Archives for December 2012

Welcome back for Part 2.  If you’re ready, willing and able to kick your small business marketing and advertising up a notch then sit back, grab a cup a’ joe and make some mental notes because this is some great stuff.

There is no excuse for low-grade promotional materials when you’re in business for yourself.  Your cards, brochures, flyers, letterheads and even the packaging material that you use to send products to your customers all need to be first class all the way.

If you’re worried about the high cost of printing but you still want to go color you can use a screen print to make it appear as if there are different colors when in reality all the colors are the same but at different tints. This can be done for anything printed, and it should be printed ion high quality paper.  The fact is, these promotional materials are sometimes the 1^st impression that a person get of your company and, if you’re using cheap materials, guess what people are going to think?

Speaking of promotional materials your business card is one of the most important that you have.  If you can make it a mini-brochure and stuff it with all the pertinent info that you can you’ll see that it can and does deliver.  If you want you can even use it as a promo-card and put a discount on it for people who bring it to you at your location. There is a famous car salesman story that talks about a guy who used to take his cards, with a discount offer on the back, to football games and throw them by the handful off of the upper decks during the game.

One of the most vital things you need to do is to thank people for their business or their referral.  Sending a thank you card, flowers, a gift certificate, anything that says how grateful you are that they made a purchase or sent someone that did.  There is nothing better to create an affinity for your business in your community than to tell people how much you appreciate them.

Finally there’s one thing that you can and should do to be the best in your business; copy what the best do and do it too. The fact is that as long as you don’t break any copyright rules you can copy anything that your competitor does and, if you analyze what they’re doing well enough, you may even be able to do it better.

If you’re a small business owner today then you better know how to market your business or you’re not going to be in business for very long.  There are, to be sure, many different things and tasks that you need to perform on a regular if not daily basis.  Do them and, with time, diligence and patience, you’ll see your client base increase as well as your revenues.

One of the most imperative tasks that you need to accomplish when you’re in business for yourself is to know who your customers are.  No, we don’t mean that you should know Bob or Mary and their family member by name, we mean that in general you should know what you’re selling and who your ideal customer is.  Knowing what type of person will be interested in your product or service, why they would want what you are selling and what their motivation would be is key to being able to give them what they want. The simple fact is that you can’t start selling anything until you’ve defined your product and positioned it correctly in the public’s eye.

One of the best direct marketing concepts still today, even with all the internet and social media hoopla, is postcards.  They deliver a sense of urgency to your potential customers, have a much higher read-rate than letters, and can help you keep a lid on your mailing list. Not only that but they can be seen by others who may happen upon then in someone’s home as they’re very visible.

Another excellent way to build affinity for your brand and promote it at the same time is to print and send a survey to all of your existing customers. This goes back to knowing your customers and, with a survey, you can find out who they are in as much depth as you like.  You can ask where do they work and what type of jobs do they have, what types of things they do for recreation and what magazines and TV shows they watch.  This info can give you an excellent idea about what they’re looking for from you and, if you want a great response, you can give them a discount offer for helping you out by completing the survey.

There are a lot of other Tips that we’d like to share with you so come on back for Part 2 and bring a pen and paper.

As a small business owner there are many ways to market your business that won’t break the bank but will provide a great revenue push for your company.  Many of these can be implemented for a very reasonable cost and will generate leads and revenue quickly. Below you’ll find a handful of the best that we’ve seen over the years.  Read them and use them well to build your small business.

One of the worst things that small business owners do is try to advertise like big companies.  The simple fact is that this can’t be done on a small budget.  Better to design what advertising you can afford to produce sales right away. Great offers are still one of the best ways to increase sales dramatically and should be included in everything that you send out into the public’s eye.

If you’re losing sales because your product is high-end and expensive you may want to consider offering a scaled-down, low-cost version for those that are hesitant to spend the money you need to make on the top of the line model.  The truth is, if you have a great product with all the bells and whistles you can still make sales to those that can’t afford it by taking away some of those bells and whistles and giving them a more basic model.

The opposite of this of course is to offer a premium product or service for those that are looking for the best and are willing (and able) to pay for it.  You can boost sales significantly this way and of course your total revenue by offering premium or combining services into a premium package. The last thing that you want to do is lose sales because someone felt that your product wasn’t as good as they needed it to be when in fact it is.

Lastly you can trim the size of your advertising. If what you’re getting now is costing too much trim it down and make it sharper and leaner. In many cases a smaller, easier to read ad will do better than a longer, more convoluted ad.  You can also stretch your advertising budget by running 2 smaller ads instead of 1 large ad.

The truth is that, as a small business owner, you need to constantly be on your toes and looking for new ways to generate interest and affinity for your brand.  It may be cliché but thinking outside the box, especially when it comes to advertising and marketing, is something you need to focus on every day.