30 ideas

30 Ideasin 30 Days

Celebrating Entrepreneurs “Do It Yourself” Marketing Month

Even in struggling economic t imes, small businesses’ entrepreneurial spir i t continues to

be a driving force in the American economy.

By Dana VanDen HeuvelThe MarketingSavant Group

www.marketingsavant.com

w w w . d i y m a r k e t i n g m o n t h . c o m

Let’s make something clear at the beginning. Not every idea in here is meant to work in every business. I’ve pulled together some of the best ideas that have universal appeal, but not everything will work for you. Please use what you can and discard the rest.

This e-book is simply a catalyst for your marketing endeavors and business growth. The ideas herein are meant to be internalized and adapted to your own needs, your own business, your own market conditions and mixed in with your own brand of creativity and innovation. Anything less just wouldn’t fit your entrepreneurial spirit! I hope that the ideas here, and the ideas and action summaries delivered each day in the Entrepreneurs “Do It Yourself” Market-ing Month e-course bring you success in your marketing endeavors now and for many months to come.

The key to making marketing work for you, whether it’s an idea you read in this book, come up with on your own or pick up from another resource is to maintain focus and consistency. Don’t go overboard and dilute your efforts by trying all of these ideas at once. It won’t work, your efforts will be too diluted and it will be nearly impossible to track what worked and what didn’t. Ultimately, you’ll be disappointed in marketing and never reach the full potential that a well planned marketing effort can yield for you.

Marketing is a daily thing. If you’re not doing a few things every day to market your business, you’re falling behind. Marketing can be as simple as making some networking phone calls or connecting with a past customer or sending out your email newsletter for the month. In this e-book, I share some of the tools that I use to keep on top of mar-keting my own business and also some tools that my clients have used with success in their businesses. Take what works for you and leave the rest.

Jay Conrad Levinson, the creator of the popular Guerilla Marketing book series, once wrote:

“One good marketing idea is a precious commodity. One good marketing idea that you can implement all by your-self is equally desirous.”

That’s what this short e-book is all about, a few good marketing ideas that you can implement all by yourself.

Do-it-yourself marketing doesn’t mean that you have to do everything by yourself! This e-book and the e-course you signed up for are here to help. Just like how The Home Depot tells its customers that “they can do it and the Home Depot can help” them. You can do your own marketing and you can do it with a little help from your friends in marketing.

What can you do in 30 days? What you can do is you put your energy into marketing each and every day for the next 30 days during Entrepreneurs “Do It Yourself” Marketing Month? Think about it. If you put even 20 minutes into marketing your business each day, where will you be at the end of the month? At the end of the year? Go ahead, we’re here to help!

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www.diymarketingmonth.com


Introduction

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Table of Contents

The Importance of Marketing Planning .................................................... 3 The Elements of a Marketing strategy ....................................................... 4 Marketing Plan Templates ......................................................................... 6 Tactical Activity Goals ............................................................................. 11 Marketing Cycles .................................................................................... 12 Marketing Plan Mind Maps ...................................................................... 1630 Ideas in 30 Days ...................................................................................18

What’s Next? ............................................................................................. 39About the Author ..................................................................................... 40

June 1: What Business Are You Really In?

June 2: Build Trust

June 3: Relentless Focus

June 4: Run Your Numbers

June 5: Calendar It

June 6: Departmentalize Your Communications

June 7: Ask Them What They Want

June 8: Become a Platform

June 9: New Markets Out of Thin Air

June 10: Go Green

June 11: Create a Customer Transition Squad

June 12: Pop-Up Retail

June 13: Create a Marketing Co-operative

June 14: Write Something Today … Anything!

June 15: Embrace Your Opposite

June 16: Focus on your Stars

June 17: Volunteer to Be An Expert

June 18: Turn Your Customers Into Experts

June 19: Get Educated

June 20: Form a Mastermind Group

June 21: Start a Cause

June 22: Make Them Famous

June 23: Develop Your own “Nurture” List

June 24: Change Your Hours

June 25: Twofer on Yellow Page Cutouts

June 26: Sign up for HARO

June 27: Radio Free [Your Business]

June 28: Put on a Webinar

June 29: Offer the Free Trial

June 30: Ask Two, Tell Two

I’ve seen too many companies and marketing efforts fail completely because of a few simple reasons:

1. The organization had no plan for marketing. This means that they had no expectations, no action items and no concept of how they’d know if they succeeded or failed.

2. They had no focus and their marketing consisted of pure tactics and no strategy. As the Sun Tzu quote above tells us, tactics without a strategy is simply the noise we hear on the road to defeat.

3. Finally, they had no idea what they were doing in the first place. They really thought the do-it-yourself meant do it all by yourself. It does not and that’s another sure route to defeat.

What follows are a few quick bits that will help you out in putting together a simple marketing strategy. For some organizations, this is a multi-week activity. For you, let’s make this a half-hour to one-hour activity. Really. You can put together a quick marketing strategy in an hour.

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” -- Sun Tzu

The Importance of Marketing Strategy and Planning

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Elements of a Marketing Strategy

First, let’s not confuse a strategy with a plan. In the case of a marketing strategy, what we’re really doing is asking a series of questions to get at the right answers that will help keep your marketing ship upright as you sail through the various elements that comprise your marketing plan. You’ll find a few forms to help you through the marketing plan next, but for now, let’s talk strategy!

A simple, one or two page marketing strategy can, in most cases, be a viable alternative to an all-out marketing strategy document while still helping your sort out the important marketing strategy details. The following sample covers the fundamentals of marketing strategy that every entrepreneur needs to address before moving onto the planning and tactics stage. Use the following guide to help you complete your one-hour marketing strategy:

Organizational and Marketing Goals - This is a two step process. You need to list some of the goals that you have as a company, in terms of growth, profitability, people and the like and then list your goals for your marketing efforts. What do you you’re your marketing efforts to accomplish? Make your goals specific and measureable.

Market Research – Who else is out there, what do they do, what are customers looking for, what’s the lay of the land in your industry and other such questions need to be asked to fully understand the market space that you’re in or are about to join.

Target Market – Who are your target markets? I recommend breaking them out into Core, Secondary and Opportunity markets. Write out what you know about your target market for your company, including any important demographics.

Industry Trends – What’s going on in your industry? What did your market research tell you? Are there any industry trends that would affect your marketing strategy (such as major growth, customer sentiment shifts, regulation or other outside factors)?

