Are you tired of using clip art in your business communication?

Would you like access to professional photographs and images for use in your marketing communications?

Interested in learning more about how to use graphics effectively in your communications, both online and offline?

Then this is the show for you. Our featured guests on this show are Bruce Livingstone, CEO & Founder of iStockphoto, along with Lesa Snider King, host of The Graphic Secrets for Business, they discuss creative imagery solutions that won’t break your budget.

Learn more about the details of this show or download the file for Making a Big Company Impression With a Small Company Budget

Listen Now:

 A Fortune 500 Impression [51:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (0) | Permalink

This week’s Podcast Review is about the Recognized Expert Marketing Show featuring Bob Sommers.

Description: Over 100 marketing shows with people who want to help you become an expert in your field?

Comments: With shows ranging in length from 20-40 minutes this podcast show covers an incredibly wide range of topics. The format is the host questioning an expert who shares practical information for your benefit. Some sample topics you will find are:

- The Role of Compliments in Your Business
- Writing Authentic Copy that Sells
- Building an On-Line Community
- Success from the Inside Out
- The Eight Denominations of Value

Sound quality is good and Bob does a very nice job pulling the maximum value from each guest for his listeners.

Pluses: The content is really the strong feature of this podcast but the website is well done, as well.

Each show has a home page small preview and a neat icon categorization scheme that helps you instantly tell what the topic area is.

I also like how he has made links to shows by date and by topic. That makes it very easy for me to rapidly scan a large number of shows to find the ones most relevant to me.

Minuses: I wish the notes about the content of each show were just a little bit longer and that the audio did not require a full download before it began to play.

Recommendation: Want to become an expert in your field? Then you should give a serious listen to some of this show’s great content at Recognized Expert Marketing Show

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (0) | Permalink

One of the keys today for providing first class customer support is putting more support capability into the users hands, providing what is called ‘Self-Service’ capability.

Enabling users in this manner allows them to resolve their problems more efficiently and allows your resources to focus on more critical customer and product support.

Our guest for this show is David Weiss, CEO of Numara Software, which provides a comprehensive line of service management software to small and medium size businesses.

This is an opportunity to learn more about the state of the art in web-based help desk and asset tracking software including the latest in knowledgebase technologies.

Learn more about the details of this show or download the file for Help Yourself: A Self-Service Strategy For Help Desks

Listen Now:

 Help Desk Tools [53:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (1) | Permalink

Ok you have a website, it is getting traffic and you think users are using the site the way you intended but you are not sure, you think improvements can be made but aren’t sure where to start?

What you need is a website analytic program, or in plain english, a tool to help you know more about your website traffic, your visitors and what they are doing while using your website.

One of the best analytics programs you might consider using is Google Analytics and it is FREE.

Our special guest in this episode is Jerri Ledford, Co-Author of the book Google Analytics, a how-to book for beginning users of the Google Analytics program.

Google Analytics is packed with easy to understand information, graphs and charts that will allow you to better tune your website to attract more traffic and convert more visitors to buyers.

Learn more about the details of this show or to download the file for Improve Web Sales with Google Analytics

Listen Now:

 Google Analytics [53:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (2) | Permalink

This week’s Podcast Review is about Marketing Voices from Podtech.net featuring Jennifer Jones.

Description: MarketingVoices™ provides weekly, fresh perspectives from innovative technology and marketing leaders examining how social media is changing the world of marketing.

Jennifer Jones is the creator and host of MarketingVoices™ and is a 25-year technology marketing veteran.

Comments: From social media tool providers to venture capitalists to practitioners and users of the social media for corporate purposes this podcast covers the gambit.

No fancy production values here just straight insight, perspective and advice from some of the leading individuals in the new social media marketing world.

Pluses: Of course the strongest plus is the content, the guests really know what they are talking about and come from some top industry players.

The site does a good job of providing a text overview, a photo of the guest and a note on the length of each podcast. New content is provide just about every week and each podcast is between 10-20 minutes in length and there about 20 current podcasts available.

RSS Feed subscription is readily available making it easy to subscribe.

Minuses: Not much to say here, I could not find a category list but some of the posts were tagged which may help when using their search function to find the type of information you are looking for.

When the audio opened while playing a show from my computer I could not see the controls nor resize the window to do so. This makes it tough to rewind or fast forward.

Recommendation: If you want to be and stay on the leading edge of marketing uses of social media then you need to subscribe to this podcast. Check out Marketing Voices for yourself.

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (1) | Permalink

Intentional “Word of Mouth” is one of the fastest growing areas of small business marketing. The old ‘rule of 250′ is gone, you know where everyone knows about 250 people and can spread the word about you.

With the internet and great new services like the one our guest Bill Jula operates called FastPitch Networking the new rule of personal connection can be hundreds, thousands or even millions.

I call this type of service, online social networking for business, or something like “e-harmony” for business. Offering the best of the available technologies, like SEO, Google Ads, and private ads along with the ability to tag and search for clients and leads, this new service can really leverage a small businesses marketing dollar.

Learn more about Improved Business Networking or click below and listen immediately.

Listen Now:

 Improved Business Networking [53:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (0) | Permalink

If…? If you hear this two letter word, run away. Beware any question that begins with “If…”

This is the First Law in Public Debate known by media savvy professionals: 1) Don’t do Hypotheticals.

If a question or a rebuttal starts with “If” change the subject. If you are thinking “If” change your mind. >> Read more

Posted by Jack Yoest | Comments (2) | Permalink