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7 Reasons to Start Using Posterous for Online Marketing

June 1st, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

I have a serious love-hate relationship with social media, mostly because it can be a time-suck, so anything that makes managing or using social media easier, I’m all over. And because I’m a big texter and emailer, I really only use social media when absolutely necessary (haven’t been on my personal Facebook page much in a couple of
months, and I miss it exactly this much).

So this is basically my way of saying that I just discovered Posterous, and it’s awesome. The service lets you manage more than 20 social media platforms simply by sending an email. You can update LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, YouTube – and the list goes on. For small business owners crunched on time but devoted to social media marketing, this is a lifesaver.

Here are 6 more reasons to use Posterous:

1. It is ridiculously easy to use. To do anything, from opening an account to updating social media accounts to sharing an article, you just email post@posterous.com. If you only want to update one social media account, like Twitter, you email twitter@posterous.com.

2. Customize it to your heart’s content. Posterous has a layout similar to a blog, complete with a customized url. You can customize the look, too; always nice
to have that option (this is one of the reasons I hate Facebook—everyone’s page looks the same because there’s only one layout).

3. Add pages, just like on a website. I’m looking around Posterous, and I found the account for a DJ I’ve never heard of, but that doesn’t matter. His site is great. He has 10 pages set up on his account, including a Dates page listing upcoming performances and a Media page containing videos of him performing.

You can add links to a ton of stuff about you: blog posts you’ve written, websites you’re associated with, content on Slideshare, whatever. And of course you can also create an About Me page.

4. Easy way to set up an online photo album. When you email a photo or photos, a photo gallery is automatically created. No more downloading photos from smart phone or camera to hard drive that you then have to upload to whatever site.

5. Write and publish blog posts from your smart phone. Forget dragging a laptop around with you to events just so you can blog about what’s happening. The whole email thing makes it possible to write and publish blog posts when you’re at a conference, meeting, seminar, etc. Just write a blog post in an email and send it off. It’s instantly published.

6. Engagement made easy. You can set up your Posterous account so you will receive alerts via email if someone DMs you from Twitter or posts to one of your other social media accounts. Super handy when you’re on the go and not sitting in front of the computer all day.

The only downside: Their mobile app is available only for the iPhone and Android.

***

Now that I’m done drooling all over Posterous, do you think you’ll start using it?

Image by Flickr user yoppy (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blog, blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, online marketing, Picasa, Posterous, slideshare, social media, Twitter, Website, YouTube
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 5 Comments »

4 Reasons Why I Shut Down my Company Blog – And What You Can Learn

May 20th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

I made the decision last week to pull the plug on my company’s blog. This pretty much contradicts what I am always saying (“Don’t give up!”), so here’s why I did it and what you can learn from my experience:

I already blog prolifically…for others

When I thought about it, I realized that I already had a great online presence. I blog for two of Network Solutions’ blogs, this one and Solutions are Power; Tech Cocktail, where I am also the lead editor; and the Web 2.0 blog, where, again, I am also the editor.

Writing yet another blog that focused on a variation of marketing, content and social media was just adding more noise to an already-crowded space. Plus, the reach I have on the other blogs is pretty wide and deep.

Lesson: If you can write about your area of expertise for an already established blog with an established audience on a regular basis, do it.

I used my best material elsewhere

It’s true, I did not save my best ideas for my own blog. Instead, I used it for the blogs I get paid to write, which makes sense. But I was constantly shortchanging myself, leaving me struggling for topics to cover in fresh ways or new topics altogether. The busier I have gotten, the harder it was to find the time to brainstorm exciting new blog posts.

Lesson: If you can land a paid blogging gig, give them their money’s worth, even if you end up doing this…

…Only half of what I published on my company blog was original

Repurposing blog content is a wonderful idea – after all, you already wrote your brilliant idea and insights down, why waste them? But when you start repurposing huge chunks of content from one blog for another on a regular basis, it’s a sign that you are spread too thin. Plus, search engines only reward new content, so a lot of my blog posts were basically invisible.

Lesson: If you already write and edit an average of 20 blog posts a week, creativity will hit a wall and your reach will suffer.