Top 3-5 Competitors - Who are the top competitors that you need to position yourself against? Be as real-istic as possible. Who’s directly competing against you in your industry? You may also list “status quo” as a competitor if you’re entering a very new market space.

Differentiation – What makes you unique? How are you different from the competitors you just men-tioned? What’s your ‘unique selling/value proposition’?

Your Strengths - What are your particular strengths which might help you position yourself against your competitors?

Your Weaknesses - What are your weaknesses, or potential barriers to positioning yourself against your competitors? (Everyone has them.) For example, are you new to the industry? Do you have a smaller prod-uct line? etc.

Marketing Budget – What are you willing to commit financially to marketing? Include your marketing budget amount for an entire year so you know what you have to work with when planning out your mar-keting tactics later in this workbook.

Marketing Mix – Let’s discuss your marketing mix, also known as the 4 Ps of Marketing. o Product (or service) - Simply mention what your product / service is. What is it that you’re market-

ing? A tool? A professional service? Information? o Price - How will the pricing model of your products/services factor into your marketing? Will you

sell with a low price on a value principle? A high price to target a luxury market? o Place(ment) (also known to as distribution) - Placement means where you will physically or figu-

ratively “place” your products or services, to make them visible to your target market. Will you sell through special in-store displays, websites, catalogs, direct, or through multi-tier distribution channels?

o Promotion – We’ll get into promotional tactics throughout this e-book, but think about a general overview of how you intend to promote your products or services. How will you build your brand?

Marketing Tactics – The rest of this e-book is concerned with marketing tactics. After the marketing strat-egy workbooks section, there is ample room to figure out your tactical marketing plan on a per-month basis. This is where you’ll determine where your chosen marketing tactics should fit into your yearly plan.

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What are your goals as an organization?

What are your marketing goals?

What does your market research tell you?

Target Markets

Core markets

Secondary markets

Opportunity markets

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The process of segmentation is distinct from targeting (choosing which segments to address) and posi-tioning (designing an appropriate marketing mix for each segment). The overall intent is to identify groups of similar customers and potential customers; to prioritize the groups to address; to understand their be-havior; and to respond with appropriate marketing strategies that satisfy the different preferences of each chosen segment. Revenues are thus improved.

Improved segmentation can lead to significantly improved marketing effectiveness. Distinct segments can have different industry structures and thus have higher or lower attractiveness (Porter). With the right segmentation, the right lists can be purchased, advertising results can be improved and customer satisfac-tion can be increased.

What are the industry trends you’ve noticed?

Who are your top competitors?

What are your key points of differentiation?

What are your strengths as an organization?

What are your weaknesses as an organization?

What is your marketing budget?

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Marketing Mix

Product

Price

Place

Promotion

Tactical Marketing Activity GoalsDaily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly

Daily Weekly Monthly Quarterly Yearly

Progressive Tactics Schedule

Tactics Yearly:

Tactics Quarterly:

Tactics Monthly:

Tactics Semimonthly (2x/Month):

Tactics Weekly:

Tactics Daily:

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Marketing CyclesKeeping a consistent and constant marketing presence is always a challenge for a startup with multiple priorities, all of them valid and equally pressing. It is for this reason that in addition to the calendared com-ponents, we run the marketing plan in 60 day segments or cycles. Each 60 segment is designed to build on the previous with the forced ‘check in’ at the end of 60 days to ensure that we’re succeeding and taking time to regroup as necessary.

60-Day Cycle Regroup:Did we meet our goals? What worked? Why? How effective was it? What do we need to change? What’s on deck for the next 60 days?

January Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events

Activities: Days 1-31

February Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


March Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


April Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


May Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


June Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


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July Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


August Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


September Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


October Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


November Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


December Tactical Plan and Tasks

Goals

Themes

Major Events


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June 1What Business Are You Really In?At some point in its lifetime, every single company is in growth mode and can afford to continue charging onward and upward with little concern for definitions and details. However, at some point, every company and every industry is forced to define and redefine itself. In case after case, industries have fallen under the shadow of mismanagement where all that’s emphasized is selling, selling and more selling ... and not marketing. This is a mistake because selling focuses on the needs of the seller, whereas marketing concen-trates on the needs of the buyer.

Ask yourself this simple question: What business is my company really in?

Almost everyone in the company -- and worse, your whole industry -- will define things way too narrowly. According to the classic marketing tome, Marketing Myopia, industries such as the railroads defined their business too narrowly and missed a few generations worth of opportunity because of it. In more recent years, companies like Wang Laboratories defined their business as “building word processing software.” If they had the foresight, as Microsoft did, to redefine themselves as being in the “office productivity busi-ness,” perhaps some of us might actually remember them outside of the context of a “what not to do” case study! IBM had the foresight to pull out of a potentially disastrous nosedive in the PC business when they defined it only as a gateway or entry point to their mainframe business. I don’t know about you, but for

30 Ideas in 30 Days

the sake of writing this book right now, on an IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad no less, I’m glad that IBM got a handle on defining the business that they’re in. I can’t say that I’d appreciate toting a mainframe around.

Action Summary: Before you get too much further, sit down, close the door and grab a pad of paper or fire up a new docu-ment in Word on your PC or your Mac and really think about what business you’re in. Then, take that ex-panded definition and overlay that on your customer and prospect base. How else can you serve them if you better define the business that you’re in? What else could you do for them? What should you NOT do for them? (hint: the “not do” part is usually the least profitable part of your business anyway!)

June 2Build TrustRecessions are a time of mistrust across the entire economy.

• Banks no longer trust other banks’ balance sheets, freezing interbank loans. • Investors distrust most financial asset classes outside of US short-term treasury notes, driving

those rates down toward zero. • US voters don’t trust their government to handle a bailout competently, openly and fairly. • Financial asset managers don’t trust risk models – neither do investors. • The investing public doesn’t trust accounting firms to identify shareholder risk (even though it’s

arguably not their job…). • Financial asset ratings agencies’ trustworthiness has been gravely wounded. • We no longer believe lenders won’t lend to un-creditworthy consumers–because they did.

Trust is simply one party’s confidence that the other party won’t exploit vulnerabilities. Consumers that operate from a position of fear and distrust are bad for any organization. You need to un-derstand the key factors that drive trust in relationships and then evaluate every customer touch point to ensure you are instilling trust in your business with every public interaction.

