Does your store hit a low every summer, right before the back-to-school season begins? Raegan Michelle Medeiros found her business, John Michael's Music, in this position mid-summer—no cash and no customers walking through the door. She needed to hold a sales event with no budget. If this sounds familiar, find out how she increased her sales by "975 percent"—and gained new customers.

John Pedersen of Pedersen's Band and Orchestra first used QR codes as a promotional tool on his company's student band folders. Since then, he's seen his store's mobile app usage more than double—and he's gotten his message out to as many as 2,000 students daily. Learn about Pedersen's band-folder promotion, along with several other simple but creative uses for QR codes that have helped promote his music retail business.

My first exposure to QR codes was three years ago at a convention in Fresno, Calif. My wife and I had a booth to promote a new side business: our own brand of instrument care kits. During the convention, one of my reps dropped by and showed me how QR codes worked on his iPhone. Little did I know they were going to be an easy and inexpensive way to promote what we were already doing.

Social media. Smartphones. Tablets. Internet access everywhere, all the time. There's a point when technology shifts from being a trend to becoming a disruption in daily business. Yet another point comes when consumer behavior starts to shift, and we're presented with an important decision: Either we embrace this change or we don't. Digital marketing guru Brian Solis explains how. Watch the video.

Sure, there are marketing resources out there for businesses like yours, but you don’t know where to start and what exactly to do. Plus, people are still worrying about the economy and things haven't really gotten that much better it seems.

Marketing tools and technologies are constantly emerging and changing. This session shows you where to invest, what to test and when to let-it-rest when it comes to marketing to your customers. Learn the best ways to spend your time and money—and recognize the new technologies that are less likely to pay off.

David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist and Bestselling Author of "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" and "Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead"

Want to attract more customers to your store? Want the customers who do visit your store to purchase more products? Want to accomplish this without spending money? Learn how to effectively merchandise your store to attract your customer’s attention, interest and desire to own the products that you offer.

Join John Pedersen, aka Hornsmasher John, as he shares what he’s done to build his business through creating YouTube videos and products. John is seeing the results of his efforts with the start of each new school year. His YouTube videos have over 50,000 views, at 300–400 per day!

Presented by Cris Behrens, Summerhays Music