MarketingSherpa published a wonderful list of seven free (and one paid) search engine optimization tools, most of them user-friendly and valuable for the solo entrepreneur as well as small businesses! I love this list not just because it’s a great collection of tools, but because of the ideas they share for HOW to use the tools, too. For instance I’ve had SEOQuake for months and didn’t know you could use it to sort your search results!

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The Grand Poohbah Speaks:

I recently had the pleasure of experiencing a marketing epiphany while having my car washed.

Let me explain. On Saturday, I got a call from a friend saying that a local family had organized a car wash to help raise the last few thousand dollars they needed to qualify for a first-time buyer mortgage. She explained they were “this close” to achieving their dream of raising their kids in their own home (rather than apartments) and were asking the community for help.

They first had enlisted friends and co-workers to put out the word (referral marketing).

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“Keep your subscribe form as short and simple as possible.” I’ve seen this advice a score of times, in various ebooks and articles. Most websites I encounter follow this mainstream advice (as does Solo-E).

So I was a bit surprised when I signed up for the Get Entrepreneurial newsletter, and was confronted with a form that asked for my gender, industry, year of birth and country. That’s a lot of information! Curious, I wrote the website owner to ask about their strategy — and got a lesson in turning conventional wisdom on its head. Read the rest of this post »

I thought I’d share the results of a recent online marketing survey… No huge surprises, but plenty of confirmation that websites are increasingly vital to any solopreneur marketing efforts.  Also, not much of a shock that online video continues to grow.  Check it out!

Download survey_results.pdf

The adage says that it is five times more expensive to get a new client (or customer) as it is to keep an existing client. So is there a formula for improving your client retention?

Alas, no. The answer will be different not just for different professions, but for each of us as individuals. Why? Because assuming that the quality of your product or service is good, what keeps people coming back is the relationship. And the elements that make your relationship with your clients special is as different (and special) as you are!

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