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A sales funnel is a way of drawing your perfect customer into your marketing funnel - drawing them gently down the path of knowing, liking and trusting what you have to say. A good sales funnel is designed to take people from being a cold prospect that has never heard from you before and gently nurtures them down the path to eventually doing business with you.  While the sales funnel works really well for online and Internet-based businesses, they can also work really well for brick-and-mortar businesses as well.  The science and art behind sales funnels is much more than a simple flow of getting them on your email list, sending three emails, then they buy. Jeremy works us through a few of the sample funnels that he has used in the past, and gives us some really actionable tips on how to start working our own sales funnels today. 

Mitch Dowell, Founder & Creative Director of Branding Experiences, discusses the psychology behind visual branding and why consumers are subliminally drawn to certain types of marketing and branding. Most importantly, Mitch discusses how smaller and start-up businesses can leverage this to their advantage - regardless of their specific business sector or target audience - by adopting an "underdog" mindset and creating our own unique advantage.

John Lee Dumas is the Founder and Host of EntrepreneurOnFire, a Podcast interviewing today's most inspiring and successful Entrepreneurs 7-days a week. EntrepreneurOnFire was awarded 'Best of iTunes 2013 and generates over $250,000 a month in revenue. John and Kate have co-founded 3 amazing communities: Podcasters' Paradise, Webinar On Fire, and Fire Nation Elite. With more than 1,000,000 unique downloads a month, EntrepreneurOnFire has inspired Fire Nation to take control of their life and make the Entrepreneurial leap. As John alway asks, "Are you prepared to IGNITE?"

In this world of video, social media, SMS, SnapChat and all the new tools that marketers have to gain the attention of their target market, one thing remains the same. People will find your business through the written word. This is simply the way that Google works. Google only indexes the written word.  How can you leverage that knowledge to grow your business?  We've all heard about content marketing by now. Chances are if you're not doing content marketing, your competitors are. Blogging. White papers. Ebooks. Videos. Podcasts like this one. These are all examples of "content" that you can create for your business and use to grow brand awareness, recognition and top of mind preference.  The only question is - what will you do with this knowledge?  SPECIAL REQUEST: Do you like what we're doing here on Sales & Marketing Nation? Do you find value in what our guests are presenting? Do you have an idea for a topic, or wish we would do things a little differently?  I want to know! Please reach out to me at Christian [at] salesandmarketingnation.com or call our Listener Feedback Line at (585) 502-8730 and leave me a message!  In the meantime, if you could leave us a rating and review in iTunes - or wherever you're consuming this podcast - I would so appreciate it! 

This weeks episode includes small business marketing advice from an unlikely source: the bail bonds industry. Talk about a tough product to market! On the one hand, there are the customers that know about the product - but have negative feelings associated with it. On the other hand, an entire universe of prospects that simply don't care about the product, because they don't think they will ever need it.  Eric tells us how he built a national brand for the industry - something most marketers only dream of doing - and how he started by building an online "home" and then took to social media to draw his audience in. And draw them in, he has! Today, the AIA website generates more than 65,000 unique visits and the Facebook page has more than 20,000 fans. All this for an industry that less than 1% of the American population will ever have a need for. We can learn a lot from the processes that Eric and his team have followed, so make sure you listen to the episode! While you're listening, remember to subscribe in iTunes. While you're there - won't you leave a rating and review for the show? Every piece of feedback is really appreciated!

Kurt Brownell has been hailed as part magician, part lion-lamer and part tech geek. As a commercial photographer, Kurt has worked with brands like Wegmans, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, the Rochester Public Market and Graham Corporation.  Kurt takes abstract concepts and crafts truly moving images that support your brand story. And, he does it on demand.  We live in a visual world, and while pictures may have once been worth 1,000 words, we're quickly approaching a world where pictures are worth far more than that. As a small business, you can't afford to ignore your brand's visuals. 

