“Make no mistake,” thundered the authors. “Marketing is war!”

The authors made it all sound so labor-intensive, so complicated. However, marketing is not brain surgery, although brain surgery can certainly be marketed. I assure you, if this book had ever been made into a video game, there would have been a committee of concerned parents emailing around the clock to get it pulled off the shelves.

Has marketing changed now that we’re more enlightened and settled comfortably in the next millennium? The language certainly has evolved. There is more talk of “testing” and “positioning” than “maiming” and “killing.” However, I believe that for the most part the purpose of marketing has not flickered an eyelash.

Just exactly what is marketing? It depends on whom you ask. According to the American Marketing Association, it is “the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer.”

In simple terms, marketing is the total effort expended to get customers to buy what you have to sell. For a small business, it’s what you do to attract enough business to make a living. The motive for all this activity is the same one that dragged Uncle Ugg out of his cave ages ago with his club over his shoulder to go in search of a bigger better wooly mammoth. If Uncle Ugg could kill more than the kids would eat he could trade a couple of ribs for other items that he needed, or suddenly discovered that he wanted.

Maybe his brother had whacked a couple of wildcats in excess of what the kids required for loincloths. Ugg could offer his excess mammoth meat — trimmed up and neatly presented on a clean flat rock — for the extra skins.

However, what if the brother heightened the demand for wildcat skins by parading his kids past Ugg’s kids a few times all dressed in their new outfits? At this point, Ugg could either add a few more ribs to the pile on the rock. Or he could try to convince his kids that by next season nobody would be wearing wildcat skins, in a transparent and probably futile attempt to either force the brother to lower his cost, or his kids to lower their expectations.

Let’s move forward– at least in time — to the contemporary fast food mega-industry where Mc-marketing and Mc-advertising usually reign supreme.

McDonald’s was created to compete with the Mom and Pop diner or coffee shop, which usually specialized in quick breakfast and lunch service, and almost anything else that was easy and fast — as in “fast food”.

When Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s in Des Plains, Illinois he wasn’t offering anything new — he was just offering a whole lot of the most popular items on a typical coffee shop menu: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, and soda. Kroc borrowed money to expand, and billions of burgers and some high profile lawsuits later, the rest is history.

McDonald’s is fond of attributing its success to quality and customer service, and its devotion to cleanliness. However, I say Mc-phooey. If you have either owned or rented a child during the past thirty-five years, you know why McDonald’s is a super power. Despite the recent elaborate (and expensive!) efforts on McDonald’s part to lure more adults inside its doors, can you truly claim that you ever stopped at Mickey D’s because you truly prefer the food? “Yes, I’m exhausted and starving. I think I’ll go to McDonald’s, order up about 1,500 calories of stuff that will keep me from sleeping tonight, eat it off a paper napkin, and listen to sanitized music. Beats the heck out of grilled salmon and fingerling potatoes any night.”

No, the chances are you were urged onward by a short person who had succumbed to the siren song of politically correct child’s meal with apple slices or a salad. McDonald’s isn’t a titan because they produce a superior hamburger. It remains on top because it has figured out how to get kids to do their hard sell for them. Why else would virtually every location these days be wrapped around a giant indoor playground? Not for the dining pleasure of the ones wielding the wallets. The slides are for the ones making the actual buying decisions. Their new advertising campaign attempts to be hip and claim “I’m lovin’ it.” Unless you’re under 18, you probably aren’t. But if you have children or grandchildren, you’re likely to be Mc-dining.

So what’s the difference between marketing and advertising? Again, it depends. I believe that advertising is one of the primary tools of marketing. Its main purpose is to help promote awareness of and an interest in a product or service. What form a particular advertising effort takes depends on who the ad is meant to reach, and how much is being budgeted.

So what do Uncle Ugg and Ray Kroc have to do with you? More than you might think.

As members of one business community in a whole country of business communities propelled by the free enterprise system, you have access to an immense variety of promotional options. You must market to keep your doors open, and you should probably advertise.

