Having your own business isn’t the same as having customers, and one is useless without the other. Whether your business is a resale store or a high-tech consulting firm, a law office or a home cleaning service, in today’s competitive environment, strategic marketing is essential. Small Business Marketing For Dummies, Second Edition is updated from the original version that won rave reviews and inspired thousands of small businesses on their way to becoming big businesses. Updates include more information on online marketing, a whole new section on getting and keeping customers, new cost-effective, fast-acting ideas for instant impact, and more. The book covers: Marketing basics that prepare you to rev up your business and jumpstart your marketing program Information to help you define your business position and brand Advice on bringing in professionals A quick-reference guide to mass media and a glossary of advertising jargon How-tos for creating print and broadcast ads that work Ideas for getting the word out without advertising, including information on direct mail, brochures, publicity, promotions, and more Ten steps to follow to build your own easy-to-assemble marketing plan With pages of ideas for low-cost, high-impact marketing from author Barbara Findlay Schenck, a marketing consultant with more than 20 years experience with clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, Small Business Marketing For Dummies, Second Edition helps you reach and keep new customers. Whether you’re running a home office, a small firm, a family business, a nonprofit organization, or a retail operation, you’ll discover how to: Custom design your own marketing program Create effective marketing messages Produce marketing communications that work No matter what field you’re in, Small Business Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition will help you make your dreams come true. If you buy it, read it, and implement some of the marketing strategies discussed, customers will come.

Simple, powerful marketing strategies every business can afford to implement There's never been a better time to be a marketer or entrepreneur than right now. Thanks to the Internet, a new world of free and inexpensive tactics can help get the word out to the prospects of any business with a limited marketing budget. Free Marketing delivers more than 100 ideas to help any small business owner or marketer generate new revenue—with little or no marketing budget. With both Internet-based and creative offline ideas, you'll discover ways to turn your top customers into your unpaid sales force, get your competitors to help you promote your new products, and other innovative ways to get the word out. Create a "squeeze page," the most powerful one page website you'll ever build Use simple YouTube videos to grow sales Hold an eBay auction for publicity purposes (author Jim Cockrum made $30,000 and earned tons of free publicity from just one auction) and more! Grow a successful business without letting your marketing budget tell you "No." Jim Cockrum has proven that the most powerful marketing strategies are the cheapest.

Interested in promoting your business and/or Web site, but don t have the big budget for traditional advertising? This new book will show you how to build, promote, and make money off of your Web site or brick and mortar store using the Internet, with minimal costs. Let us arm you with the knowledge you need to make your business a success! Learn how to generate more traffic for your site or store with hundreds of Internet marketing methods, including many free and low-cost promotions. This new book presents a comprehensive, hands-on, step-by-step guide for increasing Web site traffic and traditional store traffic by using hundreds of proven tips, tools, and techniques. Learn how to target more customers to your business and optimize your Web site from a marketing perspective. You will learn to target your campaign, use keywords, generate free advertising, search-engine strategies, learn the inside secrets of e-mail marketing, how to build Web communities, co-branding, auto-responders, Google advertising, banner advertising, eBay storefronts, Web-design information, search-engine registration, directories, and real-world examples of what strategies are succeeding and what strategies are failing.-- (1/28/2011 12:00:00 AM)

