Small Business Marketing Services

According to a new Forrester Research report (The Consumer Advertising Backlash Worsens, Jan 5. 2005), there’s a significant drop in consumer attitudes towards advertising since 2002. Forrester reports Between September 2002 and June 2004 consumer attitudes toward advertising nosedived: 40% fewer agree that ads are a good way to learn about new products, 59% fewer [...]

Clickz.com had a great Back to Basics article on features vs. benefits. They have the advice Start by considering the product’s attributes:Features. What does the product offer? For example, “This application handles multiple users concurrently.” Advantages. What do the features do? “This application provides essential information in real time.” Benefits. What do the features mean? [...]

Clickz.com published an article in today’s newsletter about how to attract consumer attention. It’s no easy feat. Now more than ever, consumers have more options and are less sensitive to advertising – reporting that they hate pop ups and ads on websites and buy tivo to edit out commercials. Attention was once seen as a [...]

A recent article in this week’s MarketingProfs newsletter reminded us how to get back to basics with Direct Marketing. The article detailed how one should build advocates to generate referrals, select the right media for your target audience, design the right offer, break through the clutter with your advertising, and measure results. » Read Article: [...]

What makes print advertising effective? If you have decided to run an ad in your local paper or other publication, the ad salesman may have told you they could create the artwork for you if you send them the content. So, what comes next? Effective print advertising has these six components. Objective. Before you create [...]

These days, small business branding is out and measuring return on every marketing dollar is in. Direct response is the way to make marketing accountable. How do you do that? Always ask for the next step in every marketing piece by including an attractive offer that gets prospects to take an action such as calling [...]

There are two major schools of thought in marketing: the branding gurus and the direct response marketers. Branders believe that through repeated exposure, you can build a “brand” by “positioning” your company the way you’d like to be perceived in the minds of consumers. They use terms like “image,” “creative,” “awareness,” and “customer experience.” Direct [...]