The blog wasn’t attracting an audience

I have to admit, I did not do a great job promoting my blog; I was too busy promoting the other blogs I write for. As a result, I was not attracting an audience, and without an audience, my blog didn’t have the comments, likes, and other signs of engagement that are core to a fun blog that an audience is attracted to. If you visit a blog with zero comments, likes or tweets, do you want to stick around?

Lesson: If no one is reading your blog, what’s the point in writing it? Go out there and promote it!

So, now that I no longer have a blog, how will I be promoting my company online? Glad you asked! I will be focusing my attention on building a community on Facebook and sharing my expertise there through a monthly marketing series that will focus on a different topic each month. We are starting it in June, and I am very excited about it!

Have you ever shut down a company blog? If so, why’d you do it, and what did you do to fill that void so you could continue to share your expertise? Leave a comment below!

Image by Flickr user Lenore Edman (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogging, company blogs, content, Facebook, Marketing, Search Marketing, social media
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, Social Media | No Comments »

6 Ways Your Blog Can Build Your Social Media Audience

April 11th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

While blogging is often used to increase search visibility, establish expertise on a topic, and drive traffic to your website, it’s not often used to build your audience on social media, whether you are trying to build up your Twitter following, Facebook fans, or status on Tumblr. It’s a lost opportunity, as there is really nothing better than building on an audience you already have. (Of course, this can work in the other direction too—use social media to build up your blog audience.)

When building your social media following, just remember that quality of fans totally trumps quantity. And by quality, I mean the kinds of fans who engage with you, retweet your tweets, comment on Facebook posts, post to your Facebook wall, and, of course, become customers!

Let’s start with two very basic, common-sense things you need to do:

1. Add social share buttons at the bottom of each blog post to make it easy for your blog readers to spread the word about your fabulous blog and build awareness of your social media presence.

2. Add social media icons on every page of your website, especially if your website and blog are one and the same, which is becoming more and more common. Make as easy as possible for people to follow you on social media.

And here are four common-sense things you might not have thought of:

1. Promote your social media presence (with links to the accounts) in the bio you supply for guest blogging gigs. You’ll be reaching a whole new audience, and if they like what you wrote, hopefully they’ll feel compelled to connect with you on social media.

2. At the end of blog posts, add a link to the social media account you’d most like to promote, asking that people follow you there. This sounds so simple, but you will be amazed by what you can achieve just by asking.

3. Mention your social media accounts in blog posts. We’ve all got so much going on that we cannot remember everything, even if we have the best of intentions.

4. Reference tweets or Facebook posts, either from you or your audience, in your blog posts when relevant. Add screen shots if you can. You can also build entire blog posts around the conversations that are happening on Twitter and Facebook between you and your audience. People are very lemming-like, so the more you show your engagement on social media, the more people will want to be a part of all the fun you are having.

Image by Flickr user Holger Zscheyge (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogging, blogs, Facebook, guest blogging, social media, Social networking, Tumblr, Twitter, Website
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, social media | 2 Comments »

Blogs, Videos, and Websites: More Online Marketing Success Stories

February 14th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

In my last blog post, I wrote about a recent ebook from HubSpot called 11 Examples of Online Marketing Success. It was written by David Meerman Scott, who is a wonderful source of useful information, and this ebook is definitely useful. My favorite thing about it is the companies that are featured. While most of them are in very blah industries, their success stories are exciting and inspiring.

Here is what I learned from a manufacturer that used an optimized blog, a medical billing and EMR provider that used a viral video, and an author that used an audience-centric website to energize their online marketing efforts:

Search Rankings and Sales Improve With an Optimized Blog

Agilent Technologies, a company that manufactures and sells life sciences and chemical analysis tools and electronic tests and measurement tools (I know, super exciting stuff), was having a problem ranking for a specific keyword, signal integrity, even though they are in a very niche industry.

To fix this, their head of marketing decided to start blogging in a very thoughtful and targeted way. He didn’t create a company blog; instead, he created an industry blog based on signal integrity that was fully optimized for search: The blog domain is consistent with Web page titles and the content in each blog post. (Check yours to see if that’s true for your blog posts! In the top navigation bar, the name of your blog plus the title of the blog post should appear.)

