Practical Small Business Marketing E-Newsletter

Marketing Tips and Tools from Jay Lipe - Nov 2006

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Marketing tagline tip

The tagline you use for your business must differentiate you from your competitors. Collect three of your closest competitors’ taglines and compare them to yours. If your tagline is interchangeable with the other ones, you still have work to do. Remember: a tagline should capture the uniqueness of your organization.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Marketing tips – How to improve your business cards

* Use the same graphics, colors and typestyles as your other communications materials (letterhead, envelopes, brochures, website, etc.).

* Limit the number of fonts on your business cards to two.

* Make your logo appear in the upper left hand corner of the card. Eye movement studies show this to be the very first place the human eye travels when handed a new piece of paper.

* Print all information on your card is in a typeface that’s large enough to be easily readable. Think 8 pt type or larger.

* When including your website address (URL) on your cards, consider highlighting it with a separate color, a larger type size or putting the address on the back of the card.

In my new book Stand Out from the Crowd, there’s a whole chapter called Business Cards, Letterhead, and Envelopes: Tips to Get the Most out of These Fundamental Tools.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Scared to market your company?

A big deterrent to successful marketing is fear. Many people, who have not majored in marketing, or had significant experience with it, actually fear it.

If you face this situation, read my complimentary article “How to gain confidence in your marketing” that was posted to the Your Home Office website.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Marketing metrics – Remember to account for the intangibles

It is time for a pop quiz: How can you measure the awareness level for your company? How do you measure the credibility of your organization? How do you track word-of-mouth mentions from a publicity campaign?

The answer to all three is…you cannot. Marketing is gray, not black and white, and these are all examples of intangible benefits a business gains from its marketing. All are extremely valuable, yet none can be tracked. Resign yourself to this fact; some benefits of your marketing campaigns cannot ever be measured. Your Chief Financial Officer will not like it, but it is true.

If you have questions about how to develop marketing metrics for your organization, take a look at my first book The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Looking for a marketing coach? Look no further

Lately, I have been doing a lot more marketing coaching for those organizations that are outside the Minnesota area. In the past month alone, I have phone coached companies in South Dakota, Boston, and Baltimore. If you have a burning marketing issue that you would like to get some marketing coaching on, contact me at (612) 824-4833 or lipe@emergemarketing.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Any thoughts?
I am always interested in what you would like to see in this newsletter. Any suggestions? I am happy to entertain them. Just email me at lipe@emergemarketing.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Jay Lipe
Emerge Marketing LLC
4315 Aldrich Av. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55409

Phone 612-824-4833
E-mail lipe@emergemarketing.com
Web www.emergemarketing.com
Blog www.emergemarketing.com/blog
Copyright 1999-2006, Emerge Marketing LLC