Action Summary: Take a good, hard look at your messaging and customer touch points (including your frontline employ-ees). Are they exuding trust or allowing fear, uncertainty and doubt to rule the conversation? Consider the trust factors mentioned above and align your communication with those principles.

Source: http://mashable.com/2009/02/20/josh-freese-album-promotion/ http://www.who.int/immunization_financing/options/en/briefcase_pricingtiers.pdf

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June 3Relentless FocusFocus is a discipline that many individuals and businesses struggle to maintain. Between the emerging opportunities, daily fires to douse, persistent issues and humans just being human, it’s harder than ever to stay on track. When you add in the compounding pressures of a challenging economy, we tend to lose focus chasing after potential revenue opportunities.

That’s not the case for Publix, the employee-owned grocery store chain, which opened 79 new stores in 2008 and acquired another 49 from Albertson’s. By comparison, Kroger opened 60 stores, Whole Foods opened 20 and SuperValue added 14.

Publix attributes that success to a single factor: customer service. Even though its short-term profits are down, “Publix is staying at full staffing levels and lowering prices in hopes of keeping its existing custom-ers happy and attracting new ones.”

The approach is nothing new. The retailer’s founder, George Jenkins, built Publix on a simple philosophy of customer service and, wouldn’t you know it, “the same relentless focus … is helping the company through the current tough market.”

That philosophy means that Publix president Todd Jones jumps in and starts bagging to keep checkout lanes moving (his first job at Publix actually was as a bagger). It means that the deli is staffed by eight to 10 people, not two (like most supermarkets). It means there’s usually a Publix employee handy to help shoppers find stuff. The Publix definition of customer service also extends to include its prices, which it has lowered by 20 percent on staple items even as its own costs have increased. Publix plans to open another 30 stores this year, and its sales per square foot ($548) is second only to Whole Foods ($820).

Action Summary: Focus, focus, focus! Scan your operations and decide on one thing to apply relentless focus to during chal-lenging times. Carry through with that focus as we head into an upswing you’ll leap-frog your competitors!

June 4Run Your NumbersFeelings lie. Numbers don’t. In both good and challenging times, your numbers are the only thing that of-fers true perspective. Feeling busy? Check your numbers. Feeling slow? Check your numbers.

Responsible and successful marketers run by the numbers. If your banker, or someone else with a vested interest in your success, called today and asked for the current stats for your business or division, would

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your numbers be top of mind for you to rattle off immediately, or would they be something that “you’d have to look into?”

According to Sue Hirst, director of CAD Partners, a management accounting firm, there are seven key numbers that most business should keep top of mind. The seven key numbers to drive profit are 1. Revenue Growth 2. Price Change 3. COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) 4. Operating Expenses 5. Days Receivable 6. Days Payable 7. Days Inventory/Work in Progress

Granted, there are other metrics for each business. You should know, manage and market to the numbers on a daily basis.

Action Summary: Get a firm grip on your top five to 10 key metrics and devise a plan of attack to improve those needing improvement and leverage those that are above your target.

June 5Calendar ItCreating and using a marketing calendar will systemize and increase the profits of virtually any business. Economic downturns tend to move us away from our intended strategy and toward a path of simply fight-ing the daily fires of cash flow. A simple calendar of activities, revised monthly, will help keep you on track and keep your business in front of customers.

As P.T. Barnum reportedly said, “Without promotion something terrible happens: Nothing.” Since market-ing is one of the most critical components of business success, a marketing calendar helps ensure that time is regularly set aside for it.

The marketing calendar process doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it does need to be consistent. In fact, it’s the consistency of applying thought, effort and energy to your marketing is where the real magic hap-pens; the calendar is just a tool to keep you between the lines. The process of marketing does not have to be expensive, but it helps to budget each month so you know where your dollars are going. According to a recent article in BusinessWeek regarding marketing spend, the percentage that each business spends will vary significantly:

The retail industry provides some good examples. While Wal-Mart (WMT) might spend a meager 0.4% of

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sales on advertising, the sheer size of the company turns that tiny percentage into a significant budget. Wal-Mart’s nominally higher-margin competitor, Target (TGT), spends closer to 2% of its sales on advertis-ing, while Best Buy (BBY), as a specialty retailer, spends upwards of 3%. Finally, more upscale stores like Macy’s typically spend on the order of 5%.

The same kind of ratios can be seen in the car industry (automakers’ generally spend 2.5% to 3.5% of rev-enue on marketing), liquor (5.5% to 7.5%), packaged goods (4% to 10%), and every other industry.

Let’s say you’ve committed to spending 5% of gross sales on marketing, and that your business just pulled down $310,000 last year. You’d be spending roughly $1300 per month in marketing. A simple calendar for a month, with your budget, might look like:

Month 1Online ads: $250Referral incentives: $150Week 1: Business appreciation gift: $150Week 2: Press release on charity work: $150 (to write release)Week 3: Postcard to prospects: $500Week 4: Email newsletter: $100

Action Summary: There are a number of simple marketing calendar templates out there, including one in our DIY Marketing e-book at www.diymarketingmonth.com, but you can create your own in a spreadsheet by putting the months of the year along the top and the tactics you’ll use along the side and simply plotting out what tools you’ll use when.

June 6Departmentalize Your CommunicationsFor organizations that have more than one department - such as a camera store, automotive dealership, computer dealer, florist or any other number of businesses - there are myriad opportunities to decentral-ize your marketing to meet the needs of customers who do business with each of your discreet divisions. When organizations are looking for revenue in every corner and under every stone, it often makes sense to review the unique client stakeholders that each department serves and determine what revenue op-portunities exist.

In the automotive industry, there is a company called @utorevenue that works with service departments to engage their customers who have missed service appointments, have upcoming scheduled mainte-nance, and follow up with customers who had previously declined services.

“Dealer service departments often discover additional needs when a customer brings his vehicle in for

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routine maintenance or repair,” said John M. Miller, @utoRevenue Founder and General Manager. “Yet, many customers opt not to have those services performed at that time because of time constraints or financial reasons. In law, time constraints are placed on certain actions and filings in the interest of speedy justice, and additionally to prevent the evasion of the ends of justice by waiting until a matter is moot.”@utoRevenue’s Declined Service Reminders are automatically sent from the dealership 45 days after the service visit when the customer declined service. The emails are personalized using information recorded in a dealer’s management system to generate the declined service reminders.

