Small biz marketing tips

A business woman is writing on a glass through which you can see the rest of the team talking about marketing planning.

7 Marketing Steps to Grow Your Business in 2024

7 Marketing Steps to Grow Your Business in 2024 This is the time of year when many small business owners take a moment to pause, reflect, and think about what they need to do to grow their business in the coming year. And since marketing should be a pretty significant part of that, we thought we’d share some of the most important steps you can take to kick your business into growth mode in 2024. First, and foremost, we’re strictly...

A Christmas work party with food and happy people, and text over it that reads, "The holidays don't have to be just about stress, even if you own the company. Plan ahead, get work completed early, and take a moment for yourself."

Five Thoughts on Surviving the Holidays as an Entrepreneur (and a Marketer)

For some reason this year it struck me particularly strongly how different the holidays feel when you’re an entrepreneur than they do when you just work for someone else. Back in those carefree days, the period leading up to Christmas was a gentle slide into, well, not much work getting done. People brought in treats, silly sweaters were worn, holiday parties were had, white elephant exchanges occurred, and it was generally pretty well expected that nothing important would happen until...

A sign in a store window advertises a cyber monday sale next to ceramic ware, with the quote: "If you run a black friday/cyber monday sale without asking yourself what you are trying to achieve... it may be time to ask yourself why you're running a black friday/cyber monday sale."

Do I need a Black Friday sale? How to decide when (and if) to discount your product

Should you run a Black Friday sale? Let’s break it down. There’s no question that sales drive conversions. And conversions drive revenue. But that doesn’t mean that sales always make the most sense for your business. Your average marketer will push you to run a sale because sales drive revenue, and big revenue results make marketers look good. Also, a lot of us really like the buzz we get when the virtual cash register starts ka-chinging off the hook like...

A business owner works late in a dark office. Captions says, "Time to do marketing will never just appear in your day. You have to make time if you want growth. "

Too busy for marketing? What to do instead

Well. Those of you who check in on us periodically may have noticed that we went totally dark on the new-blog-posting-on-social-sending-emails marketing front for about seven months here recently. Yeah, we know, a marketing company not doing their own marketing is a bit of a bad look. That said (wiping the egg off our faces), we—as small business owners—are not alone on this sort of thing, so let’s take the moment to talk about what happened. The short story: we...

A business man in a santa hat, with the caption, "Yes, it's a bit late to be thinking about your holiday planning. But all may not be lost..."

Help! I forgot to plan for holiday marketing! What now?

It’s common marketing knowledge that you should start your holiday season marketing planning as early as August. And if you need to bring in inventory to support it, you should have really started planning right after last year’s holiday season. And common knowledge here is correct – you absolutely should plan early. But, as with many marketing best practices, starting really early isn’t always realistic for smaller businesses, especially those struggling with their marketing function. (Hey! Need help with that?)...