Looking for some small business marketing strategies that can help you succeed? Tune in to this wonderful and inspiring interview with Ms. Melanie Robinson.

Marketing Cafe owner, Melanie Robinson, is a guiding light for small business owners, no matter their challenges, no matter their budget. With an MBA and a passion for entrepreneurship, this Atlanta Marketing guru, along with her team of professionals at Marketing Cafe bring over 40 years of experience from major corporations, ad agencies and marketing firms. Her team will put their years of corporate experience to work for your small business and help you move to the next level.

Ms. Robinson believes real marketing success requires that a company understand your company at its core; who you are, your core values, your company’s personality and your short and long-term goals and expectations. Her company does this through a unique set of activities that translate into a four-step approach:

1. Educate: arm entrepreneurs with valuable knowledge by constantly educating them on the many layers of marketing.

2. Strategize: plan for success by developing sound marketing strategies that meet the needs of the business and are flexible enough to accommodate marketplace shifts.

3. Systemize: develop a marketing system to support the strategic vision and goals that is easy to follow, understand and measure.

4. Support: provide needed support and guidance via coaching and mentoring along the way.

Look for Ms. Melanie Robinson in the next edition of People You Need to Know!

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The mission of Festival Peachtree Latino is to serve as an integrating path between Hispanic audiences and businesses, fostering development, strengthening commercial relationships, and culturally responding to the modern and traditional activities of their community.

The first thing that is evident when arriving at Festival Peachtree Latino is its sheer size! Although a majority of visitors are Hispanic, people of all cultures attend Underground Atlanta to watch or participate in the festivities. This demonstrates that the Festival is an excellent resource to reach out to new customers. It is a great opportunity to showcase your products or services to all who attend, while enjoying a cultural experience of music, food and other exciting activities that the Festival has to offer.

Two stages featuring international performances, a parade, exhibition booths and an arts & crafts showcase are held in the Underground Atlanta area. In only 5 years, Festival Peachtree Latino has become a long awaited and ever-expanding event not only for Hispanics, but for the rest of our diverse community as well. The attendance has tripled from its beginning in 2000, to the present with a record of over 80,000 visitors in 2004.

Join us as we participate in this festive event on Sunday, August 23rd. For more information visit the Festival Peachtree Latino website!

When Facebook first came online back in 2004, I viewed it, as I know many other people did, as a personal communication site for the college age demographic. I remember my daughter telling me about being “face-booked” by a childhood friend who had moved away, or a former classmate who had gone to college in another state.

Due to their high accessibility and relative ease of use, more people began to utilize internet based sites to form relationships, not only for personal, but for political and business use as well. A shift was created in how people were locating, reading and sharing news, information and content. This union of sociology and technology has become known as social media. Facebook, one such social media site, has kept pace with and emerged as a global giant in this changing trend.

Facebook is free for individuals and businesses to join. The individual user sets up a “Profile” where they can share information about themselves, become “Friends” with other users, and there is even a chat feature for real-time communication. Each time a friend posts their status, new pictures, or an item of interest, it is visible to you through the news feed function.

Businesses can set up a Facebook “Page” which is publicly available and accessible for indexing by search engines. Businesses invite individuals to become a “Fan” of their page, and benefit from viral growth through the fan’s recommendation of the business to other friends. Through the news feed, businesses can push information out to their fan base. Any individual that is a friend of that fan, can also see the information the business distributes.

Other ways to form relationships and promote your business on Facebook include:

• Joining Networks which are based around a region, workplace or school;
• Joining or creating Groups relative to your industry or niche;
• Utilizing the Events application to broadcast an upcoming event or gathering;
• Creating your own fun Application that friends and fans can interact with, sponsored by your company;
• Purchasing targeted ads based on CPC or CPM basis (cost per clicks or impressions).

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Are you interested in making your small business look like a million dollar company? Renee Atkins Harris, President of Sound Impact Publicity can help. She has appeared in Vibe Magazine, Jet, Black Hair, BRE, USA Magazine and a multitude of print publications to spread the word about marketing and publicity. She is the first female to produce and publish an audio book titled, My Back Against The Wall “Working in the Music Industry”.

The audio book delivers motivation, inspiration and life skills to women working in the music industry. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Inc. Her mission is to concentrate on building strong communities by empowering women in the industry and networking to build sound partnerships while creating immeasurable concepts that will set the standard far above the competition.

