This is the first post of a new concept of posts I’m about to start writing once a week involving only three sentences per post. The question is, if Confucius had a blog, is this how he’d do it?

If a sentence sparks an idea or question, feel free to comment.

1. It takes three times as much money to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.
2. Don’t spend more money marketing your product or service than you expect to make back at some point.
3. Figure out who your niche customers are and set off a trigger in them that gets them to relate and want to hear you.

Image by iChris

Approaching product development, services, and situations by way of odd associations can spark that creative idea marketers love to develop.

I had an interesting email come in the other day in regards to an article I wrote a while back called 8+ Ways To Train Yourself To Be Creative. The person mentioned how they loved the techniques I suggested and like me, they love the book Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

The question brought to me was, “These are all great techniques, but how do you suggest going about creatively finding a Purple Cow for your business?”

“Wow - what a great question,” I thought as I swiveled my chair around and walked over to the bookshelf housing Seth’s insightful book.

There of course is no one method or plan for developing a remarkable product, service, or business that stands out from the rest. For every idea out there, there’s an infinite number of ways to approach its development.

Where’s my Starbucks!

Image by nic0

How you market your product and who you market it to is essential. If you hit the wrong crowd and deliver the wrong (or boring) message your product will probably fail or achieve only a limited amount of success.

Always keep in mind the essential Ps of marketing. It could be just one of those Ps that wins big for you, but a good combination is always your best bet.

Take for example Starbucks. They sell, uh . . . coffee; oh how exciting.

They did well because they didn’t advertise just coffee, they advertised a coffee bar where you could come and hangout, listen to music, or read the newspaper while you drink your coffee.

They didn’t advertise how great their coffee was; they advertised the coffee drinking experience.

Could you imagine if today you decided to try and start selling your own brand of coffee? The competition is stiff!

If you’re an entrepreneur and marketing is an important part of your business (it should be), then you need to get to know Seth Godin. He’s the best-selling author of my favorite marketing book, Purple Cow, and in my opinion is way ahead of his time.

His blog is the only one I subscribe to by email, the rest I subscribe by RSS. I enjoy and look forward to his thought provoking messages every day or so.

He has a new book out called Meatball Sundae which I highly suggest you pick up.

So, here he is, the man of the hour talking about curiosity.

You can subscribe to Seth’s Blog by clicking here.

If you enjoy letting me do the work for you and bringing great content and entrepreneurs to you, why not subscribe to my blog while you’re at it.

About 3 months ago I noticed a big For Sale sign go up in the yard of the building shown above (before it was painted pink). It was once a residential property but was rezoned for commercial. It sits on a relatively busy intersection with lots of shopping across the street (grocery stores, UPS, fast food, etc.).

As a real estate guy I spent some time thinking about what I would do with this property if I were to buy it. What kind of business would I create and how would it stand out? It looked nearly identical to the residential property sitting next to it and down the street. Simply putting a sign in the front yard wasn’t good enough to draw attention. People pass this “house” going 45 miles per hour and there are a lot more interesting stuff to look at on the other side of the street.

Article by John Hoff

Social media marketing is basically the act of making use of blogs, forums, and other social media tools and websites (click the ones in the picture above) to market your services or product. You don’t have to be a computer-wiz to comment on other’s articles, like this one, and leave a link to your site below your name. You also don’t have to be a computer pro in order to participate in an online forum.

Marketing Differences

There are major differences between how social media marketing and traditional marketing work and how you use them.

Traditional Marketing

In traditional marketing you typically blast your audience with some sort of sales pitch. It might be a TV commercial or an ad you placed in some entrepreneurial magazine. The problem with advertising on billboards, TV, in newspaper ads, etc., is that it’s basically a shot in the dark that anyone is going to listen to you. You try and place your ad where your audience may be (i.e. put your recipe book commercial in a slot during a cooking show on the Food Network) but how many people are really listening to your commercial?