Many businesses don’t understand the value of registering a trademark for your identifiable assets, but doing so allows you to protect your brand in the event someone infringes on your mark.

The definition of a trademark from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. Trademarks identify a product, service, person or thing from others in the same field to avoid confusion and to separate your business from all the others.

You can establish rights based on use of the mark in commerce without a registration, but there are benefits to owning a federal trademark registration:

• Provides greater protection for your most valuable asset – your company name and/or logo;
• Grants you as the owner, nationwide right to use its mark in areas where you are not currently doing business;
• Allows you to use the registered trademark symbol, telling the world that you value and will protect your intellectual property rights;
• Eliminates the likelihood of confusion in the market by one of your competitors using the same or a similar trademark on potentially competing products.

In addition, when Facebook enabled page owners to get a user name for their Facebook business pages, a registered trademark owner was able to notify Facebook with their trademark information to prevent others from taking it. In my case, Facebook applied Masterful Marketing to my page automatically.

A Valuable Lesson

I began using Masterful Marketing® as a brand in October 2007 and filed for registration in December of 2007. I went through the process because my brand is unique and important to my marketing efforts. Never did I realize how important that registration was until recently.

A couple weeks ago, I was reviewing my Google Alert for Masterful Marketing (you do have a Google Alert for your company name, yes?) and discovered that another marketing coach launched a newsletter named Masterful Marketing! I immediately checked whether this was a violation of my trademark and found out that it was. My attorney contacted the other marketing company with a letter explaining that they were infringing on my trademark and they quickly apologized and are in the process of changing the name of their newsletter.

Using Masterful Marketing as the name of their newsletter was an infringement on my trademark that would have caused confusion in the market for those who recognize my brand. Because the mark is registered, we were able to easily prevent an issue with someone else using the mark for a similar product or service.

The Marketing Lesson

• Never use a name without doing your homework! Research its use and check for trademarks before you invest in it.
• Protect your name so that you can stop others from infringing upon your rights. Going through the trademark process is easy and the legal fees are well worth it.

Have you registered a trademark for your brand?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Protect Your Brand: Register a Trademark is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Marketing your business is a process similar to a home renovation: you need a general contractor to call the shots and make everything fit together.

I made this statement on my Facebook page and now will explain why this is an important analogy. I come in contact with many small business owners that hire different companies that “specialize” in one particular online marketing task. The result: no consistency and ineffective activities that counteract the effectiveness of one another. In fact, a couple clients of mine ended up with two websites (with two different designs) because each of these online marketing companies had to create their own website to guarantee first page placement on Google!

Having a marketing general contractor (or marketing consultant, coach, advisor or mentor as we are commonly known) to help you develop a plan, choose the right activities and work with the various niche specialists ensures that your web presence is consistently projected to your target market. Some activities you most likely will need help with include:

• Search engine optimization
• Web/blog design & development
• Social media
• Local search
• Pay-per-click
• Email marketing

Without a Marketing General Contractor that is well versed in online marketing, you run the risk of too many brand identities, inconsistent messages and different target markets, not to mention your lack of control and potentially higher costs.

Develop your game plan

Engage with an expert to help you create a marketing game plan that takes into account your needs and resources and can help you select the right mix of online activities. Without this game plan, the band of “experts” you hire to help you become visible can run in many different directions, confuse your target audience and potentially make promises on which they can’t deliver.

The benefits of having someone fill this role for your business will help you:

• Align your marketing with your business goals, ensuring you are doing what you need to be successful and not wander aimlessly without direction.
• Develop a marketing plan for your business that will help you identify your target audience and niche market so you know exactly where to target your  efforts.
• Create a social media system to help you remain consistent and eliminate the feeling of being overwhelmed.
• Stay in control and ownership of your online properties. Remember your web presence is a major component of your brand identity and your brand identity is an important asset of your business.

