Great post this morning from Email Insider on small business marketing with email . In it, blogger David Baker reviews just how simple and easy email marketing can be for the small business, with a few “how to” reminders.

It warms my heart to see this post, and I hope it’s read by loads of small business owners, because really, email can be such a cost-effective way to market. But, as with so many marketing tools, email is easy to do wrong.

I’ll add a couple of tips to what David suggested:

Have a plan—I see small business owners (heck, bigger businesses too!) start out with email marketing and then flounder because they didn’t have a plan. How often will we email? What is the point of our email? How will we track our results and know whether or not it’s working? (How often as a consumer have you signed up with your email address at the cash register of a small business—then never heard from them? No plan.)

Think like an editor—As part of your plan, create an editorial calendar. He mentions tying in to local events. Great idea! Know what events are coming up, know what your seasons are and what you might want to promote.

Have a theme—I use theme for lack of a better word, but I hope it resonates with you. I mean, knowing what your email marketing is supposed to be and be doing. Is it informal with tips for doing something better? Is it more of an event calendar? Is it written with humor, from the standpoint of the business owner’s dog perhaps? Whatever it is, determine the theme from the start, then be consistent.

Speaking of consistent—Be consistent with length, types of content, frequency…you want to train your recipients to know what to expect and, we hope, look forward to your email.

OK, that’s enough of an add-on to the original post. But hope it gets you thinking about email marketing if you’re not doing it already, or reviewing your email marketing if you are!

I really do love small businesses and small business owners, but they can make me crazy…

My best example right now is the small business owner who is pissed at me because they put up their new Web site and aren’t getting any hits. This is apparently my fault because my copywriting agency did the writing for the Web site. Never mind that their Web developer neglected to use the title tags and other meta tags we’d written. Never mind that it’s poorly coded and designed. Never mind that they chose not to do all of the pages we’d suggested for more content. Never mind that it only went up three weeks ago. Never mind that no sites link to it yet. Never mind that they have no content management strategy for updating the site. Never mind that I had explained all of this to him months ago when we first started on the project.

Just because someone is running and marketing a small business doesn’t excuse them from educating themselves about marketing. I’m not saying they should be an expert. (I joke that I don’t want to know about taxes, that’s why I have an accountant. But I still know what taxes get paid and when, I just don’t have to know the nitty gritty.) But they should know something.

Not all are like the client described above. I’ve worked with plenty of small business owners who took the initiative and learned enough to have a dialog about their marketing, whether it’s an email newsletter, web marketing, blogging or direct mail.

And thank goodness for those clients! Copywriters and marketers can’t do their jobs with clients who don’t know anything and aren’t willing to learn is the lesson I’m learning this week. Sadly, it’s usually the small business that falls into that category.

And for any small business owners who now feel compelled to know it bit more about web marketing and SEO based on this gripe, start here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769.

I’m a big fan of small businesses. After all, I’m one! But I also prefer spending my money with a small business over a big one. I’d rather walk into the Kona Kai coffee shop in downtown Kent and get a hug from Michael the owner than go to a Starbucks any day, no matter how cheerful the baristas. Same for Pat’s Bar and Grill, and the Peridot Nail Salon, and City Frame, and the Balanced Athlete, and all my other favorite small businesses in downtown Kent.

Yet as much as I adore them all, I see them all making the same mistake: not enough (or zero) marketing. They tell me they don’t have the time or money for marketing, but really, like with exercising, it’s about choosing how and where you’re going to spend that time and money.

For example, one business is currently adding all kinds of services in the hopes that they’ll bring in more people…but they’re not marketing their old services or their new ones. They collect email addresses, but don’t know what to do with them. They buy ads in the local paper, but don’t know if those ads are doing any good. They talk about putting up a Web site, but still don’t have one.

Adding all these services took an investment of time and money that could have been spent on email marketing and blogging instead, two extremely cost-effective ways for small businesses to market. (Especially when a blog can take the place of a Web site for some businesses.) But I guess their mindset is just that marketing is hard, so they’ll stick with what they do know (getting a liquor license, for example) than find out what they don’t.

