When you set your web site up, post to your blog, and create incoming links, the keywords you choose are important. These keywords help search engines determine what keywords your site ranks for. Also, when you pay per click with Google Adwords or Yahoo, choosing the wrong keyword could cost you lots of money.

Looking through the lens of early 2009, every year seems to fall under the category of “the good old days.” Yet as I revisited an article I wrote for ICS in the summer of 2006, it seems we had problems that appeared to be insurmountable at that time.

“How do you eat an elephant?” 

The elephant is, of course, a huge, overwhelming project. You know the answer:  A bite at a time. The next question, then, is, “But where do I start?” The answer:  it doesn’t matter.

Why should a carpet-cleaning company have a web site?  First, it's super cheap.  Many companies find it's one of the best returns on their advertising dollar. But that’s not all. Not by a long shot.

Having been born in the late 1940s, my peers and I have had the luxury of being the focus of society our whole life. Boomers were the largest generation ever born, dwarfing the 45 million Gen X kids that were a result of the baby bust. At each life stage, from babies to teens to 25-34 and up, society focused on that demographic.

I use Coffee-mate "creamer" in my coffee. I love it and use it by the dump-truck load. This morning - darn it - I was all out, and resorted to the healthier, but less appealing, coffee whitening alternative:  milk. I carried my cup into my office, sat down at my desk, spun around in my chair...and knocked over my coffee.

What does your marketing plan look like for 2009? Are you doing the same marketing you did in 2008? If you had your best year ever, by all means do it all over again. But otherwise, you're in for a big surprise. 

In 1915 the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Ind., was given a project to design and manufacture a product that was so unique that a person could identify it in pitch-black darkness by touch. That product was the Coca-Cola bottle.

When I was a new mother, I remember calling my mom in tears. “I’ve fed him, changed him, rocked him, sung to him…and he just won’t go to sleep,” I said. “What do I do now? I can’t take his crying anymore.” I couldn’t take my crying anymore either.

A nice older gentleman stopped by my office the other day.  He was well dressed and well spoken.  He seemed to fit our typical client profile.  He said, "I've been meticulously reading your ads in the newspaper and I wanted to stop by for a quote."  I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.  This guy should be an easy sell, like most of the prospects from our newspaper ads.