Because they are publishing useful, relevant content and optimizing the blog with keywords for search, the blog is yielding great results. Agilent ranks high in search engines because of the blog, and the blog ranks on the first page of Google for signal integrity and is generating qualified leads. Just as awesome is the fact that journalists at industry publications are reading the blog and back-linking to it, which search engines reward.

The Power of One Viral Video

Producing just one video that is fun, creative, and engaging can have far-reaching results, as Nuesoft Technologies learned this past fall. Again, this is a company in a very un-sexy industry: they provide medical billing solutions and electronic medical records (EMR). Yawn.

But check out what they did: Their IT department produced and distributed a really funny parody video of Lady Gaga’s song Poker Face called Interface. Watch it! When I viewed it, they were just short of 8,000 views.

Their goal with the video was simple: increase online visibility within the industry. They got that, and a whole lot more: 3 of the most important industry blogs wrote about the video, and it was shared virally on Facebook, generating a lot of comments and likes. In an industry of 400 competitors, they are one of the very few who have taken video marketing to the next level. As a result, they now stand out in a very crowded marketplace.

Complete Website Overhaul Leads to Inbound Marketing Success

If your website is a static, brochure site that is not optimized for search and lacks engaging, useful content, keep reading! Victor Conshin wrote the number one book on gout (yes, gout) called Beating Gout: A Sufferer’s Guide to Living Pain Free. (I didn’t even know what gout was until I read this success story.) His original website was a huge failure, and not because the design was horrible (it was fine), but it was not ranked, very hard to find, and contained no interesting content. It was just a boring, product-focused brochure.

He completely redid his website to make it audience-focused. It is now optimized for search, answers gout FAQs, and provides the latest news in the food and drug industry. Traffic has doubled, and his bounce rate has gone down significantly, which means people are exploring his site beyond the home page. As a result, book sales have increased and the site now ranks on the first page of a Google search.

Image courtesy Flickr user Claudio Matsuoka (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogging, Inbound Marketing, Marketing, seo, social media, Website, website redesign
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership, Web Design | 2 Comments »

The Science of Blogging: 16 Tips to Improve Your Blog

January 12th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

Back in December, I listened to an absolutely fascinating webinar sponsored by HubSpot and led by Dan Zarella called “The Science of Blogging.” It included numerous takeaways based on social media research Dan had conducted, along with a survey of 1,400 people. It can be really hard to quantify some aspects of marketing, but Dan did so brilliantly for blogging.

If you are still sitting on the fence over whether or not to blog, consider this:

71 percent of people surveyed say blogs affect their purchasing decisions either “somewhat” or “very much” and 49 percent of people read more than one blog per day.

This was a very numbers- and graph-heavy presentation, so I ignored the numbers, since I hate math, and made notes on the key takeaways that Dan presented. Here is what I learned about blogging:

Sex and positivity sell on social media (including in blogs).

Talk as yourself, not about yourself.

Videos get links, while photos get comments.

People want to read your unique point of view.

Users comment when there’s something in it for them.

Stay away from overly technical jargon (an obvious one to me).

Don’t be boring!

Grammar matters.

Lose adjectives and adverbs, and write simply and plainly. In other words, write like USA Today, not the New York Times.

Use social proof (likes, retweets, mentions, comments) to establish trust.

Don’t say the same thing everyone else is saying.

Social proof reduces fear.

Time of day matters: Publish your blog posts early in the day to get comments, views and links. Retweets occur most often around 4 p.m. Facebook sharing takes place most often midday.

Day of week matters, too: Publish your blog posts early in the week to get views and links, and on the weekend to get comments. Facebook sharing happens more at the end of the week and over the weekend.

The more often you post, the better. One or more blog posts per day can turn you into a go-to source of information.

One thing most people do not do is analyze their blog. Learn its return on investment and make changes as necessary.

Image by Flickr user Horia Varian (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogging, Marketing, social media
Posted in Marketing, Small Business | 7 Comments »

How to Integrate Your Blog With Your Marketing and Social Media Strategy

January 7th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

I just finished writing a three-part series on social media, and though this post isn’t really part of that series, it can be viewed as a continuation of the whole basic social media “how to” discussion.