How do we shift that small business mindset? Let me know what you think... leave a comment or email sharon@weknowwords.com.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on email marketing and Web 2.0 marketing for small businesses. By small, I mean a wide range from hyper small, like mom-and-pop shops, up to mid-size companies. The reason I’ve been (let’s use a more accurate word here) dwelling on the topic is two-fold:

First off, I see far too many small- to mid-size businesses doing a poor job at email marketing.

Second, I see far too many of these same businesses not taking advantage of Web 2.0 marketing.

In the first case, I blame the ease of email. Email marketing is easy to do, and therefore easy to do wrong. Despite all the talk about segmentation and relevance and one-to-one marketing, most of the calls I get as a copywriter and marketing consultant are from businesses doing batch and blast email. Or they’re not using email at all. Not sure yet which is worse…

Regarding Web 2.0, there’s one incredibly easy way for these businesses to take advantage of Web 2.0 marketing that has nothing to do with podcasting or Facebook or Twitter. And even though it’s easy to do, unlike email marketing, it’s easy to get it right.

I’m talking about blogging for small business. Blogging is one Web 2.0 marketing tool that business owners can put to work right now, today. Seriously, if you’re a small business owner reading this blog, you could be writing your own blog within the next 30 minutes depending on which platform you choose. Ditto for the marketer for the mid-size company reading this blog: your company should be jumping on the blogging bandwagon too.

That said, the whole idea of blogging for business stymies most clients I mention it to. OK, it stymies all of them, I admit it. That’s why I started making up a guide for getting going. It’s still pretty rough right now, although I’ve given it out to a few people, but if you’re thinking about blogging as a marketing tool and you’d like to see it, email me at sharon@weknowwords.com.

If you’re not thinking about blogging as a marketing tool, definitely email me at sharon@weknowwords.combecause we need to talk!

In February, Marina and I will give a presentation on using online press releases to promote your business on the Internet.

For too many marketers, especially small businesses struggling with Internet marketing, online press releases are a missed opportunity. That’s because too often the term “press release” makes marketers think of a boring piece of paper mailed to journalists who don’t really care.

Our goal with this talk is to get people familiar with the new world of online press releases and how to use them to market your business on the Internet, both by building credibility with an online press room, and using press releases for SEO (search engine optimization).

Of course not everyone can come to Kent, WA, to hear the talk. So check out the article Marina wrote for those who can’t make it. Titled “Market your business on the Internet with online press releases and a press room,” the article offers nine tips for building and benefiting from an online press room.

If you are one of the few marketing souls or small business owners who can make it to Kent on February 21, see details about our presentation “Using Press Releases to Promote Your Business on the Internet.”

Here at the Seattle headquarters of copywriting agency We Know Words, we’ve notice a pervasive problem in the marketing communications of our clients. It’s called…the testimonial.

Huh? Why is a testimonial a problem? Because people (i.e. your customers) hate writing them!

The best endorsement is a third-party endorsement, all copywriters and marcom people know that (or should). But it can also be the hardest to get. That’s because so many people freeze up when asked to write something, even something as simple as a testimonial. It’s so bad, we tell our copywriting clients to offer to write the testimonials themselves (or have us do it) and then just have their customer approve them.

In reality, though, it shouldn’t take but a minute. But people over think it, they try too hard, put too much pressure on themselves, don’t know what to say…OK, I’m guessing here, I don’t actually know what the problem is, but then writing is kinda easy for me.

But I offer up a shining example of how fast and easy and real a testimonial can be…

Here I am raving about 37 Signals being real in communicating to their clientele while suffering downtime, and that same day I get an unsolicited testimonial. And I just laughed because it was real! Yet it still works as a credible testimonial. It tells you about us, that this client is happy with our work, and even what it’s like to work with this crew of copywriters:

"The company I work for has been using Sharon Baerny and her crew for quite a while. I first laid eyes on her as a speaker at one of our Sales and Marketing Roundtables. Man, is she FUUNNNEEEE!!!! But she has some great marketing tips! I signed up for her newsletter. Her style is breezy and concise. And I know she's a witch, because she spreads magic everywhere she goes! You can also tell by the long, red hair thrown over her shoulder! Anyhow, she and her marketing wizards do a GREAT job!"

Thanks, Sam, for making my day and for demonstrating that even a simple testimonial can be real.

