This is part of a series called "The Entrepreneurs on Marketing," where I'm talking with entrepreneurs about their strategies for marketing and promoting their businesses.  In this interview, I caught up with Mary Beth Wells of the Precious Baby Doll Company.

Regarding your approach to marketing, push or pull?

For me, it would have to be push.  I think that you need to push your product for it to be seen.  You need to keep it alive.  If it's talking to a group of friends, having a party, for me it's when I take my little girls, we always take the dolls to the mall.  We're stopped constantly.  Something like that, where it's going to be in front of somebody.  You want that to happen.  It needs to go beyond your website, so it would be push for me.

What do you think about branding?

I think branding is really important.  I think it's really a valuable aspect of advertising.  Brand is the image of your product.  For me, my brand is in the name.  It's descriptive.  It's Precious Baby Doll Company.  You have no idea how many hundreds, if not thousands, of times people have said to me, "These dolls are so precious," not even thinking of the correlation.  I've had people stop me when we've had the dolls out, not even knowing about my company, "Oh my gosh, they are so precious," so I think it's a really key thing.  I think it's very important.

How important do you think personality is when it comes to building and marketing your business?

I think personality is a very strong element in building a business.

What are your top three ways to promote your business?

I do Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook.  I have sent tons of emails out to different adoption groups, different mom groups.  I have fliers that I've printed that I will hand out or carry with me when I go to the mall or out to dinner and we have one of the dolls, because people will invariably say, "Where can I get one of these?"  Have some information available for when people do ask that, a business card or some type of information that you can give to them.

Marketing and advertising is key, but I'm in a bit of a Catch-22 right now.  There's not enough people that know about my productyet , and I've put so much money into the dolls that I really need to have more word of mouth and spread the word myself before I can put more money into the marketing and advertising part.  You have to do a lot of legwork on your own.  You have to keep it going.

What have been your keys to success when it comes to growing your online audience?

This is something you have to be dedicated to putting time into every day.  You have to be out on Twitter and LinkedIn.  I took a Twitter course, and I did get orders from Twitter this year.  You can go out to blogs.  There are people who evaluate products all the time, so you send out your product to them, and they write a review on it.  You just want all of these little feelers, kind of like octopus legs, reaching out through the Internet.  It's diligence that makes your numbers grow.

Any final thoughts on marketing a business?

Just make sure that your product is the quality that you want it to be and that you give excellent customer service.