your space. 

It's incredibly powerful AND easy to use.  If you care about better communication, collaboration and creative thinking then check this out.

Get Content. Get Customers. Get this book

Content marketing is a topic on everyone's lips right now, with good reason. Unless you create the compelling content your visitors deserve, your online business will be a lonely place. "Get Content. Get Customers." by Newt Barrett and Joe Pulizzi is the first book of its kind to tackle the issue of content marketing head on. If you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you need this book today!

You'll get powerful lessons from the `Best Practice Success Stories' and ways to implement them from the final section on `Putting the Lessons Into Action.'

You can become the change agent in your business. The key secret they reveal in this book revolves around the fact that people will no longer be seeking out your content. You have to find ways to get to them.

The Table of Contents is divided into four sections:
Section One: Coping With the Content Marketing Revolution
Section Two: How to Put Content Marketing to Work
Section Three: Learning from Smart Marketers--Best Practice Success Stories
Section Four: Putting the Lessons Into Action

Each section builds on the previous one. You'll learn a way to develop a set of processes that will help you put theories into real action that gets results. Both Joe and Newt walk the talk. Their blogs demonstrate the value you derive from providing readers with content they can't find anywhere else. I highly recommend this book.

Free: Learn How to Create a 7-Step Action Plan for Marketing Your Book or Your Business Online

I will be the guest for the next Guerrilla Marketing Association Expert Interview with Roger C. Parker. This week's Guerrilla Marketing Association call takes place Wednesday evening, June 4.  between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM

The topic is: Learn How to Create a 7-Step Action Plan for Marketing Your Book or Your Business Online. We'll be taking questions at the end, or, submit them ahead of time as comments or emails to Roger C. Parker. (Roger@publishedandprofitable.com)

Please join us!

Hate Organizing Files? Listen to this podcast on Paperjamming

I love to find new ways to organize business systems.  Anything that will help me save time and be more productive is a must.

I was reading the Active Voice Blog by Paul Lagasse the other day and I discovered his method for organizing files called Paperjamming.  Brilliant conceptual idea!

He divides files into four types and then categorizes them into one of three stages: continuing, one-time or permanent.  Simple, elegant. 

I asked Paul to share his concept on this podcast. He's got great templates too at his blog so listen and then check it out.

Are internal politics preventing a sale?

If you're having trouble reaching the right person to sell to, check out my column "Using Mindmanager 7 to deal with internal politics preventing a sale"  in the May issue of the Mindjet.com newsletter

Virtual Book Tour Podcast #2 How to Build a Compelling Brand on the Web and Attract an Endless Stream of Customers

Check out the second podcast in the Web Marketing for Small Businesses virtual book tour to hear me discuss online marketing with Andy Wibbels and Roger Parker.

Our topic is "How to Build a Compelling Brand on the Web and Attract an Endless Stream of Customers."

Andy Wibbels is author of Blogwild! and Marketing Manager with Six Apart  and Roger C. Parker is a bestselling author and founder of the online community Published and Profitable.  Great insights from these experts.  Don't miss it.

Podcast with Michael Port, Keith Ferrazzi, Andy Sernovitz and Stephanie Diamond

If you want to hear a fun, honest conversation about the challenges EVERY business owner faces when building an online business then download this podcast with Michael Port, Keith Ferrazzi, Andy Sernovitz and me during Michael's book tour of Beyond Booked Solid.

They are amazing, successful and generous guys and I know you'll glean some great information.

Book Review- Web Marketing for Small Businesses

I'm excited for you to know more about how my book can help you grow your business.  Newt Barrett, of the very successful Content Marketing Today blog, has done a thorough review of Web Marketing for Small Businesses that I hope you'll take a look at.

Newt is a consummate content marketer (say that 3 times fast) and really works hard to extract the essence of his material. He talks about what resonated for him and I hope for you as well!

Sign up for the next stop on my virtual book tour!

The next stop on my virtual book tour for Web Marketing for Small Businesses will be May 15th at 3pm

I'm excited that two great experts will be joining me:

Andy Wibbels, author of Blogwild! and Marketing Manager with Six Apart

Roger C. Parker, bestselling author and founder of Published and Profitable

Learn more here and sign up for this Free call with me and Andy Wibbels and Roger Parker

Hear Michael Port and I discuss the 7 Steps

My new book launch started with a kick-off call with the great Michael Port.  He's the author of Booked Solid and Beyond Booked Solid. I'm really excited to speak to Michael about my book Web Marketing for Small Businesses. He's helped so many people with his "Think Big" revolution.

Here's the link to listen to the teleseminar

We talked about how to:

-design your website so that it's easy for customers to buy

-tell a compelling story, so that visitors become subscribers

-choose the right tactics and tools for marketing on the web

->use the four key questions to build a successful and effective website

Listen to my call with Michael Port

I'm really excited to let you know that my new book launch starts tomorrow with a kick-off call with the great Michael Port.  He's the author of Booked Solid and Beyond Booked Solid. I'm really excited to speak to Michael about my book Web Marketing for Small Businesses. He's helped so many people with his "Think Big" revolution.

We'll be talking about how to:

-design your website so that it's easy for customers to buy

-tell a compelling story, so that visitors become subscribers

-choose the right tactics and tools for marketing on the web

->use the four key questions to build a successful and effective website

Should you launch that new product?

A "golden nugget" of information is reported in Business Week's Small Biz Feb/March 2008 issue.  In "What's for Launch" Doug Hall, small biz guru and CEO of Eureka Ranch looked into the issue of determining whether to go ahead with a new product launch.  I'm often asked questions about new product launches, e.g., how to decide whether to launch one product over another or to launch at all.

To answer this question, Doug Hall looked into his data archives of 100 product launches by his clients and academic articles to see if he could offer an answer.  He found that the single best predictor of success was meaningful difference or uniqueness.  Meaningful difference in this case refers to a blend of customer interest in buying and perception of how different the product is from competitors. 

The big takeaway here is that the marketing task for any product or service is to tell customers why it's not the same old thing.  There needs to be a real answer to that question, not just spin.  That means that if you are struggling to find the difference, or there really isn't one, reconsider launching it until it has one.  If you spin the product to appear to have a difference when one doesn't exist you'll get returns and unhappy former buyers.