You write and publish a blog to demonstrate authority on a certain topic (or topics) and generate leads. To put it to best use and really make it effective, though, your blog should not be a standalone tool, isolated from your marketing and social media strategy. Instead it should be supporting that strategy.

Here are the most basic ways to integrate your blog with your marketing and social media strategy:

Marketing-centric editorial schedule

Create a monthly editorial schedule that includes posts based on upcoming events or news: new products or services you will be launching, promotions you will be offering, excerpts from an eBook you are working on, webinars or workshops you will be giving or attending, etc. You can also create regular feature columns, interviews and guest posts; themes; and seasonal topics that will help promote your short- and long-term marketing goals. Just make sure you are sharing relevant, interesting, and useful information—your posts cannot be all “me, me, me.”

For example, I write and edit annual reports. Because nonprofits typically begin producing their annual report in December and January, I just wrote a four-part series on annual reports for my company blog. It included: what sections you should include, how to write certain content-heavy sections, creating an eye-catching layout and design, and cost-effective ways to publish and distribute it. So with this series I am sharing useful information while promoting my expertise as an annual report writer and editor.

Share and engage on social media

We use social media to share information, generate leads, become a thought leader—or at least a go-to source of information—and engage with our audience. There are four ways your blog can support your social media efforts:

1. Automatically share new blog posts. Distribute your newly published blog posts, which of course are full of great information, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, etc. Add a short intro to grab the attention of your followers and ask for comments. I use a social media dashboard (Hootsuite) for this.

2. Make it easy for people to subscribe to and share your blog. Insert an RSS feed on your blog so readers will automatically receive new blog posts. Add Facebook and Twitter buttons (and buttons for any other distribution channel you like and use) so people can share your words of wisdom on their social media networks. Ask people to subscribe to and share your blog right on your blog’s home page—and tell them why they should. What sort of information will you be sharing with them that they just will not want to miss?

3. Engage via your blog. Because social media has a strong community-building element to it, ask people for comments at the end of your blog posts. Do they agree or disagree, and why? What have their experiences been with x? And so on. Just be sure to reply!

4. Engage with other bloggers. Follow other bloggers in your industry or in the industry of your target markets. Introduce yourself, comment on their blogs, and, after you get to know each other a bit, ask them to guest post. They will promote their guest blog to their readers, which will most likely bring new readers to your blog.

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Tags: blogging, social media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership | 1 Comment »

10 Social Media and Marketing Resolutions for 2011

December 31st, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

The word “resolution” is heard so often around the beginning of each year it’s become almost meaningless. They are half-heartedly made and quickly forgotten. These resolutions are different, though. They’re ones you do want to make, and with that whole fresh-new-clean-slate feeling that comes with a new year, now is as good a time as any to implement some of them.

Your 10 social media and marketing resolutions for 2011, in no specific order:

Use a social media dashboard. I love Hootsuite, but TweetDeck and Seesmic are also super popular. It doesn’t matter which you use, though, just pick one so you can better manage Twitter, Facebook, and the other social media platforms you use.

Get active on LinkedIn. Finish filling out your profile and keep it updated. Go through your business cards and connect with the people you really want to keep in touch with. Link your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account so the blog posts and other useful information you post on Twitter is seen by your network. Answer questions via LinkedIn Answers. And the list goes on.

Create a custom landing page for Facebook. I used Hy.ly, which is free and really easy to use (read more about it here). A custom landing page is a memorable way to welcome new people and give them a reason to “like” you.

Join conversations on Twitter. I know you know social media is supposed to be used for engagement. But you probably don’t take full advantage of Twitter to build a community and start discussions, do you? (Don’t feel bad, I don’t either, so this really is one of my resolutions.) Search for hashtags (#) of terms you use and want to talk about. Pull up the list of tweets that use those hashtags and jump into the conversation (just use the hashtag in your tweets).

Add calls to action to your website. To convert your Web visitors into leads, add prominent messages on your website that offer something of value. It could be a white paper, free consultation, eBook, or special discount for new clients. The call to action can be a button or link; the person will click on it and get redirected to a form where you’ll gather their contact information before sending them what you promised.