Maybe with UGC and the ever-growing number of reviews available online testimonials will get easier to solicit in the B2B world? Or maybe we just call them reviews instead? Maybe a simple name change will generate a whole lot more of those third-party endorsements that work so hard to help us market?

I attended the Web Community Forum’s “Community Building in the Age of Facebook” seminar in Seattle today. Obviously we’re asking questions about how Facebook might work for marketing. but mostly it reminds me--as a marketer--that it’s our job not just to stay current with what’s happening, but to stay ahead of it.

On the other hand, it’s also a reminder that you have to choose the right method for delivering your marketing message. We must be customer-centric not just in what we say but also how we say it. Even if it’s true that “Facebook fundamentally changes the way we communicate” as one speaker claims, you have to qualify that “we.” My mom’s not on Facebook. My son is. So Facebook’s only relevant in certain markets…and that’s true of every marketing medium. Just because something’s hot doesn’t mean it’s right.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot on small businesses, partly because so many have been contacting me over the past month about copywriting…and deciding they don’t want to spend the money on a professional copywriter after all. :-)

And I get that, that’s why I spent 2 ½ years writing over 100 small business marketing tips! I have a soft spot in my heart for the small business. After all, I own one!

But I was thinking this morning that maybe small businesses have an advantage over big businesses, despite their lack of funds--or at least willingness to part with those funds—to invest in compelling copywriting. And then I read Seth Godin’s blog on conceal vs. reveal and that tied right into what I was already thinking.

So if the small business marketer has as smaller budget than the big business counterpart, why would the small business have an easier time marketing? Because the small business can afford to be honest, real, authentic, different even. As Seth says in “Purple Cow,” it’s being different that’s safe, and being the same that’s dangerous (paraphrased). Small businesses can be bolder, they can have a voice and personality and character difficult for a bigger company to pull off.

The challenge remains however: being willing to invest money in marketing from the start. The small business owner or marketer that will be noticed in the crowded marketplace is the one that makes sure they are making a great first impression with their marketing. And that comes from investing in an image and a message that are appropriate. We’re not talking a $100,000 outlay of cash here. A few thousand dollars would get a small business a great marketing startup package.

So, small business marketers, I think you might have the marketing advantage. Make sure you use it.

Yes, optimize everything you put on your Web site, then think of other types of writing for the Web that would be appropriate and optimize that too. Because online, content rules. And the more quality, useful, relevant content you have on your Web site, the more the search engines will like you.

Even if you think you’ve done all the search engine optimization (SEO) you can, I bet you can find at least one more place to put up keyword-rich content on that Web site.

Here’s an easy one: press releases. Write them, optimize them with keywords, post them on your Web site (as html, not pdfs!). And better yet, submit them so they get out into the broader world. We just submitted a press release to PRWeb for our small business marketing tips ebook. We optimized the press release for search engines as part of writing it, and now we’re posting it on our site too, to add to our own content. It didn’t take much longer to write an optimized version, honest.

Other content you can add to your Web site optimize for search: case studies, whitepapers, blogs (like this one)

Just don’t spam. Keywords to remember here are quality, useful and relevant. Be customer-centric. Yes, you’re putting up Web content to help you get found online. But once someone finds you, you want them to stick around. And that ain’t gonna happen if they click through and discover all you’ve done is stuffed a Web page with keywords, or just gone on and on about your company and what you’re selling.

From where I sit, as the owner of a copywriting agency dealing with clients on a daily basis, it seems a lot of companies write their own marketing materials for two reasons: to save money, and because they don’t realize the value in really great copy. But as I’ve been pondering this lately, I’ve been thinking maybe it’s an even bigger problem. Maybe it’s not just that they don’t recognize the damage they’re doing by using mediocre marketing. Maybe these marketers lack awareness, not knowledge.

I recently joined the advisory board for the University of Washington marketing certificate program. One of the board’s tasks this year is to help the university plan for a new program specifically for interactive marketing. We had our first meeting on the topic last week and were asked to brainstorm ideas around certain questions to help determine the outcome of the program. In addition to having a blast being in a room full of such incredibly bright and highly regarded marketers, I was intrigued to find out that—at my table at least—we pretty much agreed that it wasn’t that these people had to be taught how to run a pay-per-click campaign, how to use search engine optimization, how to run an A/B test, or any other particular skill, but they do need to learn what is possible. They must be made aware of all the possibilities in the world of online, interactive marketing first and foremost. And then we agreed that they need to recognize the value in outsourcing and to know how to work with vendors.

