Is there a Best CRM for Small Business?
I want to try and answer the question of whether or not there is a best crm for small business… BUT FIRST… let me state right up front that I have a dog in the hunt! Apricot Rocket is a CRM that I designed and built. It is the product of over 3 years of …
Ever been caught in a Squirrel Trap?
Many entrepreneurs get caught in a Squirrel Trap. A Squirrel Trap is when some exciting new opportunity comes to your attention and you get distracted from you core mission and spend time chasing an opportunity that never really ally pans out. It is a lot like a dog seeing a squirrel… the dog finds it …
Organizing the information needed to develop a Marketing Strategy
Organizing the information needed to develop a Marketing Strategy and to establish the baseline of information and knowledge needed to make key decisions. I have broken the thought process to develop a marketing strategy down into three sections: Market, Media, and Message. Each section has crossover into the other sections so the process is not …
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Marketing Strategy Part 4 – How to calculate the Cost of Acquisition (COA)
Knowing how to calculate the Cost of Acquisition (COA) of a new customer is a critical skill needed to improve the efficiency of your marketing. Calculating COA requires that you know a variety of intermediate pieces of information to get to the COA number. COA is applicable in all areas of marketing and advertising and …
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Marketing Strategy Part 3: How to calculate Life Time Value for a Sporadic Purchase Cycle
Understanding how to calculate Life Time Value (LTV) of a customer is essential to knowing how to approach strategic decisions related to marketing. When a business has either a sporadic customer purchase cycle or a long term interval between repeat purchases it can be challenging to know what the LTV is. In this article we …
Marketing Strategy Part 2 – Marketing Economics for businesses with Recurring Revenue models
Generally, business revenue models fall into two categories… recurring revenue models and non-recurring revenue models. A business with a recurring revenue model can be looked at like they generate an annuity revenue stream. Because of that you can use financial industry concepts to predict the Life Time Value (“LTV”) of a customer. First you have …
Understanding the Economics of Marketing
Marketing Strategy Part 1 – The Economics of Marketing Understanding the economics of marketing is a critical concept that many small business owners have not either been taught or has sufficient experience to fully understand. As a result, one of the biggest mistakes small businesses make is pricing their products and services “Too Low”. What …
How to construct an effective marketing strategy
Introducing a blog post series on how to construct an effective Marketing Strategy An effective marketing strategy is one of the major differences between small businesses and big businesses. Learning how to construct an effective marketing strategy is a skill that can be learned. This email series will walk you through the foundational concepts and …
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Four Reasons You DON’T NEED a CRM
Here are Four Reasons You DON’T NEED a CRM: #1: You don’t want to grow your business. A growing business would cut into your commitment to binge watch all 635 episodes of Gunsmoke. #2: You have too many customers. Getting away from pesky customers is the main reason that you look forward to nights and …