
In this lecture you write the exact words for the three moments that cost a small business customers.
This course is built from six disciplines: brand strategy, channels and promotion, customer research, the funnel and selling copy, sales technique, and marketing leadership.
The map of the course
A dictionary for reading lectures from other fields as your own marketing
Three questions to ask after every lecture
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Plain Words Script and write your own version of each line.
Tools in this lecture
Files to download (1)
Who owns the brand when the company is small
The six layers of a brand, and which layer each decision belongs to
A map of thirty-plus AI tools arranged by task
Brand equity, and why a strong brand multiplies sales
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Models and methods explained (4)
Internal and external audit in five blocks, run in a day rather than months
Competitive analysis of what rivals actually claim
How ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini currently describe your company
Awareness, consideration, share of search and net promoter score
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (6)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (1)
Models and methods explained (1)
Mission and values written so you can use them in copy
Branded house against house of brands
One positioning statement turned into six repeatable messages
Naming, and checking availability before you commit
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (15)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (3)
Models and methods explained (3)
Logo, colour, typography and image style
Moodboards and illustration produced with generative models
Teaching an AI model to write in your tone of voice
The brand book, and copyright around generated assets
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (12)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (3)
Models and methods explained (3)
Big idea, creative, channels and activation
Thirty concepts in an hour, then discarding twenty-nine
Headlines, body copy and calls to action with AI as co-author
Organic, paid, press, influencers and partnerships in one mix
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (1)
Models and methods explained (4)
Awareness, consideration, preference and loyalty as four separate numbers
Social listening that runs without you
Monitoring how AI assistants mention your brand
A ninety-day plan
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (14)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (5)
Models and methods explained (4)
Running promotion end to end when you are the department
Launching a site that works as the entry point
Gamification at the moment of first contact
Building a community, with a case from Wargaming
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (5)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (4)
Models and methods explained (5)
Platforms and chat channels
Referrals as the cheapest channel you have
Tracking systems and chatbots
Building the programme, with a case from Google
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (14)
Models and methods explained (1)
Email as a channel you own outright
Content marketing, video marketing and search optimisation together
Writing copy that gets read, and choosing images
A case from iDeals
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (7)
Search advertising
Analytics set up before the money is spent
Remarketing and its formats
Launching a first campaign, with cases
Tools in this lecture
Services and apps shown in this lecture (2)
Models and methods explained (2)
Paid social advertising
LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X, one at a time
Setting up pages everywhere
Cases
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (9)
Analytics for a small operation
Cost per result, and time to result
The source and the quality of the people who came
A report you can run every month
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (5)
What a survey answers, and what it never will
The most common study types
Automation tools
Market benchmarks worth comparing against
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (4)
Satisfaction, loyalty and engagement studies
Experience and value proposition studies
Pulse studies, and when short beats thorough
The rest of the catalogue
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (6)
Models and methods explained (1)
Question types, and how the type changes the answer
Scales, response options and length
Open questions: worth the cost of analysing them or not
Platforms, and building one from scratch
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (3)
Models and methods explained (1)
Setting the task before writing a single question
Design that does not exhaust the respondent
Promoting the questionnaire like a small campaign
Reminders that work without irritating anybody
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (6)
Models and methods explained (3)
Formats, and which chart types earn their space
Which sections get read
Analysing open answers and free text
Recommendations rather than observations
Tools in this lecture
Files to download (4)
Ready to use on the slides (4)
What the data supports, and what it does not
Planning actions against findings
Interim studies to check whether anything moved
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
Models and methods explained (2)
An audit of the system you currently have
The key indicators worth tracking
The journey map
What a funnel actually tells you, and what people misread in it
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (5)
Models and methods explained (2)
How to analyse a funnel stage by stage
Attraction techniques: FAB, AIDA, SPIN
Finding the bottleneck
Turning a funnel into a flywheel that keeps turning
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (6)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (1)
Models and methods explained (3)
The power of copywriting, and text that raises conversion
Writing to people who never asked to hear from you
The role of emotion in a sale
Why people disappear after the first contact
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (22)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (2)
How to build the conversation rather than pitch into it
Why feedback matters even when the answer is no
Analysing every phase of contact and building selling into it
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (20)
Models and methods explained (1)
A strategy when your price is the weak point
A strategy when nobody has heard of you
Dealing with negative reviews on social media and rating sites
What to do when the right customers simply are not there
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Models and methods explained (2)
The power of a personal brand in outreach
How many messages to send before you stop, and what each should say
Automating the sending and the tracking
Writing in messengers, and handling hostility
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (32)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (6)
The role of selling in a business, and the stages of a sale
Understanding a buyer's needs and motives
Creating the value proposition
Building trust and a relationship that outlives one deal
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (11)
Models and methods explained (3)
Acquisition channels online and offline
Researching the audience and building a customer avatar
Cold calls, messages and emails with examples
Social platforms, networking and events
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (9)
Models and methods explained (10)
The main techniques and methods
Active listening, and identifying what the customer actually needs
Presenting the offer: the points that matter
Handling objections, and the psychology of closing
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (11)
Models and methods explained (7)
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
504 tools for small business marketing in one course: 5 downloadable tool files, 336 ready-to-use templates, procedures, AI prompts, question lists and checklists, 105 models and methods, and 58 services and apps shown on screen.
Open a lecture, take the tool, use it on your own business.
Why small business marketing does not pay back
A small business has no marketing department and no room for an expensive mistake. The owner posts when there is time, pays for an ad when sales drop and cannot say which channel brought the last ten customers. Advice written for large brands does not fit: there is no agency, no research budget and no team to run a campaign.
What changes after this course
You say in one sentence who you are for and why you. Your site, your emails and your posts repeat the same message. You know which two or three channels are worth your time and what a lead costs in each. You ask customers what they want before you build it. You follow up with people who went silent and turn conversations into sales. And you keep a short plan with a budget and numbers you check every month.
What is inside: 504 tools, counted file by file
You do not have to take this number on trust. Open any lecture and read its description: every tool inside is listed there by name.
Where the tools are
Some sections were first built for employer brand and recruiting, so part of the examples in them comes from hiring. The tools work the same way for customers.
Who is teaching
I am Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy, with 1,800,000+ course enrollments from 170,000 students, and the author of about 200 books on Amazon. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn and worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank across 20 years in HR. I hold PHRi, SHRM-CP and HCI sHRBP certifications and represent HRCI in Eastern Europe. I am also a founder and lead the strategy of my own academy.
When we started our courses, I kept thinking about who my student is and what this person looks like. I had an image in my head, and it was much easier to talk to people when that image was there. I also know the buyer's side. Not long ago I watched stories on Instagram where people cleaned their pool, and I ordered exactly the same filter sand from the same sellers at once, because I saw that it works. Nobody called me and nobody pushed. That is what small business marketing should do: show a result that works and let the customer come.
How to use the course
Start with the Start Here lecture and its worksheet. Then go by your current task: brand, channels, research, sales or planning. Section and lecture titles show how many tools are inside, and each lecture description lists them by name.
What is included
Where to start
Open the Start Here lecture, download the plain words script and write how you bring customers today in three sentences. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.