Action Summary: Take a good look into each of your departments. Are they maximizing their marketing potential? What department-specific initiatives could you put in place to drive revenue from each area?

June 7Ask Them What They WantDo you have a receptionist or assistant who answers your company’s phone? Perhaps you could give your receptionist a break and forward the phone calls to your management team so they can really ask cus-tomers what they’re looking for, what they think about your business and get some “ear time” in with the lifeblood of your business.

At the online speaker reseller, Orb Audio, they don’t have a receptionist or someone to answer the phone. The company executives share the duty and take turns answering the phones. That way, they’re always speaking with customers during the week and they’re never out of touch with what the market wants or where they should be focusing their efforts.

Action Summary: It makes sense to tune into what your customers want on a daily basis. In fact, there are several ways in which you can do this without putting your executives in the operator’s seat. You could 1) create a run-ning survey and incent your customers to fill it out, or 2) create a customer advisory board and get their perspective, or 3) just drop your customers a quick email to ask, “What else can we do for you?”

June 8Become a PlatformThink of the different platforms you use. You’re a Windows or Mac user; you have a Blackberry, iPhone or Treo; or you might have a video game console like an Xbox 360 or Wii. All of these things are what we commonly consider as platforms for technology. However, the best platforms often extend beyond their original designation and have value in other areas of life.

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One example is the Xbox 360. It is the only game system that lets you instantly watch movies and TV epi-sodes streamed from Netflix, the mail-order movie rental service. In doing so, Microsoft has established Xbox as a device not only for games, but for the entire home entertainment experience.

Far from the world of electronics, local businesses can become platforms in their community. Wayne Bre-itbarth, president of Pewaukee, WI-based M&M Office Interiors, gives classes to business people on how to use the Website LinkedIn. Breitbarth’s free classes are designed to explain online social networking to people who are “not from the Facebook generation.”

Breitbarth and M&M Office Interiors have become a platform for adult learning and networking on things that will make them more productive in their professional lives. M&M Office Interiors gains (just as Micro-soft gains) not by owning one small segment of a target market, but by leveraging their position to pro-vide extended benefits to their customers. This increases loyalty, awareness and purchase rates.

Action Summary: What can you do to become a platform? What extended benefits can you offer based on your position, location, passion or community need?

June 9New Markets Out of Thin AirPeople are creatures of habit, and for all their creativity, most marketers are no different. We quickly be-come accustomed to our surrounding schedules, patterns and ways of thinking, and we don’t give a sec-ond glance to opportunities that might be staring us right in the face. Tough times are great times to chal-lenge assumptions and industry norms!

In 2008, Airgas Specialty Products, the country’s largest distributor of industrial, medical and specialty gases, saw an opportunity to completely reverse an industry and use that reversal to its advantage. Airgas capitalized on the phase-out of R-22, a commercial refrigerant that will soon cease production due to gov-ernment regulation, to create a completely new product -- recycled R-22 and a re-engineering of how the refrigeration industry sees R-22.

Airgas launched a campaign to turn R-22 into a profit center for refrigeration contractors by allowing them to sell R-22 back to Airgas to clean, recycle and resell, where contractors previously had to pay a fee to dispose of R-22 because of its impact on the environment.

In one year’s time, Airgas signed up more than 250 recycling centers and increased profits in its gas recy-cling business by 15%.

Action Summary: Take a look at your industry. Better yet, invite your customers in and brainstorm all of the things that you’re

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taking for granted in your industry. Ask what might be changed, improved or what has seemed impossible to change in the past. Pick one of the challenges and pursue it!

Source: Andy Sernovitz

June 10Go GreenWhile consumers across all sectors of the economy curtail spending in the wake of a downturn, there is still a white-hot level of interest in all things “green” and “eco-friendly,” according to a survey of 9,000 con-sumers published by The Boston Consulting Group. In spite of the economic downturn, people are still very concerned about green products. What’s more interesting is that it’s not just in the US. BCG discov-ered that 34% of Europeans are seeking out green products and companies, while 32% of Americans are doing so.

What this means for marketers and business owners is that green can be gold for your business. Promoting your green efforts is a buzz-worthy marketing angle you can use either to share your company’s story on how you’re “going green” such as through conservation, sourcing or product development or by promot-ing those products and services that you have that are “green.” However, the onus is on the marketer to prove the benefits of your green positioning or green products and services. Consumers are willing to pay a premium of 5% to 10% to do green business, but only if they’re convinced that they are receiving more direct benefits.

Action Summary: According to Jacquelyn Ottman (author of “Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation”), from an orga-nizational standpoint, environmental considerations should be integrated into all aspects of marketing — from new product development and communications and all points in between. Environmental issues should be balanced with primary customer needs. With that, I suggest you look at your product lines and vendors to determine what products are already green and which you could make green to tap into the ecological-minded customer base.

June 11Create a Customer Transition SquadIt’s a competitive world, and while we don’t want to be too opportunistic, we shouldn’t let any good business-building opportunity go to waste!

During downturns, it’s inevitable that a business or two in your field, community or industry will not sur-vive. However, like the old adage goes, “Your best prospects are your competitor’s best customers.”


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When Bank of America closed several branches of Security Pacific after they merged many years ago, First Interstate Bank sent out vehicles and personnel to the old locations to court the former Security Pacific customers.

Recently, when seven Wisconsin and northern Illinois Tumbleweed Southwest Grill restaurants filed for bankruptcy, they left many of their former customers with unredeemed gift cards. Shortly after then bank-ruptcy announcement, Texas Roadhouse Restaurants spokesman Travis Doster said the Tumbleweed gift cards could be redeemed at any of his company’s 10 Wisconsin locations for a free entree ($10.99 or less). They were also taking in any remaining Tumbleweed coupons which could be redeemed for any free ap-petizer.

Action Summary: Keep your ear to the ground for potential competitor closings. Better yet, build your network of peers be-fore you need it and you’ll know of these types of things before anyone else does. Accept coupons, send out sales reps and do whatever it takes to court your competitors’ best customers to win them over to your side.

June 12Pop-Up RetailYou’ve been driving by that killer space right downtown for weeks, but you know you just can’t afford the lease, or maybe you just can’t fit in the location. If you’re serious about targeting a specific location and fishing where the fish are in your city, why not take advantage of the recent increase in retail-space availability and the heighted desire of building owners to generate any revenue they can from the vacant spaces they own.

Why not consider opening a pop-up retail store?

