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Like cans of gasoline in the hands of that “one uncle,” using automation to help spread your word can have unforeseen consequences. I don’t think automated marketing systems are necessarily a good thing, especially in some implementations. While there are great tools for helping to automate your marketing, great marketing still starts from a passion about your product or service. Period.
Now, do I use automated marketing tools? You betcha! You might be one of thousands of people who get my Monday Marketing newsletter delivered conveniently to your inbox through a mailing program. If not, you can remedy that here.
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 I get to manage a lot of calendars as part of my life and there’s something I see people doing consistently to really hurt attendance of their events. From car shows to community events, people are truly limiting how effective their messaging is to the people they’d like to attend those events. But how do you spread the word about community events so that people will find them in the first place?
Let’s face it - there are so many ways to deliver messaging nowadays that telling the world about your event is something that can very easily get lost. Even if you get to the right people, it’s still entirely possible that they will forget about your event when it rolls around.  As human beings our journeys around the sun on this big blue marble trigger all sorts of events. For example, many of us try to lose weight come January 1. Others place huge significance on the anniversary of our own arrival aboard this vehicle. In these United States we celebrate those who have passed away in active military service on this day. This can also be a trigger for our businesses.
Every day our customers and prospects are critiquing our advertising and messaging. Some are responding, others aren’t. For those who don’t it could be that what we have isn’t what they want or it could also be our messaging. So I propose that, at least twice a year, we look at what we’re doing to woo our customers and make adjustments. We all know that one guy who wonders why things aren’t going so well but tells us, “well, I’ve been doing it this way for 20 years!” Times change, customers change and, most importantly, competitors change.  I was recently in a restaurant that I really like locally that had undergone some ownership changes and observed a few differences in how things were working including something that made me hug the owner. What was that single thing? Fish bowling. Now if you look in the Urban Dictionary for fish bowling you’re going to see something quite different than what I’m referring to so first let’s define what fish bowling is.
Simply put, fish bowling came from business owners who have a retail location putting a fish bowl on their counters and asking for people to sign-up for their regular mailing. I remember in the olden days of marketing how we would treasure these names and would carefully create newsletters using a program like Aldus PageMaker to craft newsletters that would get printed and actually mailed to the recipients. Where are those PageMaker skills today?  How do you market a small business in these modern times? I attended a three day marketing conference called Social Media Marketing World to gain insights on today’s trends in the small business and tourism marketing world. With over 120 speakers and 3,000 attendees from all over the world gathering for three days I have notes upon notes, references and ideas but I wanted to sum up the Conference on the latest in digital marketing in one article. Here’s what I learned.
Effectively, you can sum up the whole conference very simply with the acronym “LIKE.” I coined this because I’ve heard so many of my clients wanting more “Likes” on their Facebook Pages. But, as written previously, Facebook “Likes” are only one step in the whole process - sort of like having plates and a fork in time for dinner. What we really want is a balanced meal. Surprisingly, those who have followed my blog for an length of time will not be surprised by this information. So what did I learn?  One of the worst marketing things I can see a business do is put up some sort of sign that reads, “Like us on Facebook.” Sometimes people even put the URL for their page. This is a big mistake. Why?
We all know who Facebook is - at present they have over a billion and a half users and that kind of pool of people can be a huge temptation for any business owner. I even believe that a Facebook Business Page often is a solid component of a small business’ marketing arsenal. But a Facebook Page is only one component and only a part of a solid online presence. You would never just go up to someone and ask for $50. But asking for someone’s email address is almost the same thing, which is why so many people are reticent about sharing their email addresses. Even worse, much of the email we all get is a huge waste of time. No wonder so many people have “throwaway” email addresses that they never check. So why would you want to be an email marketer?
 One of the greatest assets you can have as a business is a really, really good email list. While there is a lot of hoopla about having a strong social media presence, and that is an effective marketing tool, honing a great email list still can turn into real dollars for your business. But this can also be a way to lose customers too, so here are seven rules for email marketing that can help your business.
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Tony BarthelTony Barthel is passionate about great marketing for small businesses Get Free Weekly Marketing TipsCategories
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