If you decide you don’t want to hire a marketing general contractor, you will need to take that on yourself so you can remain in control and get what you pay for. However, as a small business owner, this may be one of those areas that makes sense to outsource as it will save you money in the long run.

Share your experiences marketing your business with or without a general contractor? How were your results and what would you do different?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Why Your Business Needs a Marketing General Contractor is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

It’s the mantra of many involved in small business marketing and is important to those of us who need to deliver client projects while continuing to market our businesses. What marketing should your small business consistently execute that will deliver proven results? Here are my recommendations for where you should focus over the next year.

Online Presence

Make sure your online presence is the best it can be. Don’t take short cuts in this important area as people still judge your business by what they see online. Consider some or all of the following depending on your business and how much time you can spend.

• Build your site using WordPress (on a hosted platform, not WordPress.com) to benefit from the wealth of powerful plugins that make complex features easy to implement.
• Make sure you are in control of all the accounts that make up your web presence, including your domain, your website hosting provider and the owner of your local business listings. Do not let someone create them under their personal accounts. If your relationship with them falters, you will need to start all over again which will affect your business success.
• Provide up-to-date content that appeals to your target audience. If you blog, set a schedule and try to stick with it. If you need help with blogging, check out the Blogging Success Summit 2011 from the Social Media Examiner. There’s an early bird rate that expires soon.
• Create a comment strategy to drive awareness and develop credibility.
• Build your email list with an offer that encourages visitors to join. Having a strong list available when you have some special offer can be the difference in the success of a new program.
• Select your social media platforms based on where your customers hang out. Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter or some combination of the three in conjunction with your blog can create a powerful information network that makes it much easier for you to be found. Not all businesses will benefit from social media, but those who will, should implement a social media strategy.
• Create your local business listings on Google, Yahoo, Bing and on the directories that make sense to your industry. According to a Local Customer Review Survey from BrightLocal.com, 70% of people surveyed have used the Internet to find a local business. When it comes to the directories, research them and ask questions before you spend any money with them. Some are reputable directories, others are not. Unless you feel your time is better spent elsewhere, you do not have to hire someone to set these up for you. But if you do, make sure they are creating these listings under your Google, Yahoo or Microsoft Windows Live accounts, not their own.
• Investigate location based marketing if your business has a storefront. Retail businesses with a brick and mortar location benefit from using location based services like FourSquare, Yelp and Facebook Places for driving consumers to their stores. With the explosion of the adoption of smart phones, many consumers are now interacting with brands via these mobile devices, providing more opportunities for you to connect with them in ways that were previously unavailable.

Customers

Those who already do business with you should be one of your prime focus areas. Communicate with your customers and offer them special deals using social media where appropriate. Provide awesome customer service and quick responses to their questions so they can only brag about how wonderful you are. Happy and satisfied customers who understand the value you offer will not hesitate to refer new customers to you.

Word of Mouth / Referrals / Networking

Every small business should include word of mouth marketing activities as one of their focused areas because it will deliver results in the long run. With so much noise in the market, people don’t trust messages coming from your company directly. Notice how many sites encourage you to review your experiences and in fact, according to that same BrightLocal.com survey, 67% of local consumers have consulted online customer reviews of local businesses, influencing whether they contact your business.

The power of word-of-mouth marketing, both online and offline, is valuable for small businesses because it helps you develop your credibility and expert reputation. Through networking events and social media sites, you can establish a quality reputation by having your happy customers provide reviews and testimonials.

At this point, our online and social media strategies should go beyond the experimentation phase and become the foundation for our marketing action plan. You still need to stay aware of what’s new and test those that appear to be of value to your small business, but these tests should not replace any of your ongoing efforts until they have proven themselves.

Theses are my choices for this year’s marketing plan. Where are you focusing your marketing efforts this year?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Small Business Marketing – Where to Focus? is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Not Developing a Marketing Plan

Jumping right into activities without assessing your target market needs and desires and understanding how best to reach them sets you up for inefficient marketing with little to no results. By not establishing a solid plan before you being your communication results in ineffective programs that waste your budget.