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Lori A. Manns has been a marketing and sales professional for over 20 years. Prior to founding Quality Media Consultant Group, she was Senior Account Manager for CBS Radio-Atlanta for 13 years. Ms. Manns also has career sales and marketing experience with Cox Radio-Atlanta, WYHY Radio-Nashville, Superior Cable, The Women’s Yellow Pages and The Democratic National Convention.

Ms. Manns is an expert at developing multi-media marketing and advertising campaigns designed to produce a profitable return on investment. She is an accomplished and skilled sales professional known for building key strategic partnerships both locally and nationally.

Ms. Manns has extensive experience developing key strategic marketing and advertising campaigns for Fortune 100 Companies. Her experience in selling radio, print, events, internet and cable TV provides her a wealth of knowledge in various mediums. In addition, she also has freelance media buying experience for small and large businesses in the top 100 U.S. markets.

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Marketing Cafe owner, Melanie Robinson, is a guiding light for small business owners, no matter their challenges, no matter their budget. With an MBA and a passion for entrepreneurship, this Atlanta Marketing guru, along with her team of professionals at Marketing Cafe bring over 40 years of experience from major corporations, ad agencies and marketing firms. Her team will put their years of corporate experience to work for your small business and help you move to the next level.

Ms. Robinson believes real marketing success requires that a company understand your company at its core; who you are, your core values, your company’s personality and your short and long-term goals and expectations. Her company does this through a unique set of activities that translate into a four-step approach:

1. Educate: arm entrepreneurs with valuable knowledge by constantly educating them on the many layers of marketing.

2. Strategize: plan for success by developing sound marketing strategies that meet the needs of the business and are flexible enough to accommodate marketplace shifts.

3. Systemize: develop a marketing system to support the strategic vision and goals that is easy to follow, understand and measure.

4. Support: provide needed support and guidance via coaching and mentoring along the way.

People You Need to Know proudly welcomes Ms. Melanie Robinson to the Network! Listen to her interview below.

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Are you ready to find out how Attraction Marketing can help your business grow? Tune in to Attraction Marketing Expert, Shalonda Gordon.

Ms. Gordon, also known as The Online Marketing Angel, coaches and trains individuals on how to grow their businesses online. She aims to place a smile on the face of each person she helps and strives to leave her clients motivated, knowledgeable, and focused on reaching their true potential! Follow Ms. Gordon on Twitter!

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Mr. Stanley B. Lemons, President of S.B. Lemons & Company is a graduate of Amherst College and the Anderson School at UCLA Graduate School of Business. He is a former Director of Global Marketing and Product Development at CitiCorp. Mr. Lemons has traveled extensively throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.

S. B. Lemons & Company is a marketing and international business strategy firm. Their company of experts can provide consulting services in the fields of marketing and international business strategy, marketing communications, website development, and language services. They are dedicated to helping their clients grow domestically or globally.

Does your marketing strategy need a boost? Tune in to Mr. Lemons’ interview and find out how you can polish up YOUR marketing strategy.

View the S.B. Lemons & Company website for a detailed overview of their consulting services and strategy training programs to grow your revenue and brand.

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We all have a personal brand. Is your brand powerfully positive or does it leave much to be desired?

Lethia Owens is a successful professional speaker and also one of the leading authorities on personal branding in America and beyond. We’re delighted that she took some time out of her busy schedule to grant us an interview on Spark Plug Radio.

Lethia has lived a resilient life even in the face of adversity. Despite seemingly hopeless odds, she knows what it means to achieve success. She elevated herself from being a teenage mother and high school dropout to graduating among the top of her high school class. In addition, she was awarded a Presidential Scholarship to attend Albany State University.

Her tenacious drive for excellence and her unwavering commitment to life long learning empowered her to rise in triumph over poverty and the limited thinking of people who told her she would never succeed.

Lethia Owens is the founder and CEO of a successful personal and organizational development firm based out of the St. Louis Metropolitan area.

You can read more about Lethia Owens here, but more important, listen to her powerful and thought-provoking message below on Personal Branding. It can inspire you to re-evaluate the way you do business, and help you exponentially improve your life!

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Nike, Coke, Dell, Microsoft and many other big name companies rely on their brand to keep them in the minds of buyers. But you don’t have to be a large company in order to benefit from the power of branding. Learn the basics about branding and why it’s so important for your business’ development, growth and longevity!

