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Weekend Favs April Twenty-Four

cgseo — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:40:38 +0000

Weekend Favs April Twenty-Four This content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr. Image credit: k1llYRid0ls Good stuff I found this week: Keynote for iPad : Best practices for creating a presentation on a Mac for use on an iPad. Keynote pros will quickly learn that there are a few things you need to do a bit differently when designing a presentation for the iPad. Facebook Open Graph : The Definitive Guide For Publishers, Users and Competitors. So, what does it all mean – anybody’s guess for now. Facebook Connect WordPress Plugin – Adds the new Open Graph Social Plugins (New!), like, activity and recommendations Related Posts: Weekend Favs April Seventeen Weekend Favs April Ten Weekend Favs April Three Weekend Favs March Thirteen Weekend Favs November Twenty-nine Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Weekend Favs April Twenty-Four

Duct Tape Sistema de Marketing en Español

cgseo — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:10:23 +0000

Share Duct Tape Sistema de Marketing en Español This content from: Duct Tape Marketing The Duct Tape Marketing System is the essence of Duct Tape Marketing in 14 workbooks and 4 audio CDs and is the primary tool the Duct Tape Marketing Coaches use when helping a small business create and implement a marketing plan. (Along with our Marketing Plan Pro software.) As our network of coaches expands we have chosen to offer the Duct Tape Marketing System workbooks in Spanish as well as English. Al presentar el Duct Tape Sistema de Marketing – Un mapa de ruta de marketing para pequeños negocios de probada eficacia consistente en 14 cuadernos y 4 CDs de audio. Ahora puede tener a uno de los expertos en marketing de pequeños negocios más respetado de los Estados Unidos – quien ha ayudado a miles de dueños de pequeños negocios a hacer crecer su negocio con un sistema probado paso a paso – guiándolo a lo largo del camino de marketing por una parte del costo que otros han pagado para obtener sus consejos y entrenamiento. Cada lección contiene una explicación detallada de uno de los tópicos de marketing de los pequeños negocios, ejemplos de pequeños negocios, hojas de trabajo, formularios y herramientas de la vida real, necesarios para ayudarlo a implementar la lección. Related Posts: Twitter for Business en Español New Marketing Action Planning Tool Become a Duct Tape Marketing Coach Another Group of Duct Tape Marketing Coaches Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coach Ranks Grow Again Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Duct Tape Sistema de Marketing en Español

How to Thank Your Administrative Professional

cgseo — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:03:50 +0000

How to Thank Your Administrative Professional This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Read to the end because I’m offering a way for you to win $100 AMEX gift card for an administrative professional in your life. I bet you didn’t even know that this week, April 18-24 is Administrative Professionals Week . Well, frankly I didn’t either until I ran across a virtual thank you card site at www.ForEverythingYouDo.com that American Express put together. It’s a way a to create a “Thank You” heard around the nation for an assistant (virtual or otherwise), an office coordinator, a scheduler, and others—those people who keep the workplace running. Everyone who participates – besides expressing their gratitude – will also be entered to win a $50 American Express Gift Card as part of the “For Everything You Do” sweepstakes. (Two winners will be chosen at random every day, now through April 21st.) To spread the appreciation, American Express also asked me to give my readers an opportunity to win a $100 American Express Gift Card each business day of Administrative Professionals Week (Monday 4/19 – Friday 4/23). All you have to do to enter is write leave a comment about why the administrative professional or support staffer in your work life deserves a BIG thank you. Tell us who they are and how great they are and I’ll pick one winner from each day. Don’t wait, do it today and you’ll have more shots at a winner! Disclosure: American Express Open is a business partner of Duct Tape Marketing Related Posts: The Plum Card from American Express OPEN Personalized Cash Always Fits What Does American Express Hope to Accomplish? Chillin with Blue Man Group in NYC Speaking of Kate Spade Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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How to Thank Your Administrative Professional

