Measure Marketing ROI: A Practical Guide for Small Businesses For small business owners and marketing leaders, proving the value of marketing is often one of the toughest challenges. You know marketing matters, but when budgets are tight and teams are lean, how do you measure ROI without hiring a full analytics department? There’s good news. You don’t need a big team or expensive tools to track and optimize your marketing performance. With the right approach, you can demonstrate ROI clearly and make smarter decisions that grow your business. Why ROI Matters More than Ever Marketing budgets are under scrutiny… Continue Reading Measuring Marketing ROI without Big Teams

AI-Powered Marketing for B2B Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how SMBs engage and sell. How can you use this smart technology to deepen business relationships, personalize outreach and drive scalable growth? AI is a practical, powerful tool that SMBs can use to elevate customer engagement and boost sales. For B2B-focused organizations, where relationships and relevance are critical, AI offers a way to scale personalization, streamline operations and uncover new opportunities with both existing clients and prospects. With a bit of human guidance, AI can take your original content and quite quickly create marketing content that’s tailored to different audiences,… Continue Reading AI-Powered Marketing Moves: From Leads to Loyalty

Use Video to Drive Sales In today’s digital-first landscape, video isn’t just a marketing trend. It’s a necessity. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), video offers a powerful, cost-effective way to showcase products, build trust and drive conversions. Whether you're selling software, consulting services or handcrafted goods, video can help you cut through the noise and connect with your audience in a way that static content simply can't. Let's explore how organizations like yours can use video to drive sales. Why Video Works for SMBs Video marketing delivers unmatched ROI. Studies show that viewers retain 95 percent of a… Continue Reading How SMBs Can Use Video to Drive Sales

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, few tools have had the staying power of the humble hashtag. Once a novelty of early Twitter culture, hashtags have become a ubiquitous feature across social media platforms and even email marketing. But in 2025, with algorithmic feeds, AI-driven content discovery, and shifting user behaviors, many marketers are asking: Are hashtags still important? The short answer is yes—but with caveats. These tags remain a powerful tool when used strategically. For small and medium businesses (SMBs), hashtags can amplify reach, foster community and guide prospects through the sales funnel. However, the way we… Continue Reading Are Hashtags Still Relevant?

I recently read an article about the importance of brands being true to their values and staying aligned with their customer base. At first glance, that’s so obvious, yet businesses repeatedly go off the rails and their brand and profits take a hit. Let’s examine an example of a well-known business that ran a campaign misaligned with its brand values and ways that small businesses can learn from historical flops and instead promote themselves in keeping with their values. The Bud Light Debacle You may remember the Bud Light advertising debacle from April 2023. Bud Light aimed to course… Continue Reading Why Your Marketing Should Directly Reflect Your Brand Values

With summer vacations wrapping up and students returning to school, professionals should take this opportunity to refocus marketing efforts to engage customers. Think of it as another time to re-establish New Year’s resolutions for business. After all, we’ve got about 4.5 months until the end of the year. For retailers, the next few months are more critical as we approach Black Friday sales and holiday shopping. Other businesses can strengthen marketing execution for a strong finish to the year and, depending on your lead time and sales cycles, generate solid leads for 2025. Let’s discuss some key activities to… Continue Reading Reinvigorate Your Marketing to Close Out the Year Strong

COVID-19 has left its mark on likely every business nationwide. Still, restaurants and retail establishments have especially struggled to comply with the government-issued regulations, practice safety measures and keep their businesses profitable. Houston Community College (HCC) recently invited me to deliver a virtual presentation on "Marketing Best Practices to Drive Foot Traffic to Your Business" with a special focus on restaurants and retail businesses.  While this post isn't an exact replica of that presentation, it's a good recap and offers loads of marketing tips for businesses that are dependent on walk-in buyers. 1). First, double down on your marketing during… Continue Reading Marketing Best Practices to Drive Foot Traffic to Your Business

Four months into the COVID-19 pandemic and business owners nationwide are searching for ways to market  your business in creative ways that will produce more sales. It’s time to think differently… to no longer stand back hesitantly. It’s time to be bold with your marketing. So, let’s get started. 1). Break it down. Since so much is changing & changing quickly, you don’t want to use your 2020 marketing plan that was assembled before COVID-19 hit the United States. You also don’t want to plan now for the rest of the year because we expect – even hope -- the… Continue Reading 5 Ways to Market Your Business While Showing Empathy

With so many people distracted with new work and life scenarios due to COVID-19, we're finding marketers need to work smarter (& likely harder too) to engage with prospective buyers. I delivered a presentation recently to the Greater Heights Area Chamber of Commerce on "Marketing during the COVID-19 Pandemic", which in many ways translates to "Where can your marketing have the biggest impact with limited time and budget?" Here are the 7 steps that I shared with the Heights Chamber, plus a number of others. I hope you'll add your own feedback to #commentform, so I can see which marketing… Continue Reading Marketing Smarter during COVID-19 Pandemic