Simple can be sensational. Social media is immediate, easy to use, and spreads a message quickly. It can also be forgotten with blinding speed. If you can’t commit to keeping pace with it, you lessen its effectiveness.

I make no secret of the fact that I remain an advocate of newsletters, both online and traditional ink on paper. They are low pressure, high impact, and incredibly hardy. Recipients are less quick to slam a printed newsletter into the round file as they are an expensive, no holds barred printed piece. E-newsletters avoid the delete button almost as well. Because newsletters are perceived as informational rather than promotional, they are automatically assigned an intrinsic value.

Other affordable, effective printed advertising vehicles include classified ads in professional journals and tabloids, and small local papers, especially if you offer a service. Don’t ever overlook a good, local newspaper. They are enjoying a rebirth, especially as the large, syndicated papers get worse by the day and people continue to discover that the Internet’s effectiveness for local promotion isn’t one size fits all.

As a business grows and its past due bills change to dollar bills, there is a tendency to want to “upscale” advertising. Be very careful. Very slick implies expensive, and depending on what product or service you offer, this may be a liability in a culture still reeling from a recession. If your customers are mostly mainstream mid-America, proceed with caution.

After you’ve determined who, what, and where your market is, don’t leap into advertising before you look at what others are doing. Study the medium you are considering — online, print, digital, broadcast, outdoor display, etc. — and analyze what works, and what doesn’t.

A final tip. Like real estate, the value of advertising is often location, location, location. I took a visual stroll through a local magazine yesterday and discovered two ads placed side by side occupying the top half of a right hand page. One headline read “Turn to Us For All Your Plumbing Needs.”

The other said, “Prostate Trouble Can Be Cured Without Surgery.”

The Unexpected Life - Dale Fushek
An autobiography of a very human priest.

Dale Fushek presents a candid, flesh and blood portrait of the sacred and the profane in his life as an ordained priest. The good, the bad, and the unbelievable are described with gratitude and commitment to a larger purpose. Unflinching yet always dignified, Dale Fushek gives his reaction to the events that sent his personal ministry into chaos, and changed the very fabric of his existence.

Foreword by Jody Serey
ISBN-10: 1881276058
ISBN-13: 978-1881276050
Available locally at…
The Cross Shop
at THE PRAISE AND WORSHIP CENTER
2551 North Arizona Avenue
Building #3
Chandler, Arizona 85225
MAP TO The Cross Shop

Also available at Amazon.com

Use the “Official Page” on the left and select “Local Business” and enter a
“Page Name”, (the name of your business.)
Check the “I’m the official representative …” check box and click “Create Official Page”

That’s it. You now have a business Facebook page. Upload your company logo
or other small graphic for the upper left corner of the page. It’s best to use a relatively
square shaped version of your graphic/logo or at least crop it to give extra space
around the logo so that the graphic is approximately square.

On the left hand side you can click “Suggest to Friends” and click on the Friends
(list of friends from your personal account) that you’d like Facebook to send an
automatic message to that invites them to become a “Fan” of your business page.

You can add a link on the web site of your business to this Facebook business page
inviting visitors to “Follow You on Facebook”. The URL for the link should be the URL
you see on the address line at the top of your browser with slight modifications. For
example…
After you obtain 25 or more “Fans” you can customize your URL by going to…
user name

This page also allows you to select a name for your personal Facebook page. Be careful.
Once you choose a name you can’t go back. Make sure you are selecting the name for
one of your “page”.