In major cities all over the country, pop-up retail stores are showing up in once-vacant locations for any-where from one month to a few months per location. Or, in the case of Target, you can make up your own location as they did with their 2002 floating store located in a docked ferry on the Hudson River in Chelsea.

According to Trendwatching.com, pop-up retail fits right in with the entertainment economy, the experi-ence economy, the surprise economy, and so on. It’s about surprising consumers with temporary “perfor-mances,” which guarantees exclusivity because of the limited time span. When truly mobile -- like Vacant, the London Fashion Bus, or Oceanic -- pop-up retail also offers unparalleled opportunities for targeting and customization.

This is not a new concept. Local stores have been opening temporary kiosks in the middle of malls for years in order to make holiday shoppers aware of their goods. Retailers typically offered a respectable sampling of their goods for sale, while encouraging shoppers to check out their primary store location

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away from the mall.

Pop-up retail offers your business an opportunity to generate targeted traffic in an area you might not oth-erwise have access to, and it opens the door for great publicity, especially if your store concept is creative and gives you yet another way to capture names in your email or mailing database to drive new customers to your regular store once your pop-up is long gone.

Action Summary: Find your ideal location and contact the lease holder or building owner. Negotiate a rate that’s comfort-able for both parties. Then, setup your store and startup the publicity machine. Make sure you have a system in place to capture names, addresses and emails of anyone who visits your temporary, high-profile location so you can drive them to your regular location later.

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/feb2009/sb20090210_165498.htm?chan=smallbiz_smallbiz+index+page_small+business+sales+%

2B+marketing http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/16266/marketing/increase_your_profits_with_a_marketing_calendar.html

June 13Create a Marketing Co-operativeChances are that someone in your area or industry serves the same customers you do but doesn’t com-pete with you. In fact, I bet you can think of several right now. If not, think about what else your customers buy before or after doing business with you.

For example, let’s say you own a glass company. If a customer is purchasing new glass, it might be for a new building. There were probably contractors who went before you to build the structure, and perhaps a company put business signage on the window you created, and finally a window washing service will keep things clean and in top shape after you.

Why not co-op your talents with upstream and downstream companies that serve the same target cus-tomers? In the financial planning world, personal financial planners offer financial workshops in conjunc-tion with a local Council on Aging to help soon-to-be retirees shore up their finances or with an outplace-ment service or to help displaced workers to keep themselves fiscally fit while job searching. In co-op situations, you need to illustrate that you are sincere and knowledgeable, or you will have a tough time forming partnerships. Co-operative marketing is a great way to keep your costs down and form a built-in professional referral network.

Action Summary: Ask your customers who else they’re doing business with. Who could you partner with and what could you do? Put on a seminar or offer a small trade show at a partner location or neutral spot like a local conven-tion center. Invite your best mutual prospects and show them what’s possible! Keep the program going by meeting regularly with your co-op partners to encourage lead & referral exchange.


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June 14Write Something Today … Anything!In this era of instant findability and online content explosion, the written word still holds an important place in our hearts and minds. A good opinion piece in the local newspaper, a well-crafted letter to the editor, a useful “free report” you offer to prospects or anything you’ve written (or that you have written for you) goes a long way toward positioning you as a useful resource.

Countless article authors are using websites like EZineArticles.com to showcase their ideas and expertise and gather a following of potential customers and loyal readers. With the investment of just an hour or two a week, you can do the same.

Action Summary: Open a new document on your computer and brainstorm a few questions your customers typically ask that you could answer in writing. Are there trends going on your industry or community that you could comment on? Spend the next few minutes outlining your first article and then look at it again tomorrow and write your draft. Commit to writing one important piece once a month and you’ll see your name in print 12 times per year! How many of your peers can say that?

June 15Embrace Your OppositeAccording to acclaimed marketing author, Jay Abraham, Miles Laboratories, now part of Bayer AG, used to publish a small cookbook filled exclusively with hot and spicy recipes that they gave away for free. Why? Miles Laboratories is the maker of Alka-Seltzer, the indigestion-relief tablets that could help alleviate any stomach discomfort that might result from the spicy recipes in the cookbook.

When you think about that, it’s really a smart move. It was as if Miles Labs was saying “Here are some great recipes that you can now eat because you’ve got Alka-Seltzer to back you up!”

Most every organization exists to solve a problem. If you’re a coffee shop, you could hold drive-in busi-ness 24 hours a day during college finals week or host a summer solstice event. The opposite being that that great caffeinated drinks you offer solve the “problem” of no sleep. Or perhaps an insurance agency could bring in a speaker on hang gliding or mountain biking or any other sport knowing that you’re fully covered!

Action Summary: Take a close look at your business and determine what problem you solve for people. How could you give them another reason to use your product or service by introducing them to a “problem” experience that

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implores them to consider (in the case of insurance) or consume (in the case of coffee) the product or service you offer?

June 16Focus on your StarsThe best firms always focus on their prospects and clients with the highest revenue potential. When Dani-elle Lee signed on as the new head of marketing communications at Watson Wyatt, she undertook a six-month process (though you don’t have to take that much time) to dig deep into the revenue potential of each client and each sector to determine where to apply their marketing dollars. “The majority of my marketing efforts will be [focusing] on the stars.”

Danielle and Watson Wyatt realized they needed to focus their energy on retaining existing customers, not just for their revenue potential but for the new business and referral opportunities that they may bring in. They also needed to maintain contact with every prospect no matter what stage they’re at in the buying cycle. Even the best customers typically take longer to make significant decisions when in a downturn.

Action Summary: Do you know who your stars are? Do you know where they’re at in the buying cycle and what’s keeping them there? In the next week, reach out and contact your stars, ask some questions and gain some under-standing of what you could do to move them along in the buying cycle.

June 17Volunteer to Be An ExpertDo your local, trade and national media know that you’re an expert in your field? Well, for as long as you’ve been in business, you’re certainly an expert in something by this time!

Regardless of how the economy is doing, newspapers still publish every day, magazines go to press every week, and news shows report on the half-hour. Experts are required for interviews, stories, byline articles and a host of other airtime-filling needs! What separates you from the others in your field already in the spotlight is usually a simple matter of reaching out and making a valuable connection with the media. You might initially object to seeking a “celebrity status” within your community or industry, but rest assured, when your customers and prospects see you on the front page or offering thoughtful commentary on the radio or TV, they’ll know who to turn to when they have a need for your services.

