What types of marketing are you currently doing for your business?  Are you consistant with your monthly marketing budget or only advertise during good months (sadly, a lot of companies do this)?  Do you use both online and offline channels to promote?  On his Duct Tape Marketing blog- John Jantsch started an interesting discussion that will hopefully cause Entrepreneurs and Managers to rethink their current marketing campaign:

With the rush to capitalize on the new media hype, don’t forget your older, wiser, more mature options.

Targeted direct mail, with a telephone follow-up and a useful, information rich, call to action is more effective now than ever.

The competition in the mailbox is pretty slim these days, so creating smart campaigns that take advantage of people’s lack of time and attention, but offer content, connection and perhaps, community is a very smart play today.

In the words of the Girl Scouts - make new friends, but keep the old - one is silver and the other gold.

If you’ve abandoned proven offline marketing strategies now is the time to consider coming back and taking full advantage of what integrating the two can do.

We too continue to be amazed (and honestly can’t help but chuckle and feel bad at the same time) at the number of businesses we see just drop the traditional types of marketing that worked well for them in the past for the ‘New Effective Marketing Techniques’ appearing online seemingly overnight. What we think most Entrepreneurs and Managers seem to forget is- when a new marketing opportunity comes up- you simply ADJUST the budget to include the new forms of marketing…you don’t drop everything to embrace the new opportunity!

You should always use ALL forms of media to market your product or service…online, direct mail, radio, TV, cable, billboards, etc. Find out which are the most effective for you and then you can simply shift the majority of your budget to those. This still allows for you to have some money available to keep testing the other marketing options.

Most Entrepreneurs and Managers wouldn’t put ALL of their 401k money or other retirement accounts into just one investment (at least we hope not)…so why do they continue to do it with their marketing budgets?

Marketing and Advertising is extremely important to any business.  Even blogs (just like this one) are a new form of marketing for a lot of companies.  In fact- here is our token RentBusinessAudiobooks.com promotional mention:

RentBusinessAudiobooks.com has several popular audiobooks about Marketing and Advertising.  One of the MOST POPULAR are the Guerrilla Marketing Series by Jay Conrad Levinson.  You can find his audiobooks and others in our Marketing & Advertising Category.

Hopefully these audiobooks can give your brain a jolt and help you come up with unique and interesting ideas to add to your marketing, advertising, branding and promotional arsenal.  Have FUN!

RBA Blogger
rbablog@rentbusinessaudiobooks.com

Emails are never ending! But how do you sort through your email?  When is it the right time to actually send an email?  Do you have multiple accounts…one for business, one for family & friends, one for your secret porn subscriptions?  Stephen Baker had an interesting post on BusinessWeek’s Blogspotting:

The question came up yesterday at a panel at The Digital Impact Conference here in NY. How do we sift through all the messages and emails? I admitted that press releases and emails continued to pour into a near-forgotten Gmail account that I set up while on book leave. And I don’t do much to divert the flow into a livelier account.

So the press releases pile up and grow stale. Here’s one from this morning, for example:
Today BT announced a $650 million, five-year deal with Proctor & Gamble to provide and manage a portfolio of services to support P&G’s information technology requirements.I wouldn’t have come across that news if I hadn’t checked the account for this post. (And I’m not planning to pursue it.) So, how many stories have I missed? How many interesting people have passed through New York, unmet? The answer is many.

This is the most primitive screening method. But I’m sticking with it. I don’t feel starved for ideas. And I’m willing to risk losing gems to keep from drowning in pitches. Can anyone recommend a better system?

Stephen brings up interesting points.  Is there really an efficient way to sift through the endless offers of penile enlargement pills, creams and procedures, international lottery winnings, lonely women who want to chat, etc.?  Some people waste over an hour each morning going through these messages.  Some lucky entrepreneurs and managers have assistants or interns do it for them.  If there is a better way- like Stephen- we haven’t found the right software, widget or service who can do it yet either!  Sometimes all we can do is scream!!!

For most of us- time is not something we have a lot of to dedicate to dealing with email nonsense.  But there are a few rules and tips we can use.  One Audiobook from RentBusinessAudiobooks.com which might be able to help all of us deal with the emails we receive and the ones we choose to send is Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.

