Dive Deeper:  Marketing Tips

Most small-business owners, especially those starting out, don’t have lots of money to spend on marketing. While the old saying— you need to spend money to make money — is true, you can still generate new business without having to spend a lot of money. Try a few of these tactics for a start:

• Focus on relationship-building marketing strategies such as networking, building alliances with other businesses, and calling old customers, friends, and people you once worked with.
• Find people who are prepared to help you with marketing on a commission basis or a university student who’s studying marketing and might need some hands-on experience.
• Develop a marketing mastermind group with other small-business owners for the purpose of sharing low-cost marketing ideas and referring each other business.
• Sharpen your own online marketing skills and learn how to use Google AdWords and write blogs, and market yourself on the social media sites.
• Promote your business on free online directories and publish your articles on other websites with links to your site.

Warning: Don’t jump straight into low-cost (or no-cost) tactics without getting the basics right first — plan your marketing strategy, understand your target market, and polish up your product.

Essential Tools for a Good Business

If you’re armed with the marketing essentials you can’t help but succeed in attracting new prospects and bringing in more business. Spend some time on getting your marketing toolkit in place and be prepared at all times.

Here are a few items to pack into your marketing toolkit:

• A plan and a budget: Getting a plan that will support you for years to come is essential to keep you on track. It doesn’t need to be as thick as a dictionary, but it does need to be written down, clearly communicated to your team, and acted on day by day — even when business is booming.
• A great product or service: Advertising your business has no point if the customers don’t want, value, or love what you have to offer. Make sure you do your research and listen to your customers before sending your product out to the market.
• A professional brand: A brand is much more than a logo. It encompasses everything people see, hear, think, and feel about your business. Invest up-front in developing a brand that stands out from the crowd. It’ll save you money and heartache in the long run.
• Powerful marketing materials: Your business card, sales brochures, sales letters, website, signage, uniforms, and car decal speak volumes about your business. Make sure they look professional and appealing at all times.
• An elevator pitch: In the course of marketing your business you’ll get asked thousands of times ‘What do you do?’ Don’t make the mistake of boring the poor person who asked the question. Make sure you have a fun, interesting, and memorable pitch ready at all times — and be able to deliver it in the time it takes to travel a few floors in an elevator.
• A brilliant website: Your website must attract attention and give value to those who visit. Use it as a tool to retain and keep in touch with existing customers as well as for enticing new customers. The online world can be very scary to many small-business owners, but, if you don’t embrace it, you may find yourself out of business.
• A simple database: The backbone of all good marketing is about building a solid database of past, present, and future customers (prospects) so you can keep in touch and communicate regularly via e-newsletters, emails, and phone.