Al Lautenslager, author of “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days,” is one such expert. A few years ago, Al began volunteering himself to local media as an expert in reviewing and commenting on Super Bowl commer-


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cials. The first year, Al only got a couple of calls. However, in the subsequent years since, Al’s visibility has soared as more media outlets called on his expertise. As of last year, Al was completely booked all day following the Super Bowl simply reviewing and commenting on the commercials! What a boost for his marketing consulting business.

Action Summary: How are you an expert? Write at least two to five things that you could be an expert in, then alert the writ-ers, editors and media personalities that cover your community or industry that you’re available to com-ment on issues and stories that arise in your field of expertise. Keep an eye out for trends and news items that fit your area(s) of expertise and use those events to send a gentle reminder to the media noting your availability for comment.

June 18 Turn Your Customers Into ExpertsPeople love to be “in the know.” In fact, it’s one of the key factors driving the acceptance of online social networks. Everyone wants to be “in the know,” and social networks are a way of doing that.

There’s another way to keep your customers in the know; turn your customers into experts. Foot Levelers, a company that makes orthotics and foot stability devices for chiropractors and physical therapists, offers a magazine they publish regularly for their customers and prospects that shares tips on not only how to better sell Foot Levelers products, but also includes a range of ideas on how to better manage your busi-ness. They also provide inspiration by sharing how some of their best customers are using their products to generate handsome profits by selling Foot Levelers.

The folks at Foot Levelers also offer a series of free web seminars (webinars) on how to “stabilize your prac-tice and your patients.” Their topics are focused on the mechanical and sales aspects of orthotic devices that any chiropractor could glean a great deal of knowledge from, regardless of whether or not they sell Foot Levelers. By focusing on making their customers experts in orthotics and stability, Foot Levelers is putting itself in the business of “helping chiropractors be successful” rather than simply being in the busi-ness of selling orthotics. It’s a dramatic shift in focus that has put them in a leadership position in their industry.

Action Summary: What can you teach your customers to help them grow their businesses while simultaneously growing your business? Look for gaps in the market, like Foot Levelers did around the subject of orthotics, to deter-mine where you can start improving your customer’s expertise.

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June 19Get EducatedThings slow down recently at your office? Start scheduling some time to get involved with the free and low-cost educational and business building resources that are available to you.

If you do a simple Google search for “marketing webinar,” you’ll find more than 30,000 results for different companies doing free (or nearly free) web seminars on a myriad of topics. If you get just one idea from a free webinar that you can implement immediately, then you’ve spent your time well.

If you have a few dollars to invest, I recommend subscribing to one of the major marketing or business development websites. Some of the best one’s I’ve come across are:

MarketingSherpa - www.marketingsherpa.com MarketingProfs - www.marketingprofs.com RainToday - www.raintoday.com

Action Summary: Find a web seminar to attend, register and attend it. Keep a pen and paper handy and look for at least one idea that you can put into practice in your organization. Better still, join on the of the sites above and im-merse yourself in their resources.

June 20Form a Mastermind GroupEveryone from the great Napoleon Hill to your favorite local CEO are in mastermind groups. These are small groups of like-minded professionals that share ideas, encouragement, wisdom and, most of all, ac-countability to keep each other on track. What, you may ask, does a mastermind group have to do with marketing?

The truth is, truly successful business people or organizations never reach the top on their own. By col-laborating with people who understand business, have a sharing and a “How can I help you?” attitude, you can’t help but grow through each other. If you’re looking for formality, you might try joining a local TEC or Vistage group, or you can ask the local chamber of commerce if they have a CEO roundtable or a sales and marketing mastermind group you can join.

According to Michael Lipp from Contribution Coaching, his seven-person mastermind group has seen the following successes this year:

• One member has successfully launched a multi-million dollar business • Another re-organized their business and is busier than ever


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• Another member has booked more business already this year than ever before • A member seeking employment has landed a fantastic new job

The rules for mastermind groups are simple. In my mastermind groups, I ask three questions:

1. How can I be useful to you 2. What’s working for you and why, and how might I use it, and 3. What’s not working for you and how can we help you change it.

According to John Cassidy of Duplicates Ink*: Get together with your staff or assemble a small group of people who understand your business and

brainstorm opportunities. When several people get together with a blank slate and some good energy, magic can happen. Ask for ideas-you might be surprised by the results.

Action Summary: Find between 3 and 6 local business leaders, marketers or sharp minds that you trust and begin meeting monthly to share, encourage, brainstorm and, most importantly, hold each other accountable.Source: http://www.helpareporter.com/

June 21Start a CausePeople love a good cause, especially when things around them are chaotic. Founding or aligning with a cause is a perfect way to match your organization’s passion with a worthy pursuit that generates aware-ness, action and revenue for all parties concerned.

One of the first “cause marketing” campaigns occurred in 1976 through a partnership between Marriott Corporation and the March of Dimes. Marriott’s objective was to generate highly cost-effective public rela-tions and media coverage for the opening of their 200-acre family entertainment center, Marriott’s Great America in Santa Clara, CA. The March of Dimes’ objective was to greatly increase fundraising while moti-vating the collection of pledges by the program’s deadline. The promotion was conducted simultaneously in 67 cities throughout the western United States. It exceeded all goals to become the most successful promotion in the history of Chapters West of the March of Dimes.

According to Steven Van Yoder, “Embracing a cause makes good business sense. Nothing builds brand loyalty among today’s increasingly hard-to-please consumers like a company’s proven commitment to a worthy cause. Other things being equal, many consumers would rather do business with a company that stands for something beyond profits.”

Action Summary: What’s your cause? Pick a local, national or global cause or start your own and devote your energy to it. Get your customers, partners and vendors involved, too.

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June 22Make Them Famous Have you ever been interviewed for an article, a radio show or even a small podcast? How did it make you feel? Famous?

One of my favorite pieces of advice for clients when they’re trying to reach a key contact in an organization is to win them over by making them famous on your behalf. This can be as simple as asking to interview them for an article you’re writing, inviting them to guest post on your blog, hosting them on your podcast or internet radio show or inviting them to speak at an event you’re coordinating.

A small startup marketing company in Wisconsin has gotten the ear of some pretty important people in the marketing world simply by asking them to be on their internet radio show on BlogTalkRadio. In fact, one of the first guests I listed to on his show was the CMO of Best Buy, Barry Judge.

