Duct Tape Marketing

After a hiatus, the Marketing with Moxie blog is back!! Have you missed us? As part of my effort to think bigger in 2012, I’ve decided to take a more proactive approach to my posts here.

So look for marketing tips and tidbits in three general categories.

1. Tips and cool tools. Once a week or so, I’ll summarize the latest and greatest marketing gadgets, websites, or tools any small business owner can use. I run across things all the time in my news feeds, via the Duct Tape Marketing blog and in my in box.

2. Marketing strategy. I’m a firm believer in strategy before tactics. I have also found that focusing on strategies first is like pulling teeth for many small business owners. A lot of them just want a “sure-fire” tactic that will generate leads and create sales. Mention strategy, and they’re likely to glaze over. But that’s a huge mistake. While stand-alone tactics can sometimes do the trick to grow your business, tactics backed by a strategic marketing foundation will work better, almost every time. I’ll be going through the Seven Steps of Marketing Success again this year – the proven system created by John Jantsch. But thanks to a new and revised version of the steps, you’ll see even more relevant strategies to grow your business.

3. Small business owners with marketing moxie. When I started this blog, I intended to profile small business owners who have  an “inner marketing moxie.” These people are natural marketers. They just think bigger all the time like Zappo’s founder Tony Hseih – the source of the quote in this post. They just seem to inherently get marketing and sometimes do it without even knowing it is marketing. Others are very intentional about it, and have stories to tell. I’ll be inviting these business owners to write guest blogs to share their “secret marketing sauce,” or I’ll interview one from time to time. Are you a small business owner with marketing moxie? I want to hear from you!!

So, all the best to you in 2012 as you work to grow your business, and as all of us involved in the Duct Tape Marketing network like to say this year – Think Bigger!

If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner in Austin, don’t miss this year’s RISE conference the week of March 7. Created originally in 2007 by Roy and Bertrand Sosa as a week-long, free “un-conference” for- and by- entrepreneurs in Austin, Texas, RISE has now grown into an ongoing annual program that leverages its proprietary web interface to provide one-of-a-kind resources and experiences to entrepreneurs worldwide for free.

There are dozens of sessions to choose from in locations all over town ranging from bootstrapping your business to sales training to the kick-off event with Robert L. Johnson founder of the RLJ Companies and Founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET).

Of course, I hope you’ll join me for one of three sessions I’m hosting on Monday March 7 at the Better Business Bureau Conference Room on La Posada Drive:

8-9:30 am:  Seven Steps to Marketing Success

10-11:30 am: The Social Media Pyramid: Unraveling the Mystery of Social Media Marketing

12-1:30 pm:  Winning the Local Search game PLUS Teaching Your Business to Market Itself with Referrals

See you there!

At the recent Gathering of Duct Tape Marketing Consultants in Kansas City, Duct Tape Marketing Founder John Jantsch shared an updated version of his highly popular “Seven Steps To Marketing Success” process.  A significant addition is the emphasis on the Marketing Hourglass (TM) and the role it plays in the marketing lifecycle of your business.  John developed the hourglass concept a few years ago, but it is even more relevant now because the traditional marketing funnel is broken. Thanks to the explosive growth of social media, our customers and clients play a larger role in the marketing process – they find, review and refer us – completely out of our control.  Take a look at John’s blog post on the American Express Open Forum for a “New and Improved” look at the Seven Steps to Creating a Sure-Fire Marketing System.

Used by permission.  Duct Tape Marketing.

I often write about Duct Tape Marketing here. Moxie Marketing has been affiliated with John Jantsch and the Duct Tape Marketing network of coaches around the world for some time now. At the Duct Tape Marketing Network Annual Gathering last week in Kansas City, John announced a new brand name for that network – we are now collectively known as Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Consultants.

It’s a timely and significant change. Most of the marketing pros who are licensed to install the Duct Tape Marketing System in small businesses work with their clients as a hybrid consultant/coach. But my work is better described as a collaborative consultant rather than a coach. The re-branding will better reflect what we do.

Why do I like the Duct Tape System and what does Moxie Marketing get out of it?

Simplicity

The step-by-step approach we use to build a marketing plan just makes sense. My clients “get” marketing for the first time when they begin implementing the Duct Tape Ultimate Marketing System in their business. It breaks down a challenging process into a series of steps. It’s still a lot of work, but it illuminates the “black hole” of marketing in a way that helps business owners see it as a system.