Designs In Motion, Inc. prides itself in delivering engaging brand identity, creative print media, commercial advertising, marketing, web development, web hosting and more. Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Michael McClellan’s professional career spans from commercial printing, interactive training and e-commerce development. Listen to the interview he granted on Spark Plug Radio and begin to take your business to the next level and beyond.

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Designs In Motion, Inc. prides itself in delivering engaging brand identity, creative print media, commercial advertising, marketing, web development, web hosting and more. Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Michael McClellan’s professional career spans from commercial printing, interactive training and e-commerce development.

Mr. McClellan is a graduate of The University of Tennessee where he received his B.S. degree in Graphic Design/Illustration.

People You Need to Know (PYNTK) proudly welcomes Lisa Nicole Cloud to the Network!

Lisa Nicole Cloud, CEO of Elite Marketing Strategies, has greatly influenced the industry of Direct Sales and Professional Networking. She received her undergraduate education in Atlanta, Georgia, at Emory University where she was a Psychology/Pre-med major. She did her graduate work at Johns Hopkins University and successfully completed their prestigious Leadership Development Program.

Over the last several years, Lisa has conducted several hundred high-energy leadership speeches and sales seminars throughout the US and abroad in which she impacted and trained thousands of representatives in areas of Direct Sales, Personal Development and Professional Networking. She has provided consulting services in the area of Marketing Strategy development and implementation and Organizational development for companies in various business sectors such as Healthcare, Sports Entertainment, Information Systems, Pharmaceuticals, and Telecommunications, just to name a few.

Don’t let her small stature fool you, Lisa is a Little Dynamo. Dynamic, Captivating, Charismatic, Passionate, and Genuine, are often terms that have been used to describe her.

Lisa’s mission in life is to help people identify their God given talents so they can do more, be more, achieve more and impact their community in a positive way. She motivates and inspires her audiences by consistently bringing real life experiences to her presentations and trainings. Lisa shows audiences the power of dreams and reveals the simple keys to turning them into realities. Her message is simple, “Your Attitude in Life, determines your Altitude in life” - period.

Listen Now:

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Ads of the World is an online archive of the best and most thought-provoking advertisements from across the world. I stumbled upon this particular post on their site. Since we kicked off our People You Need to Know Celebrity Tour on yesterday at the College Expo, I thought it was fitting and proper to remind others about the difference between Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, and Branding.

In the business climate we’re in today, becoming a celebrity through branding will definitely give you an edge. Thanks to all of our clients who came out to sign autographs at our kick-off! Guess who the people will probably call first when they’re looking for a new dentist, real estate agent, attorney, accountant, etc. The business celebrity will always be heard first through a clutter of advertising messages.

At People You Need to Know, Inc., we are extremely dedicated to promoting positive images via print, trade shows and the web. During this month of February, we are especially proud to promote some of the people in our network. Though our publication cannot undo the damage of all the years that negative stereotypes have done, we are still committed to making a positive contribution in our own way.

Physical copies of our publication have already been mailed all around the U.S., to England, Africa, Asia, and Dubai. Our efforts are great, and it can be quite expensive to make a big impact; that’s why we’re so excited about continuing our work using digital images!

Feel free to browse through the publication and share it with a friend.

I’ve been a busy little bee! This year, we’ve given our entire publication a facelift. We’re excited about picking up our personal copies on Tuesday. Distribution will begin on Friday. I’m working on the online version, so please be patient. The crowd and the President both occupy the center of our publication. I’ll officially introduce our second cover later.

I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who participated in making our 2009 publication a huge success. We held up our release date so that we could include our new President, Barack Obama.

As always, I’m honored to be a part of a company that is dedicated to providing the best exposure for business owners and professionals in the metro Atlanta area.

Most of all, I appreciate the readers who support the business owners which we promote. Because of you, we are able to continue our tradition of inspiring a new generation of business professionals through positive images.

May you have the best year ever!

Still moving forward,

Jacqueline Benjamin-Thomas

We’re gearing up for the hottest event in Atlanta!

V-103’s For Sisters Only will be held on September 13th and 14th, at the Georgia World Congress Center. This year, they’re expecting 50,000 people to attend.

We’ve already reserved our booth space and we’re looking forward to promoting some of our top business celebrity clients.