Jill Lublin has more than 25 years experience in using public relations strategies to grow businesses of all sizes. Jill has worked with ABC, NBC, CBS, and other national and international media as a highly regarded publicity expert. She has been featured in The New York Times, Women’s Day, Fortune Small Business, Entrepreneur, and Inc. magazines. Jill is the author of three bestselling books, including: Get Noticed…Get Referrals(McGraw-Hill), Networking Magic (Morgan James), and Guerilla Publicity (Adams Media), which is regarded as the “PR Bible”. With three national bestselling books, Jill is acknowledged as the go-to person for building success through influence marketing, networking, and publicity.  Today, Jill shares with Sales & Marketing Nation specific advice for managing PR for a small business. If you're a marketing department of one, you can't afford to miss this episode of Sales & Marketing Nation. 

Yelp! is an online community dedicated to helping people find great local businesses. More than just another social media platform, Yelp is a community review site that sources the reviews from people who have actually bought from the local business. Yelp does NOT allow businesses to pay for good reviews or to change the order of their reviews. Yelp is incredibly useful as a marketing tool for small businesses. Yelp is effectively word of mouth, amplified. Using word of mouth recommendations from feet on the street, consumers can feel confident that they're getting accurate, fair reviews for local businesses - wherever and whenever they happen to be searching!  Breanna takes some time to give us some great advice for how to leverage Yelp to grow a local business and how business owners can use all the resources that Yelp has to offer! 

Who is your ideal customer?  Here's a few hints: It's not "everyone" It's not "anyone looking for..." It's not "anyone that can pay me" Your ideal customer can be found at the intersection of: The things you do really well The things you love to do The things you get paid well to do If your customers aren't in that sphere - there's still hope! Brad Farris shares with us his process for locating the perfect client for your small business in this episode of Sales & Marketing Nation.

Simply put, social media listening is using social media to help identify ways to get your product or brand into the conversation.  Using this technique, Andrew and the team at Dixon Schwabl were one able to prevent a disasterous "streaking" event at the PGA Championship. He shares with us how he and the team went about finding and stopping the event - even though he feels a bit like a "tattle-tale."  In our conversation, Andrew and I talk about the differences between digital and social media and how both can be a part of the marketing mix for your business. We talk about the ways in which small businesses - even those with limited or no budget - can use digital and social media to help drive awareness and to insert the company, brand or product into the conversation that's happening right now. 

What do juvenile shoes, Bissel floor sweepers, chocolate milk and Pabst Blue Ribbon all have in common? You guessed it, Word of Mouth Marketing. More than 7,000 years old, word of mouth marketing has worked for many businesses to take small, relatively unknown brands and turned them into household names.  Ted Wright and his team at Fizz know word of mouth marketing. They're the team that engineered the word of mouth campaign for Pabst Blue Ribbon, taking an all-but-dead brand and putting it back into the mix. Now, PBR is a well known brand that has even been featured in songs by the popular Zac Brown Band.  Ted has recently written a new book, Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth and we talk about the book and the secrets of word of mouth marketing. More than that, Ted, gives small business owners clear, actionable instructions for identifying and building a word of mouth marketing engine to grow their brand and ultimately sales revenues.

You've got a choice to make. Are you going to do the things that you were created to do, or are you going to hide the things that make you special and unique?  Marnie Swedberg believes that there is so much that we can do in our lives, but we often allow ourselves to get sidetracked and we miss out - and the world misses out on our unique gifts, talents and perspectives. Marnie's advice is to get writing and start giving the world the knowledge that we have all wrapped up in our head.  Marnie is the author of eBooks: Idea to Amazon in 14 Days, and she talks to us about how to write an ebook, why to use an ebook to grow your business and how to get your ebook onto Amazon. 

