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30 Warning Signs Your Marketing Sucks

By Logan 14 Comments
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Which of these scenarios sounds like you? 1. You've got lots of traffic to your blog (or website), but you're not getting any sales. 2. Your small business is struggling because you're not getting enough customers. 3. You're a freelancer or solopreneur that's working a lot of long hours, but are still struggling to pay the bills each month. If any of those scenarios sound familiar, your marketing probably sucks - or worse - you could be sabotaging your own marketing without realizing it. Finding the right combination of marketing tools to effectively promote your blog (or business) isn't hard, but screwing it up is infinitely easier than getting it right. Below I've listed 30 of the most common problems that will short-circuit your marketing efforts and kill your sales. Pay attention to these warning signs and you'll be able to get a better return on your marketing investment. 1. You don't have any brand at all. Having nothing to set you apart from your competition, … [Read more...]

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7 Ways to Go from “Roadie” to “Rockstar” in Your Niche

By Logan 7 Comments
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I've just spent some time watching "Rock 'n Roll Fantasy Camp" on VH1 for the first time, and it dawned on me that everyone wants to be a rockstar in their own way. Maybe that means creating a "rockstar" business that makes lots of money, maybe it means positioning yourself as the "rockstar" expert in your industry, or maybe it's just wanting your kids to think you're "rockstar awesome." Reminds me of Nickelback's song "Rockstar" (What? You thought I was going to forget to add a music video to this post? tsk tsk). For those of us that view it as being the best in our niche and building a following of raving fans, it's not uncommon for many of us to start out as "roadies" riding the coat-tails of the A-Listers in our niche. The "roadie" phase See if this sounds familiar: you've started a blog, and you're trying to get people's attention to build an audience. So you do the same things everyone does - you … [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Marketing, Rockstar Branding Tagged With:

Are You Ready for the Best Damn Ride of Your Life?

By Logan 1 Comment
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One of my favorite rock songs is Rev Theory's "Hell Yeah" for a couple of reasons. First, it's a full immersion, high-octane, rock 'n roll, jam tune. This is one song you can crank up and rock out to anytime you want to get fired up. It's exactly the type of fast paced, adrenaline pumping song that I love to listen to. Incidentally, I happen to play a wicked air guitar to this song and am an even meaner lip syncer. The second reason I love this song is because it's the perfect business model. Say what? You heard me. "Hell Yeah" is the perfect business model. But before I get too deep into an explanation, here's the music video so you can hear the song for yourself to better understand the rest of this post. NOTE: If you really want to get fired up about rocking your business, crank the volume on your computer as loud as your ears can handle before playing this video. That's right, let the neighbors know you're at home, and I want to see everyone head-banging like there's no … [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Marketing, Rockstar Branding Tagged With: ,

Giving Your Audience The Best You Have

By Logan 2 Comments
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Have you settled for "good enough?" Many entrepreneurs and bloggers reach a point where they're willing to accept less than their best in an effort to be more productive. Either they slap something together quick to get it online, or they take something they've put hours of work into creating and pay little attention to it's presentation. Sad isn't it? I find it ironic that the very people that say they sell quality products, provide stellar services, or only write the best content for their audience are so willing to give less than their best in other areas of their business. Take, for example, the service provider that claims to be an expert, yet is inconsistent in their follow-up. The consultant who brags about the results they help you achieve, yet is lousy at returning calls and e-mails in a timely fashion. Or the blogger who writes powerful content yet is sloppy in their presentation, slapping it online in an amateur layout thinking "good enough." We're … [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Bullshit Alert: Why “Design Doesn’t Matter” is Bad Advice

By Logan 2 Comments
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Don't you just hate it when people give bad advice for their own profit? Recently there's been quite a few articles popping up online that talk about how "design doesn't matter," how it's OK to have an ugly website, that content is the most important thing, or that designers are just trying to rip you off. I have one thing to say about that kind of advice: it's bullshit. Let me tell you why. There's been a lot of research done that proves the impact design has on sales. For example, did you know there's a study that was done by a group of researchers in Canada that proves website visitors make a judgement about your site within the first 1/20th of a second? I don't care how good your copy is or how usable the site is, if your site doesn't capture the visitor's attention in that first 1/20th of a second, they won't stick around long enough to see any of it. Now with that said, I do agree that design just for the sake of having something "pretty" is a waste of … [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Marketing, Random Thoughts, Small Business Tagged With: , , ,
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