Title: Marketing Minute
Produced By: Marketing and Communication Strategies, Inc.
Feed: http://www.mcshome.com/podcasts/marketingminute.xml
Blog: http://communication-strategies.blogspot.com/

Overview: MCS puts out this show twice a month to cover specific topics relating to marketing and public relations. Each episode averages around 3 minutes.

We Like: The episodes a brief and to the point. They cover very specific topics and techniques that would benefit any business owner or marketing professional. An easy listen.

Would Like to See: They would benefit from show notes and additional supplemental links relating to the topic at hand.

For you loyal listeners of the Small Business Radio Podcast, feel free to participate in our show by submitting your business and technology questions via the form below, or by clicking on our mailbag link.

We’ll do our best to get your questions answered on our show. Remember, the only bad question is the unasked question!

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Listen Now:

 Episode 14 {Duct Tape Marketing} [13:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you are an avid reader of the hugely-popular Duct Tape Marketing blog, you’ll want to rush right out and buy John Jantsch’s latest book entitled Duct Tape Marketing - The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.

I had a chance to chat with John about his book, his theories on marketing and some of the common marketing “pitfalls” business owners fall into. What I really like about John’s approach is that he demystifies marketing. He has this way of making it all sound fairly simple and, most importantly, attainable.

If you’re interested in purchasing his new book, I would suggest checking out his bonus offers page. If you haven’t read the Duct Tape Marketing blog, here are two of my favorite recent posts of John’s:

Does your firm suffer from feature creep? (How true it is!!)

Basecamp for Lead Generation (Very clever!)

The main goal of an internet presence is and has always been to be found and understood. It’s generally the introduction to a (hopefully) long and fruitful business relationship. Much like a fisherman, webmasters and internet marketers fiddle with an array of different “cyber-bait,” lures, fishing nets, bass boats, etc.

Let’s look at the current mix of internet “properties” that make up the Promethius Consulting web presence. Keep in mind that these change all the time as we constantly tinker to keep current with internet marketing best-practices.

Promethius Consulting, LLC Website - This is of course our foundation. The site has existed in one form or another since 2000.

Promethius eMail Newsletter Archive - Although this is a sub-set of our main website, I list it here because it brings us so much traffic. Our archive spans all the way back to August of 2001. All that targeted content just sits there and works for the search engines year after year.

Small Business Radio Blog - This blog has been a key addition to our internet marketing efforts. High-profile blogs linking back to us in recent past include Duct Tape Marketing, Buzzoodle,Web Ink Now,The Engaging Brand and Marketing Profs: Daily Fix.

Small Business Radio Podcast - Our show has helped us make some great business contacts. Recent guests include Lorraine Ball and Executive Business Coach Jim Gleason.

ClickCaster Podcast Presence - This is a second version of our podcast. It’s just another way for folks to find us and start a relationship.  I’m always surprised by how many listeners we get through ClickCaster.
Promethius MySpace Page - Although there is much NOT to like about MySpace, it certainly does boast scads of users. Our presence is mostly used to deliver our podcast and to garner sign-ups for our email newsletters.

Our Multiply Presence - This is a little mini-blog designed to drive traffic back to our main blog page. It’s a quick way of creating backlinks in an organized and easy manor.

I could go on with descriptions of our various other little web properties and experiments. The above list will hopefully give you a little glimpse of the types of techniques that build increased traffic and awareness.

I’d love to see your comments about what is working for you!!

An important part of building blog traffic is placing easy bookmark links to the end of each blog post (see below). I just stumbled upon a service that promises to make this task much easier than it normally is for most bloggers.

The service is called “Badged.” The process is simple: Enter your page title and URL, check off which badges you want, and click “Create Badges.” Copy the code into where you want the badges to appear.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to within the next week or so. Hopefully this helps all you time-challenged bloggers out there!

Listen Now:

 Episode 13 Permission-Based Marketing: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Special Interview with Cantaloupe & JibJab: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode, Tony and Alan discuss many aspects of Permission-Based Marketing, including tips and tricks for your company’s email campaigns.

As an added bonus, this show features a special interview with John DiGregory and Tom Corey of Cantaloupe Shows. Cantaloupe is an Indianapolis company specializing in permission-based marketing, leveraging video to tell their client’s stories. Also featured: a portion of Alan’s tBGR interview with JibJab’s Greg Spiridellis.

View the Cantaloupe Six reality series.

One of the reasons that I decided to become a professional Podcast Producer is because I could see how much real learning I was able to do by listening to podcasts during the time that I might otherwise waste. My morning commutes are key learning opportunities. The treadmill also provides at least a good half hour to listen to one of my favorite business-oriented podcasts .

So take it from a “knowledge junkie.” Podcasts are amazing sources of nearly free learning. If you don’t supplement your ongoing education with targeted podcast consumption, then maybe you aren’t serious about getting that next promotion.

These are the 10 business-oriented podcasts that I have found to be exceptional :

1. CIO Podcast(website| feed)
   overview: Great in-depth podcast for the manager that needs serious technology content. Might be a little overbearing for some. If technology is not your main focus, then you can get away with just casual listenership.
2. The Engaging Brand Podcast (website| feed)
   overview: A look at how to create a great place to work by motivation and inspiring your people to high performance.
3. Manager Tools (website| feed)
   overview - Manager Tools is a weekly podcast focused on helping you become a more effective manager and leader.
4. Inside PR (website | feed)
   overview: weekly podcast on the PR industry with a Canadian perspective.
5. 43 Folders (website | feed)
   overview: All sorts of great productivity tips and “lifehacks” from 43 Folders creator Merlin Mann. These episodes are a bit shorter than others listed here, so might be a good choice for those with short commutes and the like.
6. Brain Brew Radio (website | feed)
   overview: Doug Hall consults for corporate giants by day, but with this entertaining podcast he helps the “little guy” by answering callers’ questions about business marketing and product development. This show is just plain fun to listen to.
7. Entrepreneur’s Journey by Yaro Starak (website | feed)
   overview: Yaro is a young internet entrepreneur from Australia. You won’t want to miss this fascinating fellow.
8. Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter (website | feed)
   overview: Well-produced show with lots of great content. Business owners need to learn the art of self-promotion, and this podcast will get you well on your way to self-promotion greatness.
9. Search Engine Watch Blog (website | feed)
   overview: Everything you ever wanted to know about what Google, Yahoo and the rest are up to next with their ppc plans, measurement tools, algorithms, etc.
10. Small Business Radio by Promethius Consulting (website | feed)
    overview: O.K. - this is the “shameless plug” portion of this post. We do work very hard to ensure that our podcast is of great value to business leaders. We cover all sorts of topics, but tend to revisit the technical side of things perhaps more than most.