Not Clearly Defining Your Target Market

Trying to be everything to everybody means you dilute your message and attract no one. People want to do business with someone who understands them and can help them achieve their goals. By specifically focusing on a niche market that you work with, you can clearly identify why they should do business with you and make selection of your services much easier for them to make.

Not Focusing Your Activities

The value of developing a plan is to set the direction of your marketing activities so you can focus your efforts. Once you decide on your strategy, you need to stay focused on executing that strategy. Constant change to compete with the latest fad does not breed success. Figure out what will work for your business and stick with it.

Sticking With An Ineffective Strategy

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Don’t get complacent and think that “things will get better” if you are not getting the results you want with your current activities. Review what is happening at least quarterly and adjust as needed.

Changing a Strategy That Works

On the other hand, if you have a winning marketing strategy that consistently gives results, then why change it? Enhance, extend and improve your plan to keep it fresh and effective, but don’t make radical changes to something that is working.

Delivering an Inconsistent Marketing Message

If each activity delivers your message differently, your prospects will get confused and your results will be poor. Being consistent with your message and brand across all of your marketing activities will increase your chances of being seen by your prospects.

Believing a Second Rate Web Site Works

With online and social media marketing being so critically important today for small businesses, it is important to make sure you don’t make too many common mistakes with your web presence. With your website being the hub of your online presence, having a poorly developed, non-optimized website is the kiss of death for your online efforts. As recently as the writing of this post, I spoke with someone who paid dearly for a horrible website and promises of first page search engine results. Perception is reality on the web and people are not going to do business with a company that does not have a quality Web site – period.

Stopping an Activity Too Soon

Easily the most costly mistake is changing your marketing messages or brand midstream. Just about the time you are sick of your marketing, your prospects are just beginning to recognize who you are. Marketing requires patience so give your marketing time to work.

Focusing Too Much On You Or Your Company

Your customers don’t care who you are or how great your company is. They only want to know how working with you is going to fulfill a need or desire. They need to see the value you offer and realize the potential benefits of working with you quickly. Keep the details about you and your company as background information and keep the focus of your messages on how you plan to help your customers.

Cutting Marketing when the Economy is Bad

Marketing keeps you visible when the market is slow and helps to generate leads, build credibility and ensure that your prospects know that you are alive and well. Cutting marketing is the biggest mistake small businesses make in tough economic times. Reducing spending and ensuring your marketing dollar is spent wisely is important – there are many things you can do at a low cost or free – but stopping marketing completely can be deadly.

Be aware of your marketing at all times so you can avoid falling into these traps. Your business will be more successful if you do.

What marketing mistakes do you see small businesses make regularly that I left off the list? Let us know.

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

10 Marketing Blunders Many Small Businesses Still Make! is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Although I agree that these are important, I have identified 5 more dimensions, or personality traits, that contribute to their success.

Creativity

Successful small business owners are always thinking about what  marketing activities will keep them visible to their target market. Savvy business owners evaluate many opportunities to see if they can help their marketing efforts.

Patience

Marketing takes time for it to deliver results and those who are successful realize that marketing is about building relationships with prospects over time in order to turn them into long term customers. They accomplish their goals by investing in a marketing plan that guides and sets the parameters for success.

Consistency

Once they put the marketing plan into action, they stay true to their plan. They are consistent with their messages, their activities and their actions, ensuring that they project a consistent image to the market.

Commitment

Even in difficult times, successful small business owners continue to market their businesses and don’t stop marketing just because the economy is negative. They know that staying visible is crucial when times are tough and that when the economy turns around, they will be that much further ahead of their competition.

Thirst for Knowledge

Not only are these business owners experts in their discipline, they are life-long learners who develop their marketing skills throughout their entire career. Those who shy away from learning how to market their businesses find themselves at a disadvantage when they experience a downturn in the economy. Once that happens, it is very difficult to pull yourself out of it.

