Resources for starting a new business, ideas for naming that business, mistakes to avoid, lead generation strategies to embrace, how to apply some of Warren Buffet's wisdom to online marketing efforts... find all of that and more here in this final collection of the best posts on strategy and branding from the past year.
What's in A Name? by MediaPost Online Publishing Insider
Kory Kredit explores the inexact science of business naming, from descriptive (
AdBuyer.com) to not-quite-real words (
Aquisio) to misspellings (
Personifi) to WTF? (Jivox, xy3).
Top 12 Resources for Start-Ups by Duct Tape Marketing
The ever-industrious
John Jantsch provides a short but bookmark-worthy "list of resources to help small business owners get started and growing," such as the SBA's
Small Business Planner, business resources from
StartupNation, and guides to starting a business from AllBusiness.com, Inc.com and Entrepreneur magazine.
7 Things Big Dumb Companies Do That You Can’t Afford (Especially Now) by Remarkable Communication
The brilliant
Sonia Simone pulls no punches in warning small business owners away from some of the myopic and unproductive practices still sometime seen in their larger competitors, like printing up 10,000 brochures (then throwing away 9,500 of them) and "forgetting that 'we' includes the customer," as well as recommending effective practices to use instead. Of course it isn't only big businesses that make mistakes. So to be fair, Sonia details in another excellent post
dumb things small businesses do, advising entrepreneurs to avoid the number "one," as in over-reliance on one customer, one vendor or one partner.
Lead generation playbook: 5 steps to a 375% conversion lift by Marketing Experiments Blog
Hunter Boyle and
Brian Carroll provide a helpful, educational online clinic on "what happens after prospects hit the 'submit' button, and how marketing and sales teams can work together more effectively to expand their customer base and get the most revenue per lead."
Warren Buffett, Search Marketing Guru? by MediaPost Search Insider
In this well-worth-bookmarking post,
Steve Baldwin presents a list of "Buffetisms" he has taped up on the wall of his cubicle (Steve Baldwin sits in a cube?!) and how they relate to search engine marketing. One example:
"'Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.' All of us run the risk of growing complacent, just because our ROI is somewhere in the black." An even better one: "'I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.' Keep this one in mind when you decide whether to fight a pitched battle for #1 placement on a high-traffic SERP. You might be far better off looking for smaller gains on longer-tail keywords, 2nd-tier engines, or by using day-parting or other segmentation technologies."
Previous posts in this series:
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 1Best of 2008: Interactive PR, Part 1Best of 2008: SEO Tools, Part 1Best of 2008: Search Engine MarketingBest of 2008: Web AnalyticsBest of 2008: Email Marketing TipsBest of 2008: SEO Keyword Tips & ToolsBest of 2008: Sales & Marketing CopywritingBest of 2008: SEO Link BuildingBest of 2008: Website DesignBest of 2008: WordPress Tools and TipsBest of 2008: Web & SEO CopywritingBest of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 2Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 1Best of 2008: AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 1Best of 2008: SEO Tools, Part 2Best of 2008: SEM Landing PagesBest of 2008: Blogging for Business, Part 1Best of 2008: Interactive PR, Part 2Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 3Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 2Best of 2008: AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 2Best of 2008: Strategy and Branding, Part 1Best of 2008: Cool Web Tools, Part 1Best of 2008: Blogging for Business, Part 2Best of 2008: Random but Interesting, Part 1Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 4Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 3
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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom