Business Tips

Customer Demographics – Super Bowl Ads 2012

The 2012 Super Bowl Ads Winner (according to my highly biased opinion) is…..

For the second year in a row, I have to give a HUGE shoutout to the motor city! Featuring Clint Eastwood and a GO AMERICA theme, this a great followup to last years Eminem commercial.

Having been raised in the heartland, these kinds of commercials definitely give me a warm fuzzy! The demographics for this ad are GREAT! Heartland people who have watched their livelyhoods dwindle, men over 40 who love Clint Eastwood, Gen X and older who knew a time when we had manufacturing and everything did not come from China PLUS it is targeting a demographic with money to spend on a car (more about that later).

It is a Buy American, sentimental piece that will sell more cars! Y

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Tags: 2012, Bowl Ads, Super Bowl, Super Bowl Ads

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Would You Fire Someone for Smoking?

Smart business owners always look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary costs. Learn what costs to cut – or not to cut.

A police officer of 17 years was fired for repeatedly smoking cigarettes inside the precinct, a violation of a no-smoking policy.

Harold Dunivant, the chief of police in the west Tennessee city of Newbern, fired Sgt. James Bishop last week for repeatedly smoking indoors. Since 2007, the city has prohibited smoking inside all municipal offices and buildings.

Bishop’s termination letter—obtained by the Dyersburg State Gazette—states the no-smoking policy, and reminds Bishop that city employees were informed of the policy in 2007 through a memo. Duni

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Tags: Fire, Fire Smoking

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A Bed Time Story Venture Capitalists Tell Their Children

Once upon a time, back in the days of yore, when entrepreneurs went by names like “Jeff Bezos”, Internet retailers were the investment rage, and Harvard still printed a face book of its students on paper, there was a ritual that many venture capital backed participated in. It was called the “initial public offering.”

Now, many of you are young and can’t remember the 1990s, so let me tell you about this ritual. The founders of companies would sell shares of those businesses to the public and the businesses would be listed on the stock exchange.

This ritual, my children, is rarely used anymore. Like other ancient tools like the typewriter and the phonograph, the IPO-as-exit-vehicle has been replaced by a more modern tool: the acquisition.

recently released its counts of the number of venture capital-backed companies that exited in 2011, and the numbers tell the story of the lost IPO-as-exit-vehicle. The data

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Tags: Time, Time Story

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Search Marketing – What’s New?

Much has been happening in the world of Internet Marketing lately, so here is a brief synopsis of what’s new, and what it means for small businesses looking to market themselves on the web.

Growth of online advertising.  Internet advertising will be 2^nd only to TV advertising in revenues by 2014 and will surpass newspaper ad revenues by 2013.  While representing 14.4% of all advertising today, Internet advertising is projected to grow to 21% of all ad revenues by 2014, growing by roughly $10B a year for the next 3 years.  Read more.

Google puts online ads everywhere.    Online real estate is limited and growing more scarce.  So, Google is trying to squeeze ad real estate out of every corner they can.  Here are 6 new paid search products that Google has introduced to offer still more opportunities to advertise online.  Read more.

Google deals.    It appears that Google is planning to roll out a ‘check-in’ feature for its Google Place Pages so that companies can offer coupons & deals like they do with Groupon, Living Social and other deal competitors that are growing in popularity.  Can Google really compete in this space, even after earlier failed attempts?  Will sharing offers on Google+ make the difference for them?  Read more.

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Tags: New, What’s New

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Can One Message Mess Up Your Entire Email Newsletter Marketing List?

One message mess up your entire email marketing list? How could that be?

Today was the day, the day that I decided to filter my email messages even further. I have (like many people) become overwhelmed (again) with too many emails!

Today I was sad, I got a message from someone who I like a lot and have been “friends” with on the internet for a while. He generally sends out great info but has obviously changed something in his business model to include sending out more affiliate marketing messages. Look back on his recent “stuff” I see that he is no longer sending good info, but is mostly pushing out the crap that a million other marketers are sending.

So what did I do?

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