More information about Facebook business pages in general can be found at
pages

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

The Create a Book feature from Wikipedia enables a user to build a custom book from the articles chosen from their search on Wikipedia and other wiki sites that are supported by PediaPress’ book creator feature. Illustrations and photos from the articles are included also. Upon the completion of content collection, the user creates a book title, adds an editor name and selects a cover photo from a group of images and photos associated with the content selected. A 30-page preview is provided to the user for review. The user purchases the book online from the pediapress.com web site, and book files are then uploaded for manufacturing. Printed books are then shipped to you from the closest of the networked print facilities.
View demonstration video here

pediapress.com

Sources from which your book content can be drawn:
wikipedia.org
wikibooks.org
wikisource.org
wikieducator.org

I am at heart a writer. At times, this has seemed like a hooker referring to herself as a public relations expert.

I have never not written, since the age of about 5 when I learned I could preserve a thought by making marks on a piece of paper. My mother was a writer, as was my father. They were also academics – English professors to be exact – and he went on to be president of a university in Indianapolis. She left her formal teaching career, and continued to pour her creative skills into public speaking and writing. She put into words whatever was necessary – history, comedy, obituary text – it didn’t matter. She typed like a demon, and I knew not to bother her until the typewriter went “ding.”

Some time ago, I was asked to write about my mother, and how she shaped my life. I don’t know how to convey how complex she was, how talented and valiant. She had a killing sense of humor, and she seemed fearless. It wouldn’t be until much later that she would whisper to me, “I almost wet my pants.”

She is the one who taught me how to roll the car out of the driveway and down the hill so Dad wouldn’t hear us leave the house. We’d wait until he went to sleep, and then we were out of there. It was the adventure of the escape that we enjoyed. There wasn’t much open in Indianapolis after 10:00, so we’d usually stroll around a drugstore that was open late, or get a Pepsi at the drive-in before we’d sneak back in.

My parents experienced a depression, several wars, recessions, and countless deaths and disasters. The one constant in our lives was writing. My mother said, “You can always find something to do with it.”

However, my first choice as a career was not writing. I wanted to be a musician – a cellist. I studied for years, and was an okay cellist. A series of ear infections and hearing loss ended any serious thoughts I had about pursuing the life of a chamber musician. When I sold my cello, my mother said, “Well, now what?”

The most empowering thing she ever did for me was let me use her typewriter. When I was in first grade, I pushed a stool up to the typing table so I could see. Eventually, she bought me my own machine, and when I went off to college, I got an electric typewriter. I used it until David bought our personal computer in about 1981 or 1982 for the princely sum of $5,000. We were newlyweds, and I almost had a heart attack. The little gray plastic box changed my life.

Speaking of David – he and I have worked together for about 33 years. We became acquainted on the job at a music publishing company. As an editor and copywriter, I was much farther down the food chain than he was.  I wrote a lot of liner notes for albums and cassettes, and he was the production manager, then the general manager, and finally the executive vice president. Early in our marriage, I decided to pursue a career as an independent, and I worked for a stable of independent graphic designers, and for several ad agencies. When David decided to hang out his shingle as a publisher, I tabled my plans to begin teaching second grade and we established Serey Jones.

Serey Jones was formally incorporated in early 1992, and we have worked from referrals ever since. We have never advertised, and we have never tried to expand beyond our little studio. We thought about it once a long time ago, and decided that we wanted to remain small so we could personalize everything we do. David is a friend of technology, and I remain the words person. A writer should be paired with somebody who doesn’t narrate every nuance of daily life, which I most certainly do in my own head. David is almost entirely visual, and unless you say, “Read this” to him, type consists of shapes – not words. I am the polar opposite – which is why we have been able to work in very close quarters for decades without killing each other.

I used to write for the sheer joy of it. Now I write because it is what I do. It is far too late in life to join the rodeo, become a surgeon, or pick up the cello again. Yet, there is still joy in it. Occasionally, there is even a bit of income as a result.

When the grass is somewhat long, or there are deep shadows on the lawn, the hunting is somewhat precarious. David commented today, “This is sort of like proofreading.”

The comparison is a good one. There are many days that I wade into the shadows to try to retrieve that which could spoil an otherwise pleasant stroll. Note that we seldom rely on one pair of eyes to complete the task. It’s always good to have back-up in the back yard.