The article will also explain why there’s only a napkin next to my salad fork if we’re having dinner together, and why I’m not constantly looking under the conference table during meetings.

(What the article doesn’t explain is how often I’m out of cell range on my mountain bike, but that’s not for public knowledge. It’s just between you and me!)

Read the full article here: http://bit.ly/uUSibT

Do you think it would hurt your business if you turned on the “genius” setting on your SmartPhone and switched the thing off?

This is a long post, because I’m giving a lot away here. If you want it, it’s right here on the page, FREE for the taking. Enjoy, entrepreneurs, Womentorz and other business adventurers!

Marketing Net-Zero Tip #1: BE VISIBLE

Come out from behind that computer screen and be seen! Don’t try to do all your promotion from your desk. Get out into the community and interact with real people.

• Be a strategic networker.
• Choose networking opportunities that will give you access to:
  • Potential customers
  • Other business owners who have contacts with your direct audience
  • Opportunities for bartering, co-promotion, co-marketing, or co-speaking with other businesses that will help propel your mutual success
  • Avoid mixers where everyone in the room is in your exact line of business. (You’re not likely to sell a lot of ice cream to the other ice cream men on your block.)
• Parlay your expertise into speaking opportunities, teaching a workshop or class, participating in or leading a small or specialized business group. (Keep an eye out for opportunities to get paid for these types of activities).
• Hang out where you are likely to interact with your most desired audience targets. What do you know about your the likes and habits of your audiences? This will give you some clues as to where to network where there’s a hope of interacting with potential customers, members of the press, or other businesses you want to network with.  Examples might include: participating in workshops, joining (or starting) a book club, attending free community events that your customers are likely to attend also, serving on a committee or board, attending craft fairs or art openings, or participating in community sporting events and fundraisers. Check your local entertainment guide for ideas!

Marketing Net-Zero Tip #2: TOOT YOUR OWN HORN

Some people are natural self-promoters and have no problem talking up their successes at every opportunity. For most of us, this is a real challenge!

Self-Promotion Tip: Know what your successes are. Define what constitutes a “success” and pay attention to when it happens. The best way to do this is to set daily, weekly and monthly goals for sales, positive customer feedback, increases in quality social media contacts and followers, securing local opportunities to speak about your business. Keep a running log of these successes. How many Facebook followers did you start with in January? How many did you want to have by April? Did you make at least some progress toward your goal? Even if you fell short of the exact goal, setting goals and keeping track of your progress will not only help you track your success, but it will allow you to shift your activities – and maybe your expectations – in productive ways.

Self-Promotion Tip: No sucess is too small to talk up. Did you meet one or more of the goals that you set? Talk up your incremental wins on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your blog, in your interactions with new or existing customers, with business contacts, partners and associates. Wins are very persuasive! Don’t be afraid that any single success is too small to talk about. Watch them stack up and see how that persuasive language translates into more followers, greater awareness, better opportunities, and more sales over time!

Self-Promotion Tip: Don’t let your WINS become one-hit wonders. Think “Green”:  Repurpose, reuse, recycle.

WIN = Product Review: Did you win a product review that you pitched yourself for? Crow about it! Make sure to get links to the coverage, whether it’s a link to a podcast, video, a PDF or direct link to an article online. Find out what the media outlet’s policy is on permission to post the coverage and abide by that policy.

Get your extra mileage from your coverage by posting an image of the magazine cover for the issue you appeared in, or the media outlet’s logo on your web site, in your press materials, on your Facebook page, and everywhere that you can.

The value of editorial coverage is that it is both informative and persuasive for your audience: it increases awareness and can be perceived as a recommendation of your product or service. Don’t limit how much of an impact the coverage gets you; talk it up in as many places as you can for a full year after the coverage (and sometimes longer than that).

WIN = Favorable Customer Testimonials: If you receive great feedback from one or more of your customers, think green again. If the comments were made on your Facebook Page or in a Tweet, they should also make their way onto your other social media profiles, your web site, as your daily quote in y your email signature, into a news release, at the bottom of a product flyer, and elsewhere. You get the idea!

Marketing Net-Zero Tip #3: DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL

Sometimes, thinking outside the box is over-rated. Instead, learn from the experts.

Model the behaviors of your competitors that you admire the most! Follow them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Buy their business books; sit in on their (free) webinars). What are they working on and how are they promoting themselves? You may not have a marketing budget for some of the big deals that they negotiate, or for the slick marketing collateral and whiz-bang graphics and video media that they’re pumping out, but they are probably doing a lot of things that don’t cost them a dime – like being good self-promoters. Model the successful behavior that you observe in others – just remember to be true to your own brand, personality and style when you do it.