Add video to your website. Search engines love videos, so by adding one to your website, you will greatly improve your chances of being easily found during an online search. The video need not be long, but it should be fun, engaging, and professionally produced.

Start blogging already! You know you should blog, so start. Make sure your blog is integrated into your website (in other words, it looks like another page of your website). Put together an editorial schedule of what you’d like to write about. You don’t need to publish every day, but at least twice a week is preferable, and your blog posts need not be long, just full of useful info.

Analyze your website. Check Google Analytics and Website Grader on a regular basis so you know how you’re doing: what pages people visit the most, what information they download from your site, how long they stay on your site, what blog posts generate a lot of traffic, etc. Use this information to improve your marketing and social media efforts.

Optimize your website. Stop procrastinating and hire an expert to optimize your website so search engines can find you. Not all SEO “experts” are created equal, so ask around to find someone with the experience and methods to get you the results you want.

Repurpose content. Reuse the content you have already written for other purposes. Turn blog posts on a certain subject into an eBook. Use short articles you have written for your newsletter for your blog. Break down a white paper into a few blog posts.

Good luck! And Happy New Year!

Image by Flickr user draml (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogging, blogs, calls to action, Marketing, seo, social media, social media dashboard, video, web analytics
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, Social Media | 5 Comments »

Overcoming Blog Writer’s Block, or What to Blog About

December 15th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

By Monika Jansen

Not knowing what to blog about is one of the biggest and best excuses for ignoring your blog and letting it whither on the vine. I know, I know: keeping the fresh, exciting ideas coming can be a huge challenge. I struggle with it myself. But if you ignore your blog, where does that get you? Yup, you got it: nowhere fast.

In no specific order, here is a non-exhaustive list of ideas that I turn to when I am stuck:

Book reviews

You don’t need to write about brand new books—enough people do that already. Instead, write about older books that you rely on for great advice and have learned a lot from. Share the most relevant points the author makes that will be useful to your readers.

FAQs

Even if your company doesn’t have a list of frequently asked questions, don’t worry. You probably are asked similar questions by clients all the time. Answer them at length, one blog post at a time. (And then you can write up an FAQ list to post on your website!)

Case studies

The only thing your clients and potential clients care about is how you can help them. Show how with case studies that clearly explain the problem your client had and how you solved it for them. If you can get some quotes from the client, all the better.

Industry news

Chances are, your clients do not follow the news in your industry closely if at all. So share the news that is most likely going to impact them.

Industry best practices

Educate your clients on how things are done in your industry. I hate the term “best practices”, so forgive me for using it, but it can quite useful for you share with your clients the most effective and efficient processes and methods that are common to your industry. Think of it as a way to help them be better customers.

New products or services

Though blogging about new products or services you are offering is an obvious subject, make sure you do it right: emphasize the benefits to your clients, not the features!

Lessons learned

We all make mistakes, learn from them, and emerge smarter (hopefully). Share lessons you have learned that don’t make you look like an incompetent moron, but rather a wiser person whose product or service is a now a lot better due to your mistake.

Webinars, workshops, and conferences

Take prolific notes when you attend a webinar, workshop, or conference. Blog about the most important things you learned that your audience would care about. If you learn enough, milk your newfound knowledge and create a series of blog posts.

How to’s

This is one of my favorites. Share your knowledge with your readers, especially on subjects that may seem totally commonsense and obvious to you. You will be quickly regarded as a go-to source of information on the topics you write about.

Numbered lists

In general, blog readers love numbered lists. The idea of learning about something quickly is very appealing, and an organized list of points seems to make it that much easier.

Contrarian point of view

Write about a subject using the opposite point of view of everyone else, either to get attention or because you really believe it to be so (I could write a whole series on why I hate social media). Just be sure you back up your assertions.

Use negatives

Spin a topic 180˚ and blog about it using only negatives or mistakes as your premise. For example, write a blog post titled “10 Ways to Really Screw Up Your Blog” rather than the expected “10 Ways to Make Your Blog Awesome.”

Image by Flickr user Chuck Coker (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogging, Marketing
Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

Review: Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps

November 18th, 2010 :: Thursday Bram

As a small business owner, blogging can be problematic. There are plenty of reasons why it can be useful for a small business, like improving your ranking in search engine results. But it can also be a lot of work. Even if actually writing posts isn’t an issue for your business, you still have to find time to learn about the blogging process. The learning curve can be speeded up with a resource like Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps.

