Marketing 3-4-5™: The Business Owner's Guide to Effective Local Marketing in 15-Minutes or Less

By Brian Ostrovsky

Effective marketing in just 10-15 minutes? Yep, seriously, this book will show you how without any experience... creativity is not required."I don't have time... I'm not a techie... I don't know where to start..."

Marketing doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be time-consuming, and it doesn't have to be e

• Language: English
• Publisher: R122 Publishing
• Release date: Oct 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9798985072020

Brian Ostrovsky

Having grown up in the small Gold Rush town of Placerville, CA, which has a quintessential Main Street, Brian saw how important community is to the people who live there and has been dedicated to helping it thrive in the face of whatever challenges arise. Starting as an MBA research project at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, Brian wanted to identify and solve "the local marketing problem" to support small businesses and local communities. As smartphones and social media were just starting to reach mass adoption, Brian worked to create a publisher network to bolster local publications and learn from the countless interactions with small businesses and nonprofits. More than 12 years later, Locable powers nearly 200 local media websites, dozens of Main Street Programs, and thousands of small businesses around the US. More recently, Brian created Marketing 3-4-5™ which has been taught to thousands of small businesses with dozens of local workshops with Main Streets and state programs around the US.

Book preview

Marketing 3-4-5™

Praise for Marketing 3-4-5™

Marketing 3-4-5™ takes the fear out of the subject of marketing and gives you the tools to execute local marketing. Brian Ostrovsky has done an excellent job of laying out the steps to help you.

—Howard Behar, President Starbucks, retired

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Local Chambers have a unique role to play in supporting their businesses' marketing efforts, Marketing 3-4-5™ equips Chamber Execs and their members with actionable insights improve their marketing without significant effort or expense.

—Ed Burzminski, President and CEO of Chamber Marketing Partners

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A winning strategy that any small business can follow and see results over time. Brian Ostrovsky distills complex information in an easy-to-use framework.

—Joe Pulizzi, Founder, The Tilt and Author, Content Inc.

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Marketing 3-4-5™ takes the complexity out of marketing and provides you with straightforward and simple tools that get results! Most importantly it doesn’t require a lot of time. We rank higher on Google and our business has grown exponentially… Thank you Brian and team for making marketing easy for small businesses and organizations!

—Kathy Fargo, First Choice Signs

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Wow! Marketing 3-4-5™ is literally everything I want to articulate to our local merchants, but you’ve explained it in a way that’s so thorough, yet easily digestible!

—Amy Petrie, Director of Development & Communications, Stand Up For Salem

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This book has the answers to both of the big marketing questions: What to do first? and Why is it that important? This is a quick, but complete overview into the what and why of digital and content marketing for the local business owner.

—Andy Crestodina, Co-founder and CMO, Orbit Media

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Marketing 3-4-5™ should be required reading for anyone just getting started in their marketing efforts and for those seasoned SMBs who have found themselves struggling with bringing new clients – the right clients – through the door.

—Rick Brown, CEO, Rick Brown Communications

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The Marketing 3-4-5™ framework is a simple, easy to understand process that gives small business owners the basic tools they need to up their marketing game.

—Thomas Gregory, State Coordinator, Mississippi Main Street Association

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Marketing 3-4-5™ is an essential framework for improving how your organization or community share their unique stories and build TRUE COMMUNITY among all residents.

—Ben Levenger, President, Downtown Redevelopment Services

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I found the book to be an interesting stream of consciousness on marketing that any business owner would find useful. It also rips the bandage off SMBs' increasing reliance on social media without truly understanding its strengths and weaknesses. I'd recommend it to any business owner or novice marketer as a book that can help adjust a company's marketing course in the right direction.

—Gordon Borrell, CEO, Borrell Associates

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"Marketing 3-4-5™ takes the mystery out of marketing, skips the buzz words and gives actionable tips and guidance to Main Street merchants looking to take their marketing outreach to a new and successful level.

When you complete the book, you'll have the confidence plus guidance on how to make your marketing efforts a resounding success."

—John Reetz, Journalist/digital transition consultant Media Solutions Partners

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I love the simple step-by-step actions given in this book. It makes it an easy read and easy to incorporate these changes in your marketing.

—Derek Lumsden, MSARP, CEO of Polished Productions Consulting

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This is a good basic guide to marketing as we know most small businesses know their product or service well but are usually not skilled in marketing, this can give them a good start to do the things that make sense to get their marketing ramped up.

—John Fugazzie, Founder of Helping-Brands.com

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Marketing 3-4-5™ breaks down the complexity of marketing and gives business owners the tools to take the first step towards an effective marketing strategy. I would recommend this book to anyone building their business or feeling overwhelmed with marketing.

—Natalie Davis, Digital Marketing Professional

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Brian Ostrovsky breaks down many of the various components of marketing, which can be a very complex topic and undertaking into easy to understand and executable bites. Marketing 3-4-5™ certainly belongs on every marketers bookshelf, or better yet, on your desk for quick and ready reference. This is a must read if you are serious about effective marketing.

—John Newby, Founder, Truly-Local, LLC

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In a world where effectively telling our story has become a critical element to the sustainability of our small businesses, Main Street programs, and communities, Marketing 3-4-5™ Simplifying Local Marketing will become your guidebook for local marketing success.

—Michael Wagler, Main Street Iowa State Coordinator

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This is the easy to understand, comprehensive, and actionable guide to marketing that I wish I'd had when I started my business in 2006. It would have saved me a lot of time, money, and frustration.

—Steve McCready, Coach & Psychotherapist

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In the era of online business and digital marketing gurus, the local physically located small business often gets left behind. Brian Ostrovsky … busts common myths that run rampant in the local business world, offers vital mindset reframes, calls business owners to actions with grounded votes of confidence, and offers clear, simple, and actionable advice to those who need it most. Highly recommended!

—Charlie Birch, Main Street Web Strategist, Third Eye Web Strategies

Marketing 3-4-5™

The Business Owner's Guide to Effective Local Marketing in 15-Minutes or Less

Brian Ostrovsky

R122 Publishing

© 2021 by Brian Ostrovsky

Portions of Marketing 3-4-5™: The Business Owner's Guide to Effective Local Marketing in 15-Minutes or Less contain excerpts of content authored by Brian Ostrovsky and may contain contributions from others, originally published at www.locable.com.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other - except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by R122 Publishing.

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ISBN 979-8-9850720-2-0 (ePub)

ISBN 979-8-9850720-1-3 (Kindle)

ISBN 979-8-9850720-3-7 (Audio)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021920473

ISBN ​​979-8-9850-7200-6

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Quantity discounts available to use as premiums and sales promotions or for use in training programs. To contact a representative, please visit www.marketing345.com

This book is dedicated to the small business owners who were honest in sharing their challenges with me, you provided insights that I could have never discovered without you.

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And to my kiddos, their silliness often provided inspiration for the more colorful examples in this book and makes the content of my talks more relatable, memorable, and hopefully, a little more fun.

Contents

Introduction

My Origin Story

The Local Marketing Plan

1. Effective Marketing is Something You Can Do

Marketing Myths, Misconceptions, and Half-Truths

What’s Stopping You?

2. Effective Marketing is More Important Today than it was 20 years ago

People Have Changed

The Balance of Power for Marketers Has Changed

You Have a Moral Obligation to Do Effective Marketing

3. The Marketing 3-4-5™ Framework

Making Better Marketing Decisions

3 Reasons for You to Do Marketing

4 Reasons People Choose to Work with You

5 Ways People Find You

4. The Role of Content in Modern Local Marketing

Examples Make the Best Content

There is No Magic in Anything

5. Marketing 3-4-5™ Content Distribution

All Content of Consequence™ Should Live on Your Website

Marketing 3-4-5™ Content Distribution Flow-Chart

6. Content Marketing Prompts Make Business Blogging a Breeze

The Universally Simple Local Blog Post Template

7. What Every Local Website Needs to be Effective

Website Page Considerations

Sitewide Website Considerations

Considerations When Introducing a New Website

8. Reach the Right People and Speak Their Language

Describe Your Ideal Customer

Generating and Promoting Customer Reviews

Describe Your Ideal Employee or Volunteer

How Are You Involved in the Community?

Delivering New Value for Your Ideal Customers

9. Parting Thoughts

Essays, Ideas, and Examples

Essay Contents

Automate Cross-Promotion and Support Local on Your Terms

Yes, You Really Do Need an Effective, Mobile-Friendly Website

Attract More of Your Ideal Customer by Talking About Existing Customers

Recognizing Partners and Businesses That Send You Referrals

Do You Use Your Website to Support Your Sales Efforts? Here's How You Can Do It...

5 Reasons You Should Add a Donation Request Page to Your Small Business Website

Why Email is Still Surprisingly Valuable

Do You Put Too Much Trust in Social Media, including Facebook and Instagram?

Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Business Owners

Some Things are Unknowable - The Fallacy of Attribution

What I Love About Local Media - Magazines, Newspapers, and Community Resource Websites

A Few Thoughts on Paid Media

A List of Marketing Power Words or High Emotion Trigger Words to Make an Impact

Ecommerce Notables

Marketing Your Franchise, Local Agency, or Licensee Business

Content Prompts Make Business Blogging Fast and Easy

Highlight a Creation or Project

Product Overviews, Unboxings or Staff Picks

Spotlight an Experience

Professional Services Example

Employee or Volunteer Recognition

Profile a Client or Customer Recognition

Profile a Cause or Nonprofit

Vendor, Partner or Business Recognition Spotlight

(Special Section) Network Marketing / Direct Sales

The 5 Types of Network Marketers

The Two Sales Problem

People Who Naturally Form Positive Habits Are the Most Successful

A Web Presence That Says YOU

Local Marketing & Content Plans

Creating Your Content & Marketing Plan

Suggested Additional Reading and Information

Additional praise for Marketing 3-4-5™

Acknowledgments

Notes

Implement Marketing 3-4-5™ with Locable

Introduction

Effective local marketing has always separated the most successful small businesses from everyone else. With the ongoing evolution of the Internet, new risks from competition, and changes in consumer behavior, many small business owners feel increasingly helpless and don’t know where to turn.

The proliferation of a winner-takes-all Internet means that effective marketers continue to grow as the rest struggle. With the pace of change unlikely to slow any time soon, the right approach can help calm the storm of uncertainty that you and your business face.

I’ve had the privilege to personally meet thousands of business owners across the country and I know that you don’t have a lot of time, money, expertise, or marketing experience and yet... you can effectively market your business by following the approaches contained in this book.

Marketing 3-4-5™ is designed to make every business owner - yes, even you - more effective at marketing by implementing simple 10-to-15-minute activities.

Marketing no longer has to be a major undertaking. You can now do your marketing during those quiet moments when you’re between meetings or when your store is empty.

So, why is marketing your business so important? Effective marketing gives you choices and helps you reach your goals:

The choice to grow your business,

The choice to staff up,

The choice to give back,

The choice to work less & spend more time with your family

The choice to sell your business...

I can’t tell you your why or define your goals but Marketing 3-4-5™ will enable you to move closer to your goals whatever they may be… while keeping your sanity in the process.

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What Can I Expect?

Throughout this book we’ll explore how to make better marketing decisions, the role of content distribution, and how to quickly and easily create impactful content so you can supercharge your efforts to maximize effectiveness without significant effort or expense.

Whether you’re looking exclusively at free marketing activities or you want to amplify your marketing efforts through paid advertising and promotion, Marketing 3-4-5™ will help you get the most out of your efforts so you and your community can #TakeBackLocal.

Note that I will often refer to Small Businesses, Business Owners, Small Business Owners, and sometimes just You. In all of these cases, I mean to include anyone involved with the operation of a business or nonprofit, Main Street Association leadership, Chamber of Commerce staff, or anyone responsible for or involved with local marketing.

If you’re reading this book, then I’m talking to you.

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How to Read This Book

I’ve endeavored to make this book as actionable as possible and an incredibly fast read. This means keeping some of the meatier explanations out of the main content so you’re not bogged down with added details.

There are 15 essays at the end of the book that go deeper into specific topics and I want to make it easy for you to jump back to read it for a more detailed explanation or examples.

As you’re reading you’ll see call-outs to Go Deeper >> followed by the first few words of the Essays title and its page number.

My Origin Story

Let’s start at the beginning so I can share with you what led me to start Locable and, ultimately, to develop Marketing 3-4-5™ and write this book... you might call it my origin story - you know, like the origin story superheroes have.

My journey began not with a radioactive spider bite but as a kid growing up in the old Gold Rush town of Placerville, California. It’s situated in the Sierra Nevada foothills. If you’ve ever driven from Sacramento to South Lake Tahoe on Highway 50 then you would recognize Placerville as the town with three stoplights on the interstate.

Placerville is your classic Main Street Community with historical roots and a Bell Tower in the middle of town; it even boasts the oldest Hardware Store West of the Mississippi aptly named Placerville Hardware.

In high school, I played football and baseball and each season we’d go store-to-store hanging our game schedules in the windows of local merchants. Their window was our billboard.

These sorts of seemingly small but meaningful memories of ‘home’ left a mark.

I remember watching as my friends and family who ran small businesses would struggle with marketing. Most didn’t even try and those who did kind of - well - they sucked at marketing. To be clear, their shortcomings related to marketing were in no way related to how well they did whatever it was that they did; they were just juggling a lot of balls in the air and marketing was usually the one that they’d drop first.

When the Internet came around, they would enthusiastically say things like, Look at all the ways I can market my business!