Make Marketing Happen

Yes, it is possible to write your first book for your business in just 10 days.  And it just requires a 3-step process to accomplish. Charley and Mike reveal this incredible information in this week's Make Marketing Happen podcast!

Today, Charley and Mike are sharing some of their favorite inexpensive tools to help them with marketing. The guys are covering software and hardware to tune in to find what you could be using to help with your markeitng that won't break the bank! Included are graphic design programs, team collaboration tools, and equipment to get your own video studio started.

It's spring cleaning time!  For Charley and Mike, that means it's time to update the websites and take a magnifying glass to its performance.  There's content to be updated and thrown away for the sake of speed and efficiency.  Some tough choices will have to be made, but that's okay! Are you ready to do some spring cleaning of your website with Charley and Mike?

Looking for some things to read and learn from to grow your business?  Charley and Mike discuss the books and websites that help make them successful.

Google Hangouts is arguably the best part of Google+.  It has excellent functionality at your favorite price - free! Charley and Mike are talking about Google Hangouts, including why you should be using them today and how to set it up.

Apparently some small business owners that the right strategy to achieving profit is to lower their prices.  Recognize the immediate contradiction in that statement? Lowering price only puts you in a race to the bottom, which is a race you don't want to win, because you need hugely high-volume sales to operate on slim margins.  You're not Wal-Mart, and I don't think you want to be them either. So find out what Charley and Mike think about keeping your prices where they are (hint: they actually think you should raise them!).

Knowing where your where your money is coming from is just as important as knowing where your money is going.  That's why you need to implement excellent tracking practices for your marketing. Charley and Mike are going over tracking your marketing online, over the phone, and in print in this week's Make Marketing Happen podcast.

You have an incredible resource available to your business that you are not currently using.  Your customers.  Your customers are a big pool of wisdom, ideas, and data.  And who doesn't love getting those things for free? Well, Charley and Mike want to help you access all of these free resources by tapping into the world of customer feedback.

Webinars should be another tool on your "Batman belt" for profitable practices in your business.  Done right, they really can be a profit machine, with very little effort on your end.  Done wrong, they're a waste of time and money.  Which do you prefer? Charley and Mike are breaking down webinars this week on Make Marketing Happen!

A lot of the professional services industries have to deal with burdensome marketing regulations.  The regulators' intention is supposed to be to protect the public, but they usually end up diluting the ability for professionals to differentiate themselves and prevent the public from making truly informed choices. Fortunately, Charley and Mike have some great ideas for how you can play with those regulations and use them to your advantage - all without breaking the law!  Everything is ethical, effective, and outside-the-box.

Google is always changing.  They actually publish more updates throughout the year to their algorithms than there are days.  However, they tend to release major updates that take the Search Engine Optimization community by storm every few months. This week, Charley and Mike are going to look behind and ahead at what is in store for some of these updates and how to start planning for long-term SEO success!

Whether you're hiring a new marketing employee or just want to do a self-evaluation, it's always useful to have a way to evaluate yourself and others. Charley and Mike are giving you the preliminary guidelines for good marketers!

While we are big fans of direct mail, email marketing certainly has an important place in the ecosystem.  It is becoming an increasingly effective tool as more and more businesses learn how to use it smartly, rather than as an annoyance. Charley and Mike are covering the importance of email marketing and detailing some best practices, so listen in!

In order to really be productive and successful in business, you need the right mindset. And with the New Year (2013) starting, it's the perfect time to recalibrate your brain. So listen in while Mike and Charley help you find the right mindset to be a top marketer!

Charley and Mike are tackling part 2 of their website design podcasts.  Are you struggling to convert more potential customers, clients, or patients with your website?  This week you'll learn all about the "interior pages" of your website and how to create a web presence that converts visitors into consumers.

In part one of a two-part series, Charley and Mike are digging into the best practices for your small business website's home page.  There's a lot of great information to help you design a fantastic and profitable website. Listen in to learn more!

Everyone knows about the Google+/Google reletionship, some are fully aware of the Facebook/Bing relationship, but it seems that fewer folks know how to take advantage of these connections.  And past that, they're still not sure how to use social media to improve search engine returns for their businesses. Charley and Mike are here to explain those critical relationships and help you figure out how best to use social media to help your search engine marketing.

You can't sell anything if no one knows it exists.  That is the ultimate issue with direct mail: getting people to just open the darn envelope.  If you can improve your open rate, you will improve your current sales, you will gather more data, and your future mailings will be even more successful. Charley and Mike are tackling this persistent issue in this week's Make Marketing Happen podcast.

You've probably got a list sitting somewhere in your database of old customers or clients who haven't spent money on your goods or services in a long time.  And you've probably ignored that list for ages. Too bad.  You're missing out on a gold mine. That's what Charley and Mike want to fix on this week's Make Marketing Happen podcast!

Shooting video is an integral part of good marketing.  But the same-old commercials and talking head videos won't take you very far once people tire of them. Charley and Mike are using this week's podcast to give you 5 alternative videos you should be shooting for your business - warning: they are both fun and effective!