Depth

My clients benefit from the wealth of knowledge the network provides. Consultants share knowledge and ideas with one another and we transfer that knowledge to our engagements with clients.

Customization

The universal principles we use to implement a marketing system does not mean we take a cookie cutter approach. Every engagement is different. I never work the same way with one client as I do the next. The process itself discovers unique and highly targeted ways to grow a business – from identifying its ideal customers, to developing content that sets a business apart from its competitors.

Authenticity

You’ll find lots of aggressive marketing methods in cyberspace that claim to unlock marketing in a way that will make your business grow like it’s on steroids. Don’t buy it. There is no magic pill or potion. The Duct Tape System is the real deal, but frankly, it takes a lot of work to do it right. John Jantsch and his leadership team of Joe Costantino and Cidnee Stephen are extremely talented and experienced marketers who have a passion to help small businesses succeed unlike any other organization. And I’m proud to announce that at The Gathering last week, I was honored to receive the designation of a “Certified Duct Tape Marketing Consultant.”

“All Duct Tape Marketing Consultants receive rigorous training just to be a part of the network, but certified consultants have also demonstrated a mastery of the principles contained in the Duct Tape Marketing System by successfully creating positive marketing results for their clients,” said John Jantsch, founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network. “I am proud to announce that Rick has achieved this advanced level of success.”

Thanks, John, and kudos to my fellow consultants!

Bold new moves top the weekend edition of Marketing Stuff with Moxie, my semi-regular compilation of three compelling or noteworthy marketing tips, tools or tactics I’ve come across in the past week.  Apple, Facebook and the Huffington Post caught my eye for this edition.

Apple Planning Music Subscription Service

This interesting development reported by Rolling Stone isn’t about small business marketing, but since the Austin City Limits Music Festival is in full swing here in Austin, it seemed appropriate to post something about music today.  Check it out.

New Facebook Page Could be Big for Business

Facebook rolled out a new groups feature this week that you oughta check out.  Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch posted a good overview on his blog.  What do you think?

Blog For HuffPost’s Small Business America!

Are you the next celebrity small business blogger?  The Huffington Post wants you!  I can think of a number of Moxie Marketing friends and clients who could have fun with this.

Lyn Chasteen, the engaging publisher of the Austin Business Journal, asked attendees at a recent "Smart Series" breakfast the paper sponsors, to briefly introduce themselves before the morning's talk began. The topic was marketing, and I was the guest speaker. I sipped my coffee and nodded in affirmation as people stood up to give their 30-second intros. Many of them expectantly mentioned that they came to pick up some marketing tips. "Yes," I thought to myself, "I've heard these kinds of expectations expressed many times at events like this"  

I was surprised at one small business owner's blunt introduction. "I hate marketing," he said as the crowd chuckled. Yet surprisingly, he went on to describe how he had been growing his small business with some success since he started it several years ago. He obviously knows something about marketing, but if you pressed him to tell you what, he'd probably shrug his shoulders.

Why is "marketing" a dirty word for many small business owners or their staff members who are in charge of marketing? I believe it starts with what we think, assume or fear marketing is — or isn't.  To digress on that line of thinking — marketing as a dirty word — I'm reminded of the phrase Supreme Court Just Potter Stewart penned in his opinion about obscenity in 1964:  "I know it when it see it."

As consumers or business owners, we intuitively know good marketing (or bad marketing) when we see it.  But we don't know how to define it.  Even for those schooled in the ways of marketing, it sometimes seems like a mystery.

CFO's think it's too expensive and doesn't help the bottom line. Sales people think it sucks and invent their own marketing materials. And the frustrated marketing manager is confounded when asked to demonstrate marketing's ROI.

So, what is marketing, exactly? As I shared with the group that morning, it might not be what you think it is. In part, that's because traditional definitions of marketing are wishy washy. Textbooks discuss the Four P's: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Webster's defines marketing as, "the act or process of selling or purchasing in a market." Yeah, that helps. The American Marketing Association, a really smart group, says marketing is "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large." Now that sounds more like a Supreme Court opinion!

I like this definition, invented by Duct Tape Marketing founder John Jantsch:

"Marketing is getting people with a problem or need to know, like and trust you."

Simple and intuitive. Most people nod in agreement when I share that definition with them. It makes sense, and jibes with our experiences of businesses we admire and refer.

In my next post, we'll dig a little deeper on that definition and how to apply it to your business. In the meantime, I'd love to know what you think marketing is. Do you know it when you see it?