You can scale this idea up to achieve your goals of whatever number of people you need to meet. Take your target prospect list and work through it week by week. If you did one interview per week, minus the holidays, you’d have nearly 50 key contacts that you’ve helped throughout the year, and likely a new client or two to boot!

Action Summary: For this to work well, it’s best to target one person you’d like to meet and influence and invite them to share their expertise. Conduct the interview and follow up by sending (or, better yet, dropping by with) a copy of your finished production with a thank-you and, of course, more information about your product and services.

Source: http://trendwatching.com/trends/POPUP_RETAIL.htm http://nycitynewsservice.com/2008/10/08/target-aims-at-bullseye-pop-up-shops/

June 23Develop Your own “Nurture” ListIt’s become common practice for businesses to engage in lead nurturing, a practice that is intended to bring prospects closer to becoming new business through the use of content and education. But there are some prospects that could benefit from a more personal touch.

How do you feel when you get a personal email from someone with a piece of information that’s valuable to you? It feels pretty good, especially in this age of mass email and manufactured personalization. In re-cessionary times, personal connections are more important than ever.

The most effective business owners and sales people know who their best possible prospects are and nurture them accordingly. Now is a great time to begin, if you haven’t already, to develop that prospect


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nurturing list that you are going to personally stay in touch with until they become customers!

Action Summary: Create a list of your best prospects – just the top ones that you can stay in touch with a couple of times per month – and start nurturing them with content, value, ideas and relevant information that will cement you as the trusted advisor in your business sector.

June 24Change Your HoursAre you open the same hours as all of your competitors? If so, do you have to be? Perhaps you’re in a shop-ping mall that has a set open and closing time, but if not … why are you?

I recently switched hair salons because I found one that was open on Sundays, which is when I have time for a haircut, and they’re half the price! Dentists, hairdressers, auto mechanics computer repair people and all sorts of businesses that normally keep the same hours can grow their business simply by keeping a schedule more in-tune with what the customers need.

If you decide to change your hours, there may be a positive public relations opportunity to the change if it really goes against the grain of your local competitors. Not only will you be helping your customers, but everyone will know about it! You may also be able to put together a marketing campaign just around the new hours. For example, not too many coffee shops are open on Sunday evenings, so perhaps a local cof-fee house could hold a “Sunday evening coffee hour” and invite people in. It could become a new Sunday ritual and be the most profitable evening of the week!

Action Summary: Make a list of your competitors and their respective business hours. Also, ask your customers when it’s most convenient for them to do business with you. Look into changing your hours to upstage your com-petitors and better meet your customers’ needs. Make sure you let everyone know about it, too!

June 25Twofer on Yellow Page CutoutsNo matter what kind of economy we are currently in, good ideas and competitive marketing tactics will always stand the test of time. However, this idea is losing some if its impact, so it’s time to step it up a bit.You may have heard about pizza chains, dry cleaners and other local businesses offering two-for-one (twofer) specials and other great deals when you bring in the cutout yellow-page ads of their competitors. The rationale is that customers can’t very well call their competitors if the ads are torn out!

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With telephone directory usage decreasing and Internet usage increasing, you may have to raise the stakes. Perhaps in today’s world you’ll need to have customers bring in a whole page from the yellow pages to eliminate several competitors at once!

Action Summary: What can you do to eliminate your competitors from the equation, or at least make them harder to find? While you’re at it, make sure that you either get your new customer’s email address or home address to support your direct marketing efforts and keep your firm top of mind. Oh, and maybe leave them with something like a fridge magnet or innovative “bookmark” with your contact info and menu to paste into their phone book to take the place of the page they just tore out!Source: http://www.madison.com/tct/entertainment//index.php?ntid=317161

June 26Sign up for HAROHas your business ever sought national publicity? If not, here’s your big chance! Every day, dozens of reporters from around the country flock to a website called Help A Reporter Out (HARO) at www.helpare-porter.com. By signing up for the newsletter as a possible “source,” you’ll be included on the three emails per day that are sent out with journalist queries seeking expert sources just like you. Even if you’re a cara-mel maker in West Virginia specializing in coal-shaped candies, it won’t be long before someone comes looking for a source for a unique gift idea of small business making fun things with caramel for which you can submit a response showcasing your expertise.

Hundreds of companies have received some much needed press over the past year simply by responding to a query. In fact, many of the ideas for this book were gleaned from interviews with marketers and busi-ness owners who’ve put their time in and responded to my HARO query for marketers doing great things a downturn!

Action Summary: This one’s easy. Simply go to www.helpareporter.com and sign up to get the daily emails, then watch the queries come through for your chance to shine!

June 27Radio Free [Your Business]How much time to you spend listening to the radio every day? Minutes? Hours? The whole day? Guess what, your potential customers are doing the same, and that’s one behavior that’s not diminished as a result of the economic downturn.

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Stefanos Loisou is a financial planner who conducts personal finance workshops, and he hosts and pro-duces a live, weekly financial radio program. This enables Stefanos to establish credibility and position himself as a reliable financial resource in his community. He also uses the radio show as a platform to ad-vertise his financial seminars. By offering his expertise on the radio, he’s created a forum for people to ask questions and for listeners to call and arrange for individual consultations.

Action Summary: Often times small business owners and marketers who are not familiar with a particular type of media tend to shy away from it out of fear of the unknown. Take a few minutes today to contact your favorite radio station about being a guest, pitching them on a show idea or for advertising rates. You never know the power of radio until you try it!

June 28Put on a WebinarOne of the easiest ways to generate buzz, excitement and leads – especially in an economic downturn – is to offer something for free that’s perceived as high-value. Web seminars, or webinars, are almost always seen as high-value occasions.

Shawn De Souza, senior manager of online marketing for Eloqua Corp., put on a webinar that far exceeded the company’s expectations but it wasn’t just dumb luck. Eloqua took a very strategic approach to making the webinar succeed, including:

• Using personalized URLs • Creating several different emails for the event • A finely tuned and personalized landing page for webinar signups

The hard work and thorough approach paid off. According to the case study published on MarketingSher-pa.com, The decision to use seven emails and a personalized landing page approach brought in 64% more leads than their goal, and they exceeded their “sales opportunity” goal by 61%. From that, they converted 14.6% into sales for a 2000% ROI.

Using personalized landing pages and pre-populating the registration fields worked very well: 66% of their actual sales were from recipients who received a PURL. The invitation email drew an overall 2.13% response rate, with 76.4% of registrations coming from the PURL recipients.