Hopefully David and Will can bring some order to chaotic email inboxes.  Does anyone remember what we used to do before email?  We hope you have a productive Thursday.  Have FUN!!!!

RBA Blogger
rbablog@rentbusinessaudiobooks.com

When it comes to owning a home, buying a new car, purchasing a new Plasma TV, etc. everyone has their own opinion about what the best thing to do really is.  We came across this interesting post where the author came up with the idea of just getting rid of their home and living with friends, family or just anywhere they could to avoid having to work.

We started talking about the things we really need vs. the things we want.  If you ever have this conversation- BE PREPARED- it will never end!  It was agreed all of us WANT a Corvette (a new yellow Corvette please if anyone’s offering) or other sports car, the latest brand new Plasma TV, video game consoles, a huge house, a boat, etc. but very few of us actually NEED any of it.

You NEED a house or other dwelling to protect you from the elements…the size of this NEEDED residence would actually be fairly small if you just went with a place with a bathroom, kitchen and bedroom.  It’s because of all the other stuff you WANT (and ended up buying) that you have to keep buying bigger and bigger homes or apartments.  George Carlin has a great bit about this particular process!

 So we now know you NEED a place to stay, you need electricity (unless you are one of those outdoors people), you need running water, some clothes if you have to go out in public and you need food and water to keep you alive.  Simple basic NEEDS- that’s it!  So if those are your only NEEDS…then that means EVERYTHING ELSE IS A WANT…something you don’t have to have- you just have it because you want it.  The cell phone, the internet, the satellite or cable service, the new furniture, the new clothes, the kids dance lessons and everything else are just wants and desires. You could live without all of it!

You could go on and on with this discussion.  But as the news about ’stagflation’, ‘recession’ and other economic doom continues- keep all this in mind. 

Someone else who has pushed his listeners to new levels with this same type of thinking is Dave Ramsey.  With his radio program and audiobooks- he has a very loyal following.  If you haven’t checked Dave’s message out yet- we highly recommend you do- just to see wants and needs in a different perspective in his Total Money Makeover Audiobook:

The RentBusinessAudiobooks.com staff hope you meet your personal Financial Fitness goals soon!  Have FUN!

RBA Blogger
rbablog@rentbusinessaudiobooks.com

We were reading this interesting article by Tara Weiss on Forbes.com about ways to enjoy the summer when you’re stuck at work and had a few thoughts.

Her first suggestion is to ride a bike to work.  Really?  Sure- it’s good in theory…if you live a couple of blocks away from your office (she’s probably one of those ‘big city’ gals).  But there’s a reason most of us drive to get to work…and it’s not just because we’re lazy (although it may be true for some of us)…we don’t live close to our workplace. 

Even though US Census figures from 2004 show an average of 24.4 minutes of one-way commuting time in the United States- RentBusinessAudiobooks.com members state they spend an average of about 47 minutes in the car each way.  Some of our staff have more than an hour commute each way.  This is one of the reasons RentBusinessAudiobooks.com is so successful- our members drive a long way to get to work and the Business & Investing Audiobooks they rent from us help them learn and improve their skills while they pass the time (and it keeps them from yapping on the cell phone too).  For them- and us- it would take nearly three times as long to get to work if we rode a bike!  Do you really want to add MORE hours to your workday?  We doubt it!

We’re also pretty sure riding the bike to work is dependent on the area of the country in which you live.  In the north and on the coasts it’s probably okay…but here in Texas and other parts of the south- you’re likely to pass out from exhaustion before you get to work even during the so called “cool summer mornings and evenings”!  The high humidity, constant heat and cycling just don’t mix very well.

The other option she gives is to work really long and hard for four days of the week and ask for the fifth day off…essentially telecommuting for one day a week.  This is a great idea if you can talk your boss into it…without using your regular vacation days.  One of the Audiobooks available from RentBusinessAudiobooks.com can help you through this process of moving toward a ‘remote work agreement’ with your company- 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.

It’s a great Audiobook and Tim has some very unique ideas on how to change your life.  However you choose to enjoy your summer- we hope it’s a great one!  Be safe & have FUN!!!!

RBA Blogger
rbablog@rentbusinessaudiobooks.com