Consumers are on social media - are you? Social media is an important part of your marketing plan. You can start conversations, answer questions, share testimonials, and deal directly with customer service issues.

With all the emphasis on social media these days, it is easy to assume we have moved well past e-mail, but that is not the case. For certain types of communication to your customers and prospects, e-mail is still an incredibly effective tool.

It is easier to explain what marketing is by looking at what it isn’t. Effective marketing is not just a slick campaign, clever ad, or single promotion. Marketing is a well thought out strategy, which brings together the 3M’s: Market. Message. Media. For marketing to be effective, these three elements must be in alignment.

With all the emphasis on social media, Twitter, Facebook and Internet marketing, it is easy to assume traditional marketing is obsolete. But that is not true. For most small business owners, the best results can be found by combining on- and off-line elements. Direct mail campaigns, done correctly, can be a very powerful tool for small business marketing.

In basketball, the fans are often considered the sixth man. In your business, marketing is the sixth man. For many firms, the investment in marketing exceeds the salary paid a single employee. If you’re going to make that kind of investment, I think you need to have some clarity regarding objectives and success measures.

Would you hire an employee, pay them a salary, and never check on their work, never set goals or measure performance? Of course not! While most business owners understand this concept when it comes to employees, they don’t see that it applies equally well to their marketing.

Every year contractors across the country sign up to attend a home show. If you are planning to be one of them, remember to do your homework before the event to make it really pay off.

It seems obvious, if you are not sure how to get to your destination, you need a map, and yet, every day I meet business owners who drive their businesses with no map nor a clear set of directions. The result - they get lost, fail to meet their objectives, or fail completely.