As a marketer or business owner, you may have heard the terms inbound marketing and outbound marketing at some point along the way. You may be wondering “what is the difference between the two?” or “why do I even care?” It can be helpful to know the difference, especially so you can know the most effective way to allocate your marketing dollars. Here are a couple of quick definitions of inbound and outbound marketing:

We love inbound marketing! Woo! Wait, we love outbound marketing! Oh no, can we love both, inbound and outbound marketing? If we love outbound marketing are we cheating on inbound?

Hot or cold. Bitter or sweet. Day or night. Happy or sad. Friend or foe. Sometimes we tend to see our world in absolutes – black or white. But we know there is plenty of gray area to make us question it all. In the marketing world, inbound and outbound marketing is one of those areas. While neither is absolutely good or evil, it’s how you use it that makes all the difference.

Take a look at your small business. Are you wanting to not only grow your business but also be the best in your industry? Then it's time to evaluate your marketing strategy and the budget that you have in place for it. We all want that easy fix for any problem that we have but with marketing or even growing your business, this will take time.

When I say “ice cream” what three brands come to mind? You’re walking down the frozen section aisle of the grocery store. Ice cream is on the list. Which brand do you buy? You might think that you’ll buy whatever is on sale. Or whatever you have a coupon for. Or whatever your favorite brand is. I almost always buy Breyers, even if it’s not on sale. It’s just the one I like – or is it? Lately, I’ve been seriously considering Ben & Jerry’s. Why? Because I want to try The Tonight Dough™ “caramel & chocolate ice creams with chocolate cookie swirls & gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough & peanut butter cookie dough.” I know! It sounds like mouth-watering madness! Go ahead. Wipe the drool from your mouth and stop teasing your taste buds.

When advertising your business, you have many options to choose from. With the growth of online marketing, traditional forms of advertising may seem outdated and no longer the best way to reach people. You may be wondering if the cost of radio advertising is worth it. Depending on your business, it may not be wise to give up just yet on this method of advertising.  In the following paragraphs, you will find a few of the biggest reasons why radio advertising may be right for your business and why you may not want to overlook it in your overall marketing strategy.

The holidays are a great time for business, big and small, to give it their all when it comes to creative advertising in the form of TV commercials. Advertisers work hard all year long to create ads that will raise brand awareness and promote new products, but there is something about the holidays that bring out the best in advertising for business. The holidays bring out the importance of passion and provision, even in business. 

When planning out your business growth strategy for 2015, what do you need to focus on? There are so many factors to running a small business filled with passion and provision, it’s easy to get caught up in things that are not maximizing your business’s resources.

If you want to have a successful small business event, but only have a small budget to work with, then you have to promote it correctly to get people interested and through the doors. Your end goal is to not let them get distracted by your competitors and everything else going on around them. Good promoting leads to more ticket sales, which helps your business be successful, and continue to be able to provide a place of both passion and provision.

It’s Saturday afternoon, you have just finished your shopping for the week, put the bags away and sat down with a nice cup of tea. Next thing you know, your friend calls you and says she just heard on the radio that there’s an awesome event happening tonight only a 20 minute drive from your house. Wanna go? You think, sure, I am not doing anything tonight, why not!