Welcome to Duct Tape Marketing's Guide page, your ultimate resource for all things marketing. Our guides are designed to help you navigate marketing strategy with ease. From SEO to social media, email marketing to content creation, our guides are packed with practical tips, insights, and strategies to help you take your marketing to the next level.
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Over the years I’ve worked with a lot of consultants and agency owners teaching them how to market their businesses. I’ve spent thirty years learning how to build my marketing agency and even developed an entire proven Marketing System. Many businesses, even those that don’t call what they do consulting or coaching offer consulting in the form of services or information.
Growing a business in a crowded marketplace is a challenge that requires a well-thought-out marketing strategy. It’s not just about reaching more people; it’s about reaching the right people and converting them into customers. At the heart of this are 7 essential elements that form the backbone of any successful plan.
You may have an incredible product, a stellar marketing team, and the greatest value proposition that ever was, but without a solid approach to sales, you don’t have a business. Taking a holistic approach to sales, integrating the sales and marketing teams, and empowering your salespeople to be involved throughout the customer journey will allow you to establish a strong customer base and to keep them coming back and referring others for years to come.
As the owner of a small business, you are likely all too aware of the many moving pieces it takes for a business to run smoothly. Dealing with finances is often the last area owners want to spend time on. While this area of the business can be very intimidating for many, it doesn’t have to be. Take a look at the content below to get off to the right start.
As a small business owner, your approach to advertising must be different. You don’t have the spend, the bandwidth, or the reach of a major corporate brand, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t create advertising campaigns that are highly effective. You’ll want to take an approach to advertising that is just as unique and thoughtful as your approach to the rest of your business.
Your website is the heart of your online marketing efforts. All other channels should drive users back to your website, so it’s critical that you build the most effective one that you can. Good website design is way bigger than just building a site that looks appealing. Truly effective website design is about the substance underlying the style.
Marketing automation used to be embraced only by huge companies with many thousands (or even millions) of customers. But in recent years, small and mid-sized business owners have come to see that the technology has immense benefits for them as well. The proper implementation and use of a marketing automation tool can empower you to shorten your sales cycle, generate better leads and more conversions, and keep existing customers happy so that they repeat and refer.
Some people mistakenly think that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is just about using a tool to create the equivalent of a 21st Century rolodex. In reality, it’s so much more than that. It’s a comprehensive approach to interacting with prospects and customers; one that allows you to track behaviors and provide highly personalized service throughout their customer journey.
Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, oh my! There are a myriad of social media platforms for a small business owner to consider, and a different approach to undertake on each. This guide will help you to understand all the ins and outs of social media for business owners: Which social networks you should be targeting, how to establish both an organic and paid presence, and how to engage followers and generate meaningful leads.
Paid search is an essential component of any comprehensive marketing strategy. It is a way for you to get discovered by new prospects and re-engage existing customers. While the terminology and mechanics of establishing a campaign may seem overwhelming at first, once you come to understand the ins and outs of paid search, you can put it to work for your business.
Nobody ever said being a small business owner was easy. For many, the entrepreneur’s day can include anything from business development to taking out the trash (somebody’s got to do it). There is so much pressure on a small business owner to succeed, and while they often know they need to implement marketing efforts to grow their business, a lot of times those efforts seem to fall on the back burner, or the entrepreneur simply doesn’t know where to start.
Did you know that mobile searches now take up more than half of all searches on Google? This mobile trend isn’t going to slow down any time soon, making this undoubtedly the future of SEO. Google will continue to change up their entire algorithm for mobile search and will cater to mobile users first and foremost (their entire business plan revolves around providing the best user experience after all).
Referrals are the secret to ensuring your business’s long-term success. Acquiring new business is costly and time-consuming. When you can rely on your existing client base to spread the good word about your company, it saves you time, money, and energy. A lot of businesses don’t know where to start with generating referrals. Asking others to advocate for your business can sometimes feel awkward or intimidating. But the good news is that happy customers are usually excited to pass your name along to their friends.
The customer journey is the sum of all experiences a customer has when interacting with your business. From their first Google search to their most recent purchase, every touchpoint adds up to a total customer journey. And in today’s digital world, there are countless touchpoints to consider. Taking charge of the path your customer takes with your business is critical to creating a smooth journey that builds loyalty and encourages return business and lots of referrals.
Duct Tape Marketing is founded on the simple belief that marketing is the most important small business system.