Scheduled to appear…

• Dr. Gloria Campbell D’Hue, Atlanta’s Dermatologist to the Stars
• Veda Wood, The Real Estate Selling Machine
• Leron Rogers, Atlanta’s Top Entertainment Attorney
• Vanessa AllenWhite, “Atlanta’s Vanna” (Realtor)
• Dr. Nedra Dodds, “Your Beauty Partner”
• Donald P. Edwards, “The Community Minded Attorney”
• Kevin Turner, “Your Personal Wealth Navigator”
• Dr. Danielle Wilson, Developer of Kissable Toothpaste
• Dr. Frenesa Hall, “The Doctor Who Comes to You”
• Dr. Anisa Hailey, Creator of Celebrity Smiles
• LaShawn Parker, “The Foreclosure Specialist”
• Dr. Chanda Culmer, Atlanta’s Dentist with the Delicate Touch
• Sharon Mathis, “Atlanta’s Insurance Expert” …and many more…

Over 300 exhibitors will be there to showcase their wares and sell their goods and services. In addition, this 2-day marketing extravaganza will include celebrity entertainment, cultural enrichment, seminars, food and family fun! You don’t want to miss this exciting event!

Look for the People You Need to Know giant Front Cover display and drop by to say hello. We look forward to seeing you there!

Lisa Nicole Cloud, CEO of Elite Marketing Strategies, has greatly influenced the industry of Direct Sales and Professional Networking. She received her undergraduate education in Atlanta, Georgia, at Emory University where she was a Psychology/Pre-med major. She did her graduate work at Johns Hopkins University and successfully completed their prestigious Leadership Development Program.

Over the last several years, Lisa has conducted several hundred high-energy leadership speeches and sales seminars throughout the US and abroad in which she impacted and trained thousands of representatives in areas of Direct Sales, Personal Development and Professional Networking. She has provided consulting services in the area of Marketing Strategy development and implementation and Organizational development for companies in various business sectors such as Healthcare, Sports Entertainment, Information Systems, Pharmaceuticals, and Telecommunications, just to name a few.

Don’t let her small stature fool you, Lisa is a Little Dynamo. Dynamic, Captivating, Charismatic, Passionate, and Genuine, are often terms that have been used to describe her.

Lisa’s mission in life is to help people identify their God given talents so they can do more, be more, achieve more and impact their community in a positive way. She motivates and inspires her audiences by consistently bringing real life experiences to her presentations and trainings. Lisa shows audiences the power of dreams and reveals the simple keys to turning them into realities. Her message is simple, “Your Attitude in Life, determines your Altitude in life” - period.

Listen to Lisa’s inspirational interview and discover how she became a woman of purpose, passion and vision!

Listen Now:

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Lions have gotten some great PR over the years; so much so, most people believe they are the King of Jungle. The truth of the matter is, they mostly inhabit grassy plains called savannas.

But what I’d like to focus on is the fact that they live the largest part of their lives in territorial groups called prides or in our business language, a network. They are the only permanently social, or group-living cat; all other cats are solitary…which brings me to my next point.

Our People You Need to Know Grass Roots Publicity Tour has revealed to us that the one-man band marketing approach is down to its last song. We realize most people wouldn’t see the fault in this one-man band approach because of our individualistic culture. Still…this marketing technique is not as effective in today’s “less trusting” business climate.

We promote an array of businesses in our publication and our clients don’t have to be at the Business Expo because we’re representing them. We’re all there as a team. The one-man band’s one-pager or business card gets lost in the shuffle compared to a first-class publication, which has more power than a solitary business card or one-pager.

My advice would be to find an organization that’s committed to promoting your business in a variety of ways, but above all else, make sure they promote teamwork via a publication, brochure, newsletter, networking event, etc. In the end, the “orchestra” has a better chance of succeeding than the one-man band.

No one is going to know your business exists unless YOU tell them about it, render the type of service and quality to get others talking about it or pay someone else to get the word out for you. And the quickest way to do that is to invest - yes, invest - in advertising. But where should you advertise and how much of it should you do? How much should you spend? How often should you advertise? What form should it take?

Lots of questions. Let’s look at some of the answers. And please note: Every advertising plan is unique, so these answers are just possibilities - suggestions - and should not be construed as YOUR plan. You will need to investigate the possibilities for your product and your target market and come up with your own plan before you begin.

Where you advertise depends on your type of business and the area you want to cover. You might choose local magazines and newspapers, or publications that are distributed free at local supermarkets and other retail and private outlets. You might also consider radio spots or press releases to augment print ads.

However, if your business or idea could be of interest to people nationwide, you might consider purchasing ads in vehicles that reach a wider market; sending press releases to newspapers and other publications throughout the US; or developing an Internet website or blog to reach clients who are hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away.

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