Annabel Candy, the author of Successful Blogging, comes from a small business background and has created the guide that small business owners need to be able to dive into blogging and succeed.

Blogging By Numbers

Candy breaks down the blogging process into a manageable process of 12 steps, ranging from defining the topic of your blog to creating a guest posting strategy. Those are big steps, admittedly, but each step is organized in such a way as to make it easy to take action.

When defining your topic, for instance, Candy highlights the considerations the owner of a brand new blog must take into account. She includes resources for further research, but doesn’t get bogged down in too much information. Candy provides enough information to let you take action and follows that information up with action steps and a worksheet that will allow you to get everything straight quickly.

Avoid Information Overload

Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps clocks in at 65 pages. When you consider that there are plenty of blogging books topping out over 200 or 300 hundred pages, that can seem a little thin. But that length is something that Candy worked hard to achieve. The average small business owner doesn’t have a week to sit down with a blogging guide and slowly read through it. Sorting through the information that isn’t actually necessary for the type of blog you’re hoping to run just makes matters worse. So Candy skipped all the material that you don’t need. This ebook is something that you can read quickly and take action on immediately. There’s nothing to get in the way of creating and running a blog.

Candy offers Successful Blogging with several options to make sure that buyers get exactly what they need. The ‘Hot’ version is priced at $29 and includes an additional chapter on motivation. The ‘Super Hot’ version adds in an audiobook version, as well as blog case studies, for $39. Candy also offers the ebook packaged with a consulting session to work through questions specific to your business and your blog for $499. The variety of options makes it easy to get as much help as you need for your blog — and not pay for more.

Photo Courtesy Annabel Candy

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Tags: blogging, Marketing
Posted in Marketing, social media | No Comments »

Founder at Work: Joel Spolsky, Cofounder of Fog Creek Software

November 1st, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

In this month’s “Founder at Work” installment (based on the interviews in Jessica Livingston’s book Founders at Work), I decided to write about one of my favorite past columnists at Inc. Magazine, Joel Spolsky. Ignore the fact that he’s a programmer, because this guy can write. As a small business owner, you have got to love him when you learn that he and his friend Michael Pryor founded Fog Creek Software in 2000 without a product in mind. They just wanted to create a company where they’d like to work. That simple premise has kept them profitable and privately held for 10 years. (In case you’re curious, Fog Creek helps developers make better software.)

What you can learn from Joel Spolsky, Cofounder of Fog Creek Software:

Your blog can generate clients and fuel your business. Fog Creek started out as a software consultancy, and their first clients came on board via Joel’s blog, Joel on Software, which he still publishes. After 2 months of writing the blog and building an audience, Fog Creek was launched. Their first 3 clients all read—and were fans of—the blog and contacted Fog Creek rather than vice versa.

Maybe your Plan B should be your Plan A. When consulting totally dried up in November 2000—2 months after Fog Creek was founded—they decided to package and sell an internal bug-tracking application called FogBugz. It immediately took off and remains the company’s core product.

Create a great company culture and you won’t have to worry about hiring and retaining awesome employees. Since I am not a programmer, I did not know this, but though programmers are paid well, they are usually treated like crap and are typically lined up desk-to-desk in a huge room like a bunch of sardines. Fog Creek’s programmers have private offices with comfy Aeron chairs and doors that close. Programmers report to other programmers, and they get 4 weeks of vacation plus 1 week of holidays.

Don’t fake it. Because both Joel and Michael are programmers, they knew nothing about sales and marketing. To get around that little problem, they came up with all sorts of marketing ideas that didn’t always work, and they ended up wasting valuable time and effort. What they should have been doing, they later realized, was improving their products.

Your customers are smarter than you are. If you want to grow your business and increase your sales, just talk to your customers and find out what they need and what would make them buy more of your product or service. Ask customers who walked away before buying why they went to the competition. And ignore the competition.

Photo Courtesy of Joel Spolsky

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Tags: blogging, Marketing, software development
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Marketing, small business | No Comments »