Idea of the Day: Talking Teapot...

We decorate for holidays, listen to different music depending on our moods and sport t-shirts with our favorite bands. Style comes and goes every season, but that plain old teapot sits there on the stove doing the same thing morning, noon and night (for heavy tea-drinkers, at least) for years on end. What gives? Why do we use the same teapot over and over again, day in and day out? I’m ready for a change. For starters,...

Making Movies...

Since this site has a lot to do with creativity and business, I thought I’d share some of my recent fun. I’ve been making videos for several different clients, helping to write scripts and playing around with different forms and applications. There are 3 basic types: Montages consisting of slides and/or photographs. Live footage (recorded from a hand-held digital camera or webcam). “Screen Capture”...

Adding a "Rate Us" button is free and ea...

What’s the difference between these two pictures? Version #1 - Before RatePoint Version #2 - After RatePoint You got it – the “Rate Us” feature wasn’t apparent in the first image. But after installing the simple code (it’s literally a copy and paste) from RatePoint, we can automatically encourage our Social Media Fast Start customers to give us their feedback about the series. How...

How to tell EXACTLY where you should be marketing...

If you’ve already watched the Free Marketing Made Easy Social Media Fast Start series… …you’ll remember how I walked you through the steps of following and engaging with LinkedIn and Facebook Groups. I also showed you how to start building an active online community by participating in other people’s blogs, listening on Twitter, etc. If you haven’t already watched the series, you can...

…and the #1 Reason to Have a Facebook Page i...

I’m looking for TCB Removal Services in Stone Mountain, GA. So I try a Google search and get this result: There’s something very important that you should notice here: TCB Removal Services’ homepage doesn’t appear on the first page results. I’m not trying to pick on them (in fact, some of the reviews of their company are great) but from a marketing perspective that’s really not good....

What's your "breakthrough" message?...

I heard a fascinating question at a recent Meetup* event celebrating Seth Godin’s newest book, Linchpin. During a conversation about information overload and what marketers can do to get their message through, one of the participants asked me: “How do you break through the clutter and get someone to BUY your program.” She wasn’t talking about Free Marketing Made Easy in particular – rather...

When a free online calendar is actually a marketin...

Reaching out to a new colleague today (@coachlaura – a social media trainer) I discovered a very cool, free new cool. Tungle.me is a free, simple to use but powerful online calendar system. Why would I call it a marketing tool? Because you can embed it into your website and let clients book time with you at their own convenience. This would be beneficial if you are: A landscaper, paver, roofer or any other kind...

Idea of the Day: Blog Follower software...

As part of the Free Marketing Made Easy course on Internet Marketing for entrepreneurs, I often speak about the importance of engaging in online conversation by following and commenting on other people’s blogs. This strategy pays off in increased traffic to your website, but it’s also a manual process to search for relevant blogs that are both appropriate to comment on, and widely read by the kind of visitors...

Get People to Click: I did, and you can too...

If you have been following my blog for a little while, you know that Free Marketing Made Easy launched earlier this week. There are all sorts of things I can (and will) share about ‘what’s working’ for us right now; you can borrow from our successes and try some of them for your own business. To start, let’s focus on two email marketing lessons: Building and maintaining your online and offline...

How did I get into Inc. Magazine (and what does it...

The picture below shows pages 16-17 of Inc. Magazine’s May 2010 issue. Though it may be hard for you to see from this image, the top left article on page 17 is titled “A Cash Register That Tweets.” Beneath that headline is my quote about the application, which I originally posted to the magazine’s blog. Max Chafkin’s article about getting customers on Facebook and Twitter was great ["Tell...