What is Your USP?

Mitchel Harper in What's Your USP and Why Should I Care? talks about the same concept that Seth Godin does in Why you, why now? but it is important enough to repeat.

The bottom line for any businesses' potential consumers always boils down to why should they purchase YOUR brand and why should they do it NOW? 

Can You Answer These Two Simple Questions?

Take all the complicated processes and terms out of the "how to market your business" equation and you are left with 2 simple questions:

1) Why you?
2) Why now?

Seth Godin, in his blog "Why you, why now? points out how these are really the only questions between a business owner and a customer.

The Power of Tesimonials!

Don't Listen to Me, See What Others Say ABOUT Me.

One of the best ways to beat your competition and convince your prospects that you’re the real deal (all on a shoestring budget) is to tap into the power of testimonials. Read full article here.

Have You Heard of the Movie Avatar?

You are probably thinking to yourself "Of course I have, who hasn't?"  That is exactly the response I would expect. 

People always understand concepts and ideas better if you explain it to them in ways they can relate to.  Amanda Steadman in her post "AVATAR – What James Cameron did right…and how it can apply to you." makes excellent analogies between what James Cameron did to promote his movie and how you can apply similar principles in your own marketing efforts.  Read full article here.

Time to Re-Evaluate and Re-assess Your Marketing Efforts and Your Marketing Edge

Marketing has always been a very important and oftentimes overlooked function of running a business.  Because it SUPPORTS the sales function rather than having a DIRECT effect on the bottom line, it is also often the first area businesses will neglect in hard economic times.  The term Marketing is also often equated with the term sales - when in fact - they are not one in the same.  However, well thought-out strategic marketing efforts are even more important in times of economic crisis.  Mark Bower in his post on Brand Republic offers a witty and wise look at the importance of marketing.  Read full article here.