Word-of-Mouth Marketing, WOMM as it is commonly known, is the least expensive form of advertising and often the most effective. People believe what their friends, neighbors, and online contacts say about you, your products, and services. And they remember it for a long, long time. Word-of-mouth promotion is highly valued. There is no more powerful form of marketing than an endorsement from one of your current customers. A satisfied customer's recommendation has much greater value than traditional advertising because it is coming from someone who is familiar with the quality of your work. The best part is that initiating this form of advertising costs little or no money. For WOMM to increase your business, you need an active plan in place and do what is necessary to create buzz. If your business is on the Web, there are myriads of possibilities for starting a highly successful viral marketing campaign using the Internet, software, blogs, online activists, press releases, discussion forums and boards, affiliate marketing, and product sampling. Technology has dramatically changed traditional marketing programs. This all sounds great, but what is the catch? There really is none, except you must know what you are doing! This groundbreaking and exhaustively researched new book will provide everything you need to know to get you started creating the buzz free publicity about your product or service whether online or off. In this easy to read and comprehensive new book you will learn what WOMM is, how to get people talking about your product or service, how to get your customers to be your sales force, how to get WOMM to spread quickly, how to automate WOMM, how to create a blog, create awareness, and how to amplify it. The entire process is covered here: marketing, dealing with negative customer experience, writing online press releases, creating a customer reference program, bringing together a fan club/loyalist community, naming VIPs, using flogs (photos), and spurring evangelism among influential people. Included are tactics that pertain especially to non-profits, including reputation management. In addition, we have gone the extra mile and spent an unprecedented amount of time researching, interviewing, e-mailing, and communicating with hundreds of today's most successful WOMM marketers. Aside from learning the basics you will be privy to their secrets and proven successful ideas. Instruction is great, but advice from experts is even better, and the experts chronicled in this book are earning millions. If you are interested in learning essentially everything there is to know about WOMM in addition to hundreds of hints, tricks, and secrets on how to put WOMM marketing techniques in place and start earning enormous profits, then this book is for you. Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company presidentâe(tm)s garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.

This book is written for you if you want to get to grips with your marketing but you need a helping hand. It's packed with powerful tips, proven tools and many real-life examples and case studies. If you're looking for commonsense marketing advice that you can implement immediately, you'll find it on every page. You'll learn how to: plan and review your marketing activities, write brilliant copy that generates sales, write sales letters that sells, effectively troubleshoot when your marketing is not delivering, make your website a magnet for visitors and loads more! Dee Blick is a respected business author and a multi-award winning Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Dee has 27 years marketing experience gained working with small businesses from all sectors. She is internally renowned for her practical approach to small business marketing and for getting results on the smallest of marketing budgets. Dee has also built a reputation as a formidable marketing troubleshooter. A speaker, columnist and small business marketing practioner, Dee is also the author of 'Powerful Marketing on a Shoestring Budget for Small Businesses'. Yorkshire born and bred, Dee lives with her husband and two sons in Sussex.

Harness the power of marketing and watch your business grow Having your own business isn't the same as having customers, and one is useless without the other. Whether your business is a resale store or a high-tech consulting firm, a law office or a home cleaning service, in today's competitive environment, strategic marketing is essential. If you want your small business to grow, you need a marketing strategy that works. But how do you get people to notice your business without spending a fortune? Packed with savvy tips for low-cost, high-impact campaigns, this friendly guide is your road map to launching a great marketing campaign and taking advantage of the newest technologies and avenues for outreach. Using social media as a marketing tool Communicating with customers Financing a marketing campaign The companion CD includes tools and templates to give you a jump-start on putting your new skills to work If you're looking to give your small business' marketing plan an edge over the competition, Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies has you covered. CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of the e-book file, but are available for download after purchase.

Secure venture capital? Easy. Getting a business up and running or pushing a brilliant product to the marketplace requires capital. For many entrepreneurs, a lack of start-up capital can be the single biggest roadblock to their dreams of success and fortune. Venture Capital For Dummies takes entrepreneurs step by step through the process of finding and securing venture capital for their own projects. Find and secure venture capital for your business Get your business up and running Push a product to the marketplace If you're an entrepreneur looking for hands-on guidance on how to secure capital for your business, the information in Venture Capital For Dummies gives you the edge you need to succeed.

Anyone can make enough to save $1,000,000 in 3-7 years. Most self-made millionaires are made through business ownership. Many people think about it but never take action, they do not have an idea, they do not have the money, and flat just do not know how. This is a practical book to teach you how to find, start, finance, and get free advice to own and grow your own business. For example, a yardman with no money was worth over $9,000,000 in 7 years after buying a nursery and growing his business. There are many more stories and lessons, to include how the author went from bankrupt to having his first million dollars in 3 ½ years. This book will change your perspective and put you on the path to financial independence.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

Create a successful and affordable marketing campaign for your local small business using the tips and detailed 10-point, step-by-step method in How to Market, Advertise and Promote Your Business or Service in Your Own Backyard. Discover tried and true tactics that produce results without wasting your time and money, even if you only have access to a small budget and minimal resources. Using this handy and practical guide, you can gain access to information about incorporation, web design, search engine marketing, positioning, and sales management.