I listen to a fair number of podcasts — in fact, they are now probably my main source of news — and today I listened to an episode of Escape From Cubicle Nation that was particularly relevant to Internet marketing for small business.

The podcast was an interview with John Jantsch, author of the very successful Duct Tape Marketing. With over 20 years of experience as an independent entrepreneur, John has a wealth of marketing advice.

Among them:

• Don’t try to be all things to all people. Find your niche, and focus on it.
• The definition of marketing for small business is: getting someone, who has a need [that your product or service can fulfill], to know, like and trust you.
• Business blogs really facilitate the idea of a conversation; they give a voice to small business owners who have expertise that they can and should be spreading and putting out there. They give the entrepreneur and the prospective client a real opportunity to have a conversation together.
• Websites, blogs, podcasts etc. need to be an integrated part of the rest of your marketing effort.
• Search engines love blogs so much that if you have a website that you want people to find, you need a blog.
• For an unending source of blog content, look at the interactions that you have with your customers and prospects. They will ask you questions, and you must answer them — those answers are what you should be writing about in your blog. It is a ready made stream of content that you’re producing every day, whether you know it or not.
• It can take years to develop your niche and/or brand. Listen carefully to the market (not your friends and family), and adjust your strategy as needed.
• For someone just starting out, figure out what you want your business to be and look like 3 and 5 years down the road, and get a very clear picture of your ideal client. Don’t spend too much time worrying about how its going to happen.

Thanks to Pamela Slim for the great interview! I can tell that John’s book is likely fantastic, and I’ve added it to my Amazon Wishlist.

We have a new logo! What do you think?

It is way past due that NetMojo has one, to start establishing brand identity. I’ll be overhauling the website soon as well, to give the site a snazzy new look. For humans, not search engines :).