This post veers slightly from my traditional format of discussing social media marketing for restaurants. Instead, it is a blog review. Nevertheless, the blog in review, Duct Tape Marketing, is centered around marketing for small business and can be easily be used as a reference by restaurant owners and other businesses alike.
The Duct Tape Marketing Blog is written by John Jantsch and is a one segment of the Duct Tape Marketing Brand, which includes a marketing system and coaching network. Although the blog is part of a larger franchise, John Jantsch does not limit the amount of insights and ideas that he is willing to share publicly. Instead, The Duct Tape Marketing Blog provides information to empower small business owners and employees to gain an understanding of marketing. I chose this blog in part because John Jantsch is a huge proponent of small businesses using social media as a messaging tool, which makes the content of the blog relevant to learning more about social media.
An agency or in-house marketing team reaching out to this blogger would need to be very educated in his content and approach. Reaching out to John Jantsch is like marketing to a marketer who markets marketing. If you are pitching a product or service that you hope to be featured on Duct Tape Marketing, the product must be relevant to his target audience of small business marketers, worthy of his time, and notable enough to be mentioned. Since Duct Tape Marketing is a conglomerate of small business marketing products, the product or service being pitched must not conflict with anything in their suite of products and services.
For example, in this blog entry entitled “Small Business Blogging 101″, Jantsch shares a presentation that he did for Vertical Response, an e-mail marketing service provider. Jantsch discloses in the blog post that Vertical Response is a partner of Duct Tape Marketing. This policy of transparency creates trust and loyalty amongst his readers.
Jantsch often mentions brands as examples, but rarely as personal recommendations. The key to being mentioned as an example may be considered by some as luck, but most of the brands mentioned in examples on the Duct Tape Marketing Blog are remarkable and worthy, and have an strong social media presence, like Slide Share (mentioned here) or CrowdSPRING (mentioned here).
One of my favorite (and most relevant to this blog) posts of his is entitled “The Simple Way to Innovate and Differentiate.” It discusses a business that created a simple differentiation that consumers could easily describe to others, and advises against elaborate differentiation plans for small businesses. He cites the business Cheese Board Collective Pizza, a restaurant in California that only serves one variety of pizza daily. The restaurant has created buzz and a huge following with a simple business plan and, what I assume to be, a great product.
In short, Duct Tape Marketing should be bookmarked by every marketing decision maker at a small business. Jantsch’s insight and opinions are a great starting point and excellent reference.
wow – what thoughtful review.
I have to tell you that you did a fabulous job and your instincts and insights are right on the money – I’m not saying that because of the positive nature of your comments, which I loved, but the depth of advice you give about approaching me or the brands I feature is uncanny – that’s not something someone would glean from casual skimming – your readers are well served by this kind of care.
Thanks so much – John
Very nice review and as a Duct Tape Marketing coach, I appreciate the thoughtful comments about the brand.
John has a great ability to mix small business marketing messages with the greatest and latest tools. I find it interesting, insider knowledge maybe, the amount of effort and research that he applies to the products and services he writes about. He somehow manages to provide great insights into traditional small business applications seamlessly while providing to my knowledge one of the most in-depth analysis of web tools. Not an easy task.
Thanks for your insights.