Dr. Rachna Jain has been working online since 1998 - the Wild, Wild West days of the Internet! In her work as a content and search engine marketer, she has worked with some of the most well-known authors, speakers and consultants in the world. These are people whose influence extends globally, and whose communities number in the millions.  A psychologist by training, Dr. Jain uses her understanding of the human condition and how we grow relationships to help her clients better position their products and services and to listen to the subtle things our customers say to create better products and services that solve a problem in their lives. Author of the book, Internet Marketing for the Rest of Us: Your In-Depth Guide to Profitable Popularity, Dr. Jain has built three distinct online six-figure service businesses.  

In this episode of Sales and Marketing Nation, I catch up with Erika Taylor Montgomery, Founder and CEO of Three Girls Media. Trust me - you're not going to guess where that name came from! In our chat, Erika and I talk about the importance of public relations and social media for the small business, when it's appropriate to use public relations and press releases and when it's best to use social media. We also talked about the importance of being consistent with both your PR and your social media efforts.

In this episode of Sales and Marketing Nation, I'm speaking with co-owners of Eat Me Ice Cream, Caitlyn Augustine and Amber Odhner. Eat Me Ice Cream is a Rochester original, blending art, culture and fresh, seasonal foods together - with delicious results. I wanted to speak with Caitlyn and Amber, because they're two very motivated and ambitious business owners that have seen incredible successes in just a short time. I figured that Sales & Marketing Nation would want to get some actionable advice from two obviously driven entrepreneurs.   Sales & Marketing Nation provides you direct, relevant and actionable advice that you – the small business marketer – can use to "Wow!" your customers and your C-suite. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur (solopreneur), the founder of a company, or a one-person marketing show – Sales & Marketing Nation is the resource to keep you up to date on the marketing news, tactics and strategies that you can put to work in your business – today! Visit www.salesandmarketingnation.com for additional resources and more information.

In this episode of Sales and Marketing Nation, I chat with Internet Marketing Optimization expert, Todd Meisler, CEO of ZD Design in San Diego, California. In addition to his work helping small business clients with Internet marketing, website development, SEO, and Social Media Marketing, Todd is the founder and speaker of the SEM San Diego, which cultivates the local community by bringing businesses together with SEO, SEM, SMO, and Web professionals with local business owners. In this episode, Todd gives us great tips on getting closer to your customer, the value of understanding and using social media in the right ways, and when the small business should be looking to hire a professional marketer to help them.   Sales & Marketing Nation provides you direct, relevant and actionable advice that you – the small business marketer – can use to "Wow!" your customers and your C-suite. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur (solopreneur), the founder of a company, or a one-person marketing show – Sales & Marketing Nation is the resource to keep you up to date on the marketing news, tactics and strategies that you can put to work in your business – today! Visit www.salesandmarketingnation.com for additional resources and more information.

In this episode of Sales and Marketing Nation, I talk with my good friend, Tanya Babcock about digital marketing for the small business and the importance of blogging for small business marketers. In this episode, you'll learn how Tanya connects with her customers to learn more about them and creates engaging content that resonates with those that are likely to buy from you!   Sales & Marketing Nation provides you direct, relevant and actionable advice that you – the small business marketer – can use to "Wow!" your customers and your C-suite. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur (solopreneur), the founder of a company, or a one-person marketing show – Sales & Marketing Nation is the resource to keep you up to date on the marketing news, tactics and strategies that you can put to work in your business – today! Visit www.salesandmarketingnation.com for additional resources and more information.

In each episode of Sales and Marketing Nation, host Christian Costa talks with an experts about topics affecting small businesses today – whether it’s a product launch, how to use social media, marketing automation or content marketing, anything that can affect your small business is covered.  Sales & Marketing Nation provides you direct, relevant and actionable advice that you – the small business marketer – can use to "Wow!" your customers and your C-suite. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur (solopreneur), the founder of a company, or a one-person marketing show – Sales & Marketing Nation is the resource to keep you up to date on the marketing news, tactics and strategies that you can put to work in your business – today! Visit www.salesandmarketingnation.com for additional resources and more information.