Marketing Net-Zero Tip #4: UTLIZE HIGH-QUALITY, FREE RESOURCES

Join Womentorz or other Group Marketing Networks – If you’re a woman inventor or entrepreneur and you’re already a Womentorz member, you already know a lot about this. If you’re a woman entrepreneur with an innovative service, business book, software application, or other genius idea, check out the Services channel at Womentorz. If you’re outside this network entirely, look into other group marketing opportunities – or create some! Contact Mulberry Street or Womentorz if you’d like to discuss this in more detail. We’d love the chance to network with you and hear your ideas!

Wear Out Your Library Card – Check out top-selling business books from your local library instead of buying them. Purchase only the ones that you want to refer to over and over. Chances are, taking a few notes on the things that really grab you will suffice.

Find a Mentor – If there is someone in your network who has business experience that you covet, ask them if they would be your mentor. Set limits on how much time you will request from them in any given month (don’t wear out your welcome) and think of ways (or ask them) how you can benefit them as well.

Get a SCORE Counselor: If you’ve managed to launch your business without learning about SCORE and using their services, you probably worked a lot harder than you needed to. If you did find SCORE and use their services, you probably feel like you couldn’t have launched without them. SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) is a nonprofit organization that educates entrepreneurs to start, grow and succeed nationwide. SCORE currently has 13,000mentors, 364 chapters and more than 500 skills to help you grow your business. What are you waiting for?

Marketing Net-Zero Tip #5: (From the Department of the Glaringly Obvious) USE SOCIAL MEDIA

This is perhaps the most obvious and first choice in the current marketing environment. Everyone’s doing it: some are doing it exceedingly well, with stellar results! For specific tips on finding and marketing to your audience using social media, see my article, “What’s the Best Social Medium for Finding New Customers?”

And finally, here is my unsolicited advice:

Don’t set net-zero as your marketing budget goal.

Make yourself and your fledgling business a priority. Invest in yourself!

How, you ask?

Open a bank account dedicated to saving money for marketing and make it an absolute priority.

Where to get the funds?

1. Can you eat out less/make more meals at home?
2. Can you buy fewer lattes and enjoy some home brew?
3. Can you skip frivolous purchases?
4. If you have a regular saving plan, dedicate a portion of this to invest in marketing your business.
5. Set aside 5 – 10% of sales and put it in your savings account for marketing.

Most importantly, understand that in order to have a sustainable business, you have to create a sustainable marketing budget. When you set up the fund, know what you plan to use the budget for. Talk to your SCORE counselor, mentor, or give Mulberry Street a call to discuss where is the best place to invest your marketing dollars for the greatest return, once you’ve reached your first savings goal.

Happy Marketing Tip Monday and as always, cheers from Womentorz and Mulberry Street!

Shoutout to Rita, aka “YippyMomma“, blogger, baby product reviewer, photographer (and so much more…) who posted today’s question on the Womentorz wall on Facebook. (@YippyMomma)

Join the discussion! What’s the best marketing investment you ever made? What was the worst?

The physician remarked, “Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam. This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world.”

The civil engineer interrupted, and said, “But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, fair doctor, you are wrong: mine is the oldest profession in the world.”

The consultant leaned back in her chair, smiled, and then said confidently, “Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?”

This post is in response to members and fans of the Women Inventors Network, Womentorz, who submitted the question*: “What is the best social medium for researching and targeting my audience? How do I reach my audience once I’ve found them?”

I recently began researching how Mulberry Street can improve social media targeting for the agency, as well as how we target audiences for our diverse client base. My search led me to a book called Likeable Social Media: How to delight your customers, create an irresistible brand, and be generally amazing on Facebook by Dave Kerpen, who is also CEO of Likeable Media. The rest of this post is a mix of Mulberry Street’s research and strategies and tactics that we have learned and adopted from Likeable.

My first piece of advice in this post is, invest a few dollars in a copy of Likeable Social Media; then invest the time to work slowly through the book, test the tips and tools that you learn. Reading Likeable may not automatically make you an excellent marketer: you will need to bring knowledge of your customer base, your intuition, creativity, and possibly some guidance from a marketing or PR pro to hone your message and conversations with your customers. However, honing your skills in using social media tools can help you push the boundaries of how you’re finding your customers and how you’re engaging them.

So…kudos to all of you who asked the question; asking great questions is the first step toward achieving greatness!

Back to Facebook and Twitter. Each platform allows you to target your audiences like no advertising medium in history. And hallelujah, you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to buy a direct email list based on past magazine purchases to find “females between the ages of 18 and 54 who like to cook.” Even if your audience exists within this group, you’re not going to engage them in a meaningful way through slamming out direct emails. Repeatedly invading desktops uninvited doesn’t build trust or create a meaningful experience; such targets aren’t likely to buy from you until you’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars patiently reminding them about your product or service.

Instead, you can use Facebook and Twitter to target people who are actively interested in what you are offering, or in the conversation that you are having, based on their preferences and what they’re interested in right now. Facebook and Twitter allow you to listen to your audiences and to engage in meaningful dialog with them.