What other traits are important to be a successful small business owner?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

5 Personality Traits of Successful Small Business Owners is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

However, few small businesses really understand what a brand is and why it is important to their overall marketing strategy.

Brand is the perception the world has of you and communicates your personality and influences your prospects’ opinion of who you are and whether they want to do business with you. A brand:

• Is everything you are, the value you deliver and the total client experience. Every image you project needs to consistently reflect the personality of your business.
• Reflects your business’s promise, message and values. Your identity should be consistent with, and reinforce, your purpose and your core message to your customers.
• Conveys the expectations and promises that you extend to your clients in terms of quality, service, reliability and trustworthiness, shaping their perception of you and your business.
• Helps the audience differentiate you from your competitors, positively influencing their decision to hire you.

A good brand communicates clearly, artistically and creates credibility. It enables you to provide customers with an image that can evoke feelings about your business, having a powerful impact on whether someone wants to do business with you.

• When someone looks at your business card, website or marketing piece, what does your image project?
• Does this image reflect your business’s personality and values?
• Is your brand consistent in every aspect of your company – from your materials, to your attitudes, to the way you answer the phone, to the way you conduct yourself in public?

How do you determine your brand?

If you have never thought about your brand and just let it happen, it would be beneficial to take some time to determine what your brand projects and whether it is consistent with your values. Ask customers the first words or images that come to their mind when your business is mentioned. If they consistently respond with adjectives that fit your business such as reliable, committed to excellence, or delivers quality on time and within budget, then your brand has been developed and you can now take it to the next level. When responses are inconsistent, ambiguous, or refer to attributes such as cost, it is an indicator of a weak brand image.

If you have a weak brand, determine what it should be and focus on marketing efforts that help build awareness around your brand. Remember that your brand is developed through an entire customer experience and needs to be reinforced consistently through your Web site, sales tools, promotional items, customer service, messages and other aspects of doing business with you.

Evolving your brand

If you have developed a good brand, it should continue to evolve with your business. As your business matures, so should your brand. Evolving your brand does not mean changing your brand but rather refreshing, updating, or clarifying the image you use and the emotion it projects. If you have had the same logo for several years, talk with a designer to see if you can update its look without changing the overall image it projects. If you don’t have a logo, consider having one developed. But if your brand is weak, a little evolution is needed before you embark on a new marketing campaign.

One last tip: Brands take time to develop so avoid totally re-branding your business unless you truly believe you need to (for example, if your brand has been associated with a negative feeling or event).

How well does your brand project your business?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Do Small Businesses Need a Brand? is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

• Business owner: I want to add viral marketing / social media / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn (pick your favorite platform) to my marketing efforts.
• Me: Of course, great idea but first who are your ideal customers as that will determine which platform may make the most sense?
• Business owner: I just want to add social media to the marketing activities.
• Me: Great, but what are you trying to accomplish so we can determine the type of results you will get?
• Business owner: I’ve heard that social media marketing gets great results for very little money!
• Me: Yes, it can, however, although it may not cost dollars, you do need to budget time to ensure you are consistent with your social media effort.

For the most part, the conversation is usually engaging and the business owner and I discuss the various options. Based on the type of business and the target market, we can determine whether social media is an appropriate strategy now, later or never.

Having this same conversation with different small business owners got me thinking about how many small businesses get distracted by the hype around the next shiny new marketing thing because they were told they should, when in fact they need to understand the marketing fundamentals for their business, determine their strategy, stay on course and measure their results. Look to add new activities when you have the time and resources to do so.

As a small business owner, make sure you know the following 5 things about your business so you can determine the most effective marketing activities.