“The people getting the personalized landing pages are from our database, so it’s somewhat natural for them to respond better because they are more likely to recognize our brand,” De Souza says. “But we be-

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lieve that personalization drove registration and attendance.”

Action Summary: What do your customers want to know that you could create a webinar for? I’ve seen local businesses cre-ate them on digital signs, restaurant equipment, real estate and nearly every other subject. Never mind the results above – even if you only have a few people on your webinar, all you need are the right people and prospects to make it a success!

June 29Offer the Free TrialFor the past two decades, software companies have been immensely successful in their sales efforts by offering free, expiring trials of their product. Whether it’s a simple $19.95 shareware application or an ex-pensive office software suite, there’s nothing like being able to demo the goods before laying down hard-earned cash. In fact, during the last several months of 2008, the business-to-business sales community has taken a page from the software companies and has been using free trials of everything from chiropractic tables to large capital equipment.

In any free trial or demo offer, you’re trying to reduce or remove the risk from the buyer. You can make them more comfortable with the product by showing how it has worked for others in the form of case studies or testimonials or by letting them try it with an in-house free trial or demo.

However, the standard “30-day free trial” isn’t going to cut it in tough times. What marketers need to do is to create a free trial with an “and” offer. Such as, “You can try our product or service for 30 days AND/OR until you generate results.” If the customer used the product for 30 days but did not achieve the desired results, the trial continues. Simply shifting your focus to customer outcomes rather than a convenient (for you) time-limited trial reduces the customer’s resistance to entering into the trial because they can clearly see how they will benefit!

Action Summary: Could you offer your product or service on a trial basis to start the dialog with prospects? Even ad agencies have done this via “free brainstorming sessions,” so a service business can also apply this technique. Use a free trial to remove the risk of customer commitment — if the product works for them, they’ll buy; if not, they’ll opt out.


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June 30Ask Two, Tell TwoMost everyone knows that good businesses are built on solid referrals. But the best businesses are built on a deep understanding of those customers who generate referrals.

PrintingforLess.com is a company that understands the need to keep close to their existing customers and constantly seek referrals. With each of their printing orders, they send a postcard seeking feedback (the “Tell Us” section of the postcard) while asking you to pass along a referral code to a friend worth $25 off of their first order with them (the “Tell Them” section of the postcard)!

If you prefer to leverage social media for your referrals, you could start a Facebook fan page and encour-age members to share the group and tell new members to mention the Facebook fan page for a special discount!

There are myriad referral strategies that you could employ in your marketing, but if you don’t have a spe-cific referral program yet, now is a great time to get one rolling!

Action Summary: What can you do today to get more referrals tomorrow? Need ideas? There are plenty of websites out there to help, simply search for referral marketing ideas and you’ll find dozens of things that you can do today! Start simple. Put one referral mechanism in place and immediately get to work on the next.

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So, now what? What happens after the magical 30 days are up? Well, my desire would be that you continue on with your DIY marketing much as you have for the last month. Perhaps you’re just getting up to speed, or perhaps you’ve sat on the sidelines this whole time and are just getting started. Either way, those entrepreneurs that clear a path through the myriad of customer and prospect opportunities using their finely honed marketing tools are those that will surely win.

If you’re got questions, feel free to drop me a line. I’d love to help!

Dana VanDen HeuvelMarketingSavant™[email protected]: danavan888-989-7771

What’s Next?


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Dana VanDen Heuvel and The MarketingSavant GroupMarketing Consultancy :: The MarketingSavant Group

Are You Looking for a Marketing Firm You Can Trust? One Who Really Gets It?

Not only does Dana VanDen Heuvel and his com-pany, The MarketingSavant Group, have more than 14 years of internet marketing experience, he’s been an entrepreneur and business owner since he started his first business at age 13. As a mar-keting trainer, Dana has helped hundreds of mar-keters with their internet, thought leadership and social media marketing challenges.

Marketing consultants are everywhere. Whether you’re looking for help now, or just want to bat around a few ideas, why not trust someone who’s taught hundreds about the latest marketing tech-niques, spoken at dozens of conferences, and helped businesses just like yours achieve success through marketing.

With The MarketingSavant Group, you’ll never en-counter freshly minted MBA’s who’ve never seen the inside of a boardroom or an inexperienced ac-count manager or a poorly written strategy. When you work with us, you get our best and brightest talent every time, all the time.

MarketingSavant Marketing Consulting ServicesThe MarketingSavant Group will work with you to find a working arrangement that meets your needs. We offer several consulting options for our clients. If you’re just looking for access to our ideas and talent, well that works too. You decide how you want use us and when you need us. Our clients appreciate the benefit of adding a nationally-renowned marketing consultant to your team without the overhead of hiring full-time staff or engaging an ad agency.

How We Work With You• Phone consultations - you pick the hours needed and you decide when to use our marketing expertise.• On-site training/consulting - have Dana spend a day or two or ten with your company, evaluating your projects,

providing expert advice and making your next marketing project a success.• Remote web training – when you need to train a team of marketers on blogging or go-to-market strategy or what-

ever, we’ll come to you over a Webex meeting or a teleconference.• Retainer-based consulting - if you know you’ll need Dana’s expertise for an extensive period of time, you can hire

The MarketingSavant group on a reasonable monthly retainer basis.• Al a carte – What do you need? Tell us what’s on your mind and we’ll work with you.

Email us at [email protected] or learn more about our consulting services at www.MarketingSavant.com.

“Dana’s vision and insight into digital and thought leadership marketing has been a significant contribution to our business. He offers not only the knowledge, but the systems to make online marketing a natural extension of the work we do every day. I rec-ommend him highly.”

- Kyra Cavanaugh, Founder, Life Meets Work

“Dana is one of those people who just “gets it.” His knowledge and granular understanding of how blogs and social media can be used as a marketing tool place him at the head of the pack in this burgeoning field. He was one of the blogging early adopters and someone to whom I looked for insight and information.”

- Paul Chaney, President, Radiant Marketing Group

“I’ve had the honor of working with Dana and found him to be a forward-thinking visionary especially on subject matter pertain-ing to interactive marketing. I turn to him not only for consulta-tion on my own projects and challenges, but also to help enrich AMA member benefits by providing information and insights to our membership. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him or work with him again!”

- Amy (Komenda) Zelenka, Marketing Manager, American Marketing Association

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