Let’s look at Facebook:

Facebook is currently reporting over 750 million active users. Kara, to you, that translates to a lot of people who are still “holding the bag,” washing too many dishes, and working in a messy kitchen! Tricia, for you, it means a huge pool of people who are right now contemplating an affordable vacation in an exotic place; Kinsie, for you, this translates into almost endless possibilities of finding people who are looking for creative, meaningful and highly personalized gifts – targeted by romantic relationship status, special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, or the arrival of a new baby.

One of the most effective tools for any marketer is a personal endorsement by a friend or relative of the person that you’re targeting. In Likeable, Dave reports that on average, Facebook users have 130 friends. So with just 100 people who Like your page on Facebook, an ad or post seen only by friends of your connections has a potential reach of 13,000 people!

Facebook tip #1: Reach out directly to some of your past customers.

Get them talking about their experience with you, your product or service. Get them excited about their interactions with you. There are endless ways to do this. I’ll offer you two easy ones:

1) Give past customers an opportunity to talk about how they’re using your product or service. Want client interaction? Sometimes all you have to do is ask! Post directly on their wall, or bring them into a conversation on your wall that you know what will attract them.

2) Listen: Read their posts and see what has their attention right now. Interact with them about that. Show them some love when they’re not currently buying anything from you, and you’ll begin to build a real relationship.

The better you know your customers, the better these tactics are going to work. Remember to show your appreciation to people who buy your product or service. Engage them in conversation, and make your interactions just about them sometimes – just like you do with your friends. This will make you visible to your customers’ friends and connections. It will make you “likeable” and make more people aware of what you have to offer.

Facebook tip #2: Learn to use the Facebook ad platform for researching and targeting your audiences. If you actually run an ad campaign through Facebook, whether it’s through the pay-per-click or the pay-per-impression option, it will take an investment on your part (starting as low as $5 a day). But the ad interface is free to use. Go ahead and experiment with targeting different groups. Amazingly, Facebook allows you to target broadly and find dozens, hundreds or thousands of potentials, or to target a single individual. Facebook offers tutorials on how to do this. Likeable Social Media offers in-depth information and great ideas on how to do this. Once you’ve gone in and played with the ad tool, if you get excited about a new opportunity, please send me a Tweet to @RuthADanielson or post it on the Womentorz or Mulberry Street Market Intel Facebook page!

Now let’s look at Twitter

Twitter stats are even more mind-blowing than Facebook’s 750 million users. For example, Twitter reports:

• On July 15 (Twitter’s fifth anniversary), more than 600,000 users signed up in a single day. (Hard to believe that there were still that many people not using Twitter on July 14…)
• That same day, there were 224 Tweets in less than a tenth of a second. On July 15, 2006, there were 224 Tweets the entire day.
• On July 17, 2011, Twitter’s Tweet per second (TPS) count reached 7,196. That equates to over 621 million Tweets per day!

What are the odds that your audience targets are not to be found by reading between the Tweets?

Using this formula formula, Search > Follow > Engage > Learn All You Can, you should be able to increase your follower base, get to know your audience better and find new targets to directly target.

SEARCH

Kara: go into Twitter and type in “I want a clean kitchen” and “easier meals.” Tweet me @RuthADanielson or post on Facebook whether you find hoardes of people who need a Bag Holder.

• Tricia, for Costa Rica Vacation Rentals: Go to Search.Twitter.com and type in “need vacation ideas” and variations, that could include: “need retreat ideas,” “need family reunion ideas,” or others based on your typical clientele.
• Kinsie, to find people – and groups of people – who might want to buy your book right now, type in: “Need personalized gift ideas, ” “need gift idea,” “gift idea help.

FOLLOW

•  Follow users who look like immediate targets for you.
• Post messages on your Twitter feed directly to those users

ENGAGE

Engage your targets in dialog on Twitter.

• If they follow you back, thank them immediately and engage them in further conversation.
• Lead them to your Facebook page for more in-depth dialog.

LEARN ALL YOU CAN

Pay close attention to other businesses who come up in your searches. What can you learn from how they’re targeting? How are they engaging their customers? Model your marketing after people who are succeeding at it in your space.

In his book, Dave Kerpen remarks that “a conversation is 50% talking and 50% listening.” In this conversation, your voice is by far the most important. Please connect with me on Facebook at Mulberry Street Market Intel or on Twitter @RuthADanielson, or through the Womentorz Facebook page and let me know…was this information helpful? Are you going to make changes to your social media strategy and try these tips? Are you picking up a copy of Likeable Social Media? What new results are you seeing?

Take a minute and share your future plans, challenges, suggestions or results with me. A two-way conversation will help us both become better marketers!

Thanks! And cheers from Mulberry Street and Womentorz.

*Thanks to Kara Anderson inventor of The Bag Holder, Tricia Morris of Costa Rica Vacation Rentals and Kinsie who created FindMeBook.com, who posted this question on the Womentorz blog!