These certificate programs are for working professionals with marketing experience, not newbies. Still, all the seasoned experts in my group agreed that it’s more important to make these students aware than it is to give them specific skill sets. In the world of marketing, knowing what’s doable is much more important to an organization than being able to actually do it.

Even for small businesses that don’t have dedicated marketers on staff or the budget to outsource, it’s better to turn to resources like our small business marketing ebook than to guess or stay ignorant.

Some of the best marketing around doesn’t come with a big price tag-- just clever thinking. Or, in the case of one Whidbey Island karate school, clever footwork.

Every year my family and I used to snag a place at the curb, plastic flags in hand, to watch the Fourth of July parade in our former hometown of Oak Harbor, Wash. We saw plenty of corny floats, earnest politicians and military color guards in this Navy town. But we also got to see smart marketing in action. The local karate school trotted out with its students kicking, jumping and bowing. And periodically, they would hold out a thick piece of wood and one brave student would cleave it in two with a bare foot. Couldn’t beat that for attention getting public relations. But then they took that piece of showmanship, ahem, a step further.

Once the wood was broken, pieces were handed out to people along the parade route. Ok, that’s an even better marketing move. But the karate school had pre-stamped the wood with their name, address, phone number and the offer of one free karate lesson. What parent was going to say no to that?

It comes down to thinking outside the marketing box—or in the case of the karate school, breaking through that box with a targeted message that’s clever, fun and more effective than all the e-newsletters, advertising copy and public relations they could have paid for.

Which brings up another point. A lot of small businesses don’t have big marketing budgets. But they still need to find a way to grow sales. Turns out, those small business marketing tips can be found online in “Marketing in a Minute.” The recently released e-book by Sharon Baerny, owner and marketing guru of our very own We Know Words marketing agency, hits virtual bookshelves as we speak. This handy marketing book gives small- to medium-size business owners practical tools they need to create buzz for their business without expensive copywriting, advertising and other traditional forms of small business marketing.

Take a peek at www.marketinginaminute.com and see for yourself why sometimes the best marketing, simply means doing things smarter. Hey, if a karate school can kick start business by splitting wood, think what you can do with one of these 104 practical marketing tips!

Marketing your business, big or small, in this day and age requires more than great copywriting. (Yes, I did just say that.) You have to be more creative with getting the word out because your message has to cut through so much clutter. And there are so many possibilities for being clever and getting noticed! Even though it’s how most businesses market, there’s no excuse for being blah and boring, none at all. Other than laziness or an unwillingness to be different…

There’s a fabulous running store in my town. The owner is extremely knowledgeable, the shoes and running clothes first rate. And since opening his store, he has done a great job of connecting with the community by organizing a running group and taking office workers on walking lunches and volunteering at area running events. Still he could be busier and there is more he could do to get the word out.

I suggest he invest in t-shirts for his runners, t-shirts that have a great tagline, the URL and the phone number across the BACK. That way people who see this group running will know right away a) it is a group, and b) how to get involved. (Face it, the little logo that’s typically placed on the left front of a t-shirt won’t get noticed at all.) Better still, hand out the t-shirts to solo runners who are out there on the trail at the same time as your group. That’s an obvious target market! They are running and in the same place and at the same time as you. Market directly to them! Instead his thinking seems to be that they’ll notice the group running together and be curious and ask about it. But that takes effort on the prospect’s part. Don’t ask them to ask you, reach out to them.

Who’s not going to notice a free t-shirt? Who’s not going to think you’re pretty cool for handing out free stuff? Who’s not going to tell their running friends about it? And he gets the benefit of his name getting out there when the prospect wears the shirt, whether or not they ever buy from him. Compare the price of handing out such a t-shirt to an ideal prospect vs. the cost of an ad in the local newspaper that’s not targeted at all… I bet the shirt wins hands down.

This is not just a small business marketing philosophy. This applies to big business too. And like I said, it has nothing to do with copywriting. But everything to do with getting noticed and talked about.

That said, the same principle applies to your copywriting…it should stand out and be different too. But that’s a different topic for a different day.