1. Know what you are trying to accomplish in your business – In other words, set goals. Aiming at a clear target will help you make decisions about what to do, when and where in your marketing efforts and keep moving towards the final outcome you have set.
2. Know your ideal client intimately – Not only do you need to know what they want, you also need to understand how they purchase your product or services. If they would not think of searching the Internet for the solution you provide, then incorporating social media may not be the right marketing activity for your business.
3. Know what makes you different – Understanding what you do best and exploiting it will help you stand out and be noticed, no matter which channel you use to do so.
4. Know what value you offer – Your target audience will have different issues, goals and needs and will be looking for a solution that works for them. If you can’t clearly explain why someone should utilize your solution, it doesn’t matter which media you use. No one will listen.
5. Know how much time and money you have to realistically spend on marketing - There’s plenty of options available. We just need to be selective and spend our precious resources on what will get us the best return on our investment. Once you have decided on the best activities for your business, be disciplined about how you spend your time and money on marketing activities. It’s easy to get enticed by empty promises and activities that don’t pay off for you.

Before you jump onto the next new social media “thing”, be sure you know these 5 pieces of information about your business and are comfortable with the answers. Then you can put a plan together that utilizes all of the marketing channels that are available today in the most effective manner.

How well do you know the answers to these for your business?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

5 Things You Need to Know to Market Your Small Business is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

On August  5^th, we are holding our annual Rally for the Cure Charity Golf Tournament. We instituted a member-only raffle to raise money. I had no trouble working the Player’s Lounge this weekend to sell tickets because I am passionate about this cause. I didn’t feel like I was selling something but rather offering people a chance to get something valuable and help our cause. People readily took out their wallets to buy their raffle ticket.

What made this an easy sell?

• We were giving them something of value (a $20 raffle ticket could win their annual dues)
• We could relate to everyone because many of us have experienced the effects of this disease either themselves, through a friend or a family member
• We were passionate about this effort and want to beat our donation from 2009.

Tips to Make it Easy to Promote and Sell Your Services

I started thinking about how this relates to selling your products and services. Selling is sometimes very hard for most small business owners because sales is something we’re not good at or feel comfortable doing. When I’m talking with a prospect, I don’t sell – I market. What’s the difference? By having a marketing mindset, my conversations focus on helping the other person rather than closing the deal.

In order to make this necessary function easier for you, remember these tips:

• Create a valuable package with benefits that are hard to resist – talk about how you can help them either solve a problem they have, improve something that is not working or move them toward a desired outcome that seems unreachable.
• Build a solid relationship with your ideal target market – people are more likely to develop a business relationship with you if they know, like and trust you. Take time to get to know your prospects. Provide them valuable information with no strings attached. If you have a relationship and they need what you offer, you are more likely to make that sale.
• Talk about how they will benefit from your products and services – remember people only care about “WII-FM” – what’s in it for me. Avoid talking about how you conduct your services and rather, focus on how these services will help your prospect achieve a desired outcome.
• Project your passion for what you do – if you don’t love what you are doing, it is very hard to promote it to others as your audience will know you aren’t being honest with them. Build a business around your values and passions and it no longer feels like work. Then when you speak about what you do, you do so in a way that is not selling but rather educating, advising and helping those you meet. Working with you becomes a natural.

If you don’t believe in what you do, what you offer and how you can help others, you will never be able to sustain the time and effort it takes to build a successful business. But follow your passion, develop an expert reputation and educate your audience on how what you do can help them be more successful, and you will never have to sell your services again.

How passionate are you about what your business offers?

For those who want to read about Nancy Brinker, the woman behind the Susan G. Komen Foundation, there was a super article in More Magazine’s May 2010 issue.

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Passion Simplifies the Sales Process is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

What encouraged me to write this post was something that happened at a business golf outing I recently attended. All the people at this function were either small business owners or people who worked for small businesses. The group of men playing behind us became loud, rude and somewhat obnoxious. Their behavior was not something that encouraged me to want to get to know them and their businesses. My reaction was:

“What is your business? I don’t think I want to do business with you.”

Reminders for small business owners attending social events

Remember that you are marketing your business 24×7. Regardless of where you are you should be “networking” with people you meet.

• Everything you do makes an impression. Just because you are at a casual social event does not mean you can behave badly.
• Limit your alcohol intake. I know I probably don’t need to say this but over indulging in alcohol rarely has a positive effect on your business.
• Socialize with your colleagues. Notice I said socialize rather than network. At a fun outing, you are relaxing and getting to know people socially.

The above reminders work for both physical events and online social networking. Remember to socialize with your colleagues on Facebook and Twitter when possible to show a personal side that helps complete the entire picture of you. People want to do business with people. Give people a reason to get to know, like and trust you.

When we started our businesses, most of us probably didn’t realize that when we are out and about, we are always sending a message and creating an image for our company. Unlike being a public official or celebrity, we may not always be recognized, but bad behavior is memorable. People will remember the person who treated them badly or behaved unprofessionally. Don’t give people a reason to not do business with you.

What are your tips for small business owners at social events?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Marketing – Always On 24×7 is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

As a small business owner, if you were to focus on only three marketing activities over the next six months, what would they be?

That made me stop and think for a bit. Putting the gears in motion and applying the power of threes, I realized that this question and its answer would help other small business owners focus on what is important for them to be found. My recommendation for three marketing activities include:

#1 Building a first-class Web presence to develop your expert reputation

Today’s small business needs to have a solid presence on the Internet to help build your expert reputation. Building a first-class presence includes:

• Building a website and blog on WordPress
• Creating compelling profiles on Google, Facebook and LinkedIn
• Establishing local business listings on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Best of the Web
• Launching a Facebook Business Page
• Setting up a Twitter account with a custom, branded background
• Syndicating your content out to relevant sites

In order for this to all work, all the gears need to be moving in unison in order for all the pieces to create one unified image.

Without a quality web presence, you run the risk of people finding you and quickly eliminating you from their list of potential suppliers. Fair or not, people do judge a book by its cover. When your business success depends on building your expert reputation and proving to your target market that you are the best person for them to work with, you can’t take a chance on mediocre Website, blog, Facebook Page, social media profiles, content and the brand identity it projects. Make this activity a priority.

#2 Incorporating search engine marketing activities

Now that you have your first-class presence established, you need to be sure people who are searching for what you offer are directed your way. Understanding how your target market searches for your products or services, what keywords they use and how to make your website rank higher in the search engines can be the difference between finding your ideal client or having your ideal client find you! These activities include:

• Researching your best keywords
• Optimizing your website
• Writing content that utilizes your keywords and helps with optimization
• Creating a linking strategy
• Using pay-per-click to boost your visibility for specific keywords

For most businesses, keyword research and organic search engine optimization of your site and content will be the most effective part of this marketing activity. However, some local consumer businesses do very well with a budgeted and managed pay-per-click campaign to get more people who are ready to buy to your website.

#3 Identifying your top referral sources and meet as many as you can, both off-line and on-line

Meeting, nurturing and building solid relationships with people who are your best referral sources is a marketing activity that is always top of the list for small business owners. The best clients usually come as a referral and when they are a qualified referral, the work you need to do to turn them into a client is minimal. If you succeed in creating that quality Website with a blog that demonstrates your expertise, referral sources can introduce you to their connections through your Web presence first. If the connection likes what they see, your referral source can then make the introduction.

These activities include:

• Online networking using LinkedIn and Facebook to establish meaningful connections and develop beneficial relationships.
• Joining groups on social networks that are locally focused and network both online and off-line
• Attending one live networking meeting a month
• Joining a referral organization

Developing a solid network of local connections generates more opportunities for your business by developing new, beneficial relationships with people in your geographic location. Depending on your business, you may also benefit from connecting more broadly, but start with your local networks and get out and get noticed.

What are your three picks?

Spending time implementing these marketing activities will create better visibility, establish your expert reputation and introduce you to people who can benefit from what you have to offer.

What would be your three activities of choice for your business?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Power of Three in Marketing is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.