Weekend Favs April Seventeen

cgseo — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:14:20 +0000

Share Weekend Favs April Seventeen This content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr. Image credit: iyoupapa Good stuff I found this week Cartoon Me – pretty simple way to take a photo of you an turn it into an animated, cartoon like portrait. MLB At Bat for iPad – I’m a bit of a baseball nut and the MLB app has been built exclusively for the iPad and totally rocks. Best iPad app exclusive app yet and turns my iPad (with optional MLB.tv subscription) into a 2400 game tv set. Top 15 Google products for people who build websites – and people who don’t – I thought I was a Google know it all, but some of these were new to me. Related Posts: Weekend Favs April Ten Weekend Favs April Three My iPad Adventure So Far Weekend Favs March Thirteen Weekend Favs September Twenty Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Weekend Favs April Seventeen

Are You an Active Business Blogger?

cgseo — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:46:01 +0000

Are You an Active Business Blogger? This content from: Duct Tape Marketing I am making 50 advance copies of my new book The Referral Engine available to active business bloggers. If you would like to receive one visit this form to apply Please know that we would like you to meet the following requirements: 1. You maintain an active blog, meaning that it’s updated at least once a week. 2. You agree to blog (and tweet, if on Twitter) an honest review of the book on May 10th, 2010 or during that week. (Blogging about the book before that is okay too, just agree to do it that week as well.) FYI – I totally stole this idea from Tony Hsieh at Zappos who is offering the same for his book due in June – Delivering Happiness . Related Posts: How Do You Resell Your Employees I Am Giving Away 250 Copies of My New Book for My 50th It Is Make a Referral Week! The Referral Multiplier Effect Come Meet Me on the Road Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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How Do You Resell Your Employees

cgseo — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:57:53 +0000

Share How Do You Resell Your Employees This content from: Duct Tape Marketing People come to work at your place, you hire for fit, teach them the core value and functions of the job, generally get them fired up for a while and then what? It’s a tough question, but one that is vitally important when it comes to marketing because happy, engaged, sold employees make far better brand advocates than the opposite. In doing some research on referable companies for my new book The Referral Engine , I came across a policy used by the online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos . When Zappos makes a hire, no matter the department, they go through a training class that includes spending time answering customer call center inquiries. (That’s the job that the bulk of Zappos employees fill.) At the end of their training period they are made an offer to quit. They are told they will be paid for the training period + $2,000 if they want to quit. I spoke with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh recently and he told me that initially they put this in place to weed out people that weren’t ultimately committed to the Zappos way of serving customers, but what they found was the more valuable attribute was the impact it had on the people that stayed. (By the way, few take them up on the offer.) People that turn down the $2,000, an amount that is over two weeks pay for typical call center job, go home over the weekend and think long and hard about why they want to stay. The net effect is that they resell themselves on making a commitment to the job at Zappos. (If you’re a blogger and want a free review copy of Tony’s book Delivering Happiness , due out in June, apply here .) I don’t know that I have a host of answers for what or how you should attack this one, I just know it will pay off if you do. Share your ideas for reselling your employees. How do you do it? Image credit: charlie llewellin Related Posts: 5 Ways to Make Culture a Marketing Strategy Small Business Speaker Series at CES 5 Ways to Make Next Year Your Best Yet Making Ideas Happen Why would someone come to work for you? Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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How Do You Resell Your Employees

Weekend Favs April Ten

cgseo — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 10:10:25 +0000

Share Weekend Favs April Ten This content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr. Image credit: gilles paveau :: cafe-photo.net Good stuff I found this week: Canned Banners – Site makes it easy to create animated banner ads for as low as $99 Concept Feedback – Feedback crowdsourcing for web and graphic design Which Draft – Create free legal forms Related Posts: Weekend Favs April Three Weekend Favs March Thirteen Weekend Favs September Twenty Weekend Favs February Twenty Weekend Favs March Twenty Seven Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Weekend Favs April Ten

Making Ideas Happen

cgseo — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:32:19 +0000

Making Ideas Happen This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Scott Belsky (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes Many business owners, particularly the more creative, are good at making ideas, but not always so good at making those ideas happen. For this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast I visited with Scott Belsky , founder of the Behance Network and author of Making Ideas Happen . Making Ideas Happen chronicles the methods of exceptionally productive creative leaders and teams – companies like Google, IDEO, and Disney, and individuals like author Chris Anderson and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh – that make their ideas happen, time and time again. As the founder of the Behance Network , the world’s leading platform for creative professionals across all industries, Belsky has heard every reason why good ideas stay just that. In response Behance also created the Action Method an intuitive approach to productivity, designed to help creative thinkers push their ideas into action, and 99%, Behance’s think tank, providing tips, interviews, research, and events designed to help push ideas forward, from vision to reality. I believe anyone looking at trying to create a model for building community could learn a great deal from Behance’s approach. As far as Making Ideas Happen goes I’ll leave you with the words of Seth Godin – “Scott Belsky has your number. He’s seen it all before. He knows your excuses, he’s seen your shtick and he knows all the ways to avoid doing the work. In this book, Scott’s not giving you any place to hide.” Related Posts: Is Our Work a Product of Our Environment? Napkin Technology Still Works For Me How to get beyond Bullet Points Sometimes Simple is Hard Join Me Live with Seth Godin Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Weekend Favs April Three

cgseo — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:30:43 +0000

Share Weekend Favs April Three This content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr. Enjoy! Good stuff I found this week: Buddy Press – Social networking in a box. Build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community all based on the power and flexibility of WordPress. Woopt – Simple enough looking solution for web based mobile app development VaultPress protection and backup service for installed WordPress blogs built on the Automattic grid Image credit: der_rolli Related Posts: Weekend Favs March Six Weekend Favs November Twenty-nine Weekend Favs September Six Weekend Favs March Thirteen Weekend Favs February Six Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Weekend Favs April Three

The Cycle of Strategy

cgseo — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:11:06 +0000

Share The Cycle of Strategy This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Effective strategy, be it marketing related or otherwise, is what really sets one company apart from another. I’m not really saying that every successful company plans and implements better strategy, in some cases strategy just happens because a market and a product find each other and grow organically. However, small businesses that understand the power of an overarching marketing strategy, filtered and infused in every tactical process, will usually enjoy greater success. The problem with strategy however, is that most people don’t really know what it is or, if they do, hobble its effectiveness by viewing its creation as something of a linear event – hold a planning retreat, decide on everything in a vacuum, report back next year. I don’t think strategy works well like that. Strategy planning is an essential first step, but at best it’s guesswork. You’re obligated to do it to get the ball rolling, but not as some sort of final destination to act rigidly against. The value of a marketing plan and strategy comes into focus through the process of planning coupled with real world analysis and a willingness to shift your thinking as you go. Strategy is more circular than most people view it. In fact, the upward spiral might actually be the best metaphor. In my experience there are about seven steps in the ongoing planning and execution of a marketing strategy. When effectively viewed as a tool, these steps are never done, they are just waiting around for the next cycle. These cycles happen for one reason primarily – the market tells you the answer. That answer can come in the form of growth, an opportunity to seize, or even an economic downturn. Either way, the circular motion needs to stay in tact. I believe business owners need to continuously monitor these seven elements of the marketing strategy circle. Who – Are you attracting the ideal customer and can you more narrowly define who that is? What – Do you have a clear core point of differentiation? What is it and how are you communicating it? The Plan – What action steps do you need to take today and tomorrow to bring your marketing strategy to life? What goals have your set for success of the strategy? Execute – Are you executing against the plan? Measure – What indicators need to be tracked and captured to allow you to determine your success? Analyze – How will you analyze the data you collect to determine if you are on course, need to make alterations or even move towards a new opportunity? Shift – How will you change course? How will you start the cycle over again? Holding the guess, test, and realign state of mind when it comes to marketing strategy is the one of the surest ways to successfully tap the power of effective growth by way of planning. Image credit: ZeroOne Related Posts: Stop Wasting Your Time With Social Media What's So Scary About Marketing Strategy? Get Your Shine On I Hate Business Plans Tis better to be found than to find Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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The Cycle of Strategy