Business Smartnesses « Tara Swiger

Do you want fries with that?

Create a new product to reach a new market. [...]

Last week we talked about the difference between self-promotion and marketing. Marketing is made up of 4 aspects: Place, Price, Product and Promotion. In my next few posts, we’re going to have examples of how you can use each one to share your work with more people. The following example is an amalgamation of the [...] [...]

Self-Promotion vs. Marketing

But calling it self-promotion is dangerous. If “promotion” is the only way you’re thinking of marketing, you’re avoiding it. And that’s dangerous, because you’re probably avoiding all the other aspects of marketing. [...]

Irony

Our new class (which I’m teaching with Diane, because she is a woman who knows how to blog!), is about that, the process of figuring out what you want from your blog, what your people want from it, and then creating a plan for it. Instead of numbers, you focus on reaction – What brings in your best customers? What helps them move towards you (and your products?) When you pay attention to what your customers want, and what you want to communicate, you may even find you don’t need or want a blog. [...]

To Blog or Not to Blog…is that the question?

And what we came to realize is that To Blog Or Not To Blog is not the question. The question is: How do you make a blog (or ANY marketing) work for you, your goals and your people? Where’s the balance between what you want to say and what your people want to read? We each have our own ways of answering this, but we found we shared a little system. A system that anyone can apply to any business, to make their blog (or their emails, or their twitter stream) balanced and in congruence with the rest of their business. [...]

Reviewing the year in your business

Making your yearly wrap-up FUN can be as simple as setting some intentions before you get started – what do you want to learn? What information do you need to make the New Year awesome? [...]

Pricing is not a Benefit

As long as you think of Wal-mart as the competition, you’ll spend your time explaining how you’re better than them. But that’s a waste of time. [...]