7 Best Marketing Ideas For Small Business

Marketing Ideas For Small Business – Who, What Why, How, Where, And When

Rudyard Kipling’s six honest serving men are great guides through the marketing minefield. Who are you going to sell to? What is your ideal client like? What do they need? Why do they need it? When? How will you provide it and where? Narrow each of these answers down and focus on where your ideal customers hang out. Now you have a clear idea of where you should put your marketing messages and how to communicate them most effectively.

Marketing Ideas For Small Business – Good Is No Longer Good Enough

You going to need to be outstanding in some way to get noticed in today’s crowded marketplace. The Impact Equation by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith defines this as ‘contrast’. One way of being outstanding is instead of thinking about marketing as a separate activity, to provide the best customer service as a marketing strategy. This means making yourself stand out by going the extra mile for your customers. This sounds daunting, but it can be done by breaking down your customer buying experience into stages and working out the best way to communicate with the customer at each stage. Write down the process to ensure your approach stays consistent as your business grows.

Marketing Ideas For Small Business – The Question Is ‘How Much Do You Want To Grow?’

You need to be focused and you need a marketing plan. First list your existing customers and work out for each the amount of current sales for the coming year. A month-by-month approach works well. Now comes the fun part. How much do you plan to earn from new customers? Your new customers should fit your ideal customer profile. How many of these new customers do you need each month to reach this goal? How much will they spend? You have already worked out where they hang out. Now you are focused on how you are going to achieve your marketing plan.

Marketing Ideas For Small Business- Leave Your Ego At The Door

Your best marketing strategy is to put your customers first. It’s all about them. Make sure that you focus on them in all your communications. What are your needs? How can I help you? They are not interested in you, only what you can do for them. In his book ‘7 Secrets Of Highly Effective Marketing’, Richard Lomax talks about ‘direct response marketing’, which means that before you invest any time or money in a specific activity, you must ask yourself: “How are we going to accurately measure the response?” Simple measuring mechanisms include a unique phone number to ring, a promotional code, or a web page for people to visit.

Marketing Ideas For Small Business – How To Get Your Prospects To Come To You

Part of your best marketing strategy involves branding yourself as an expert in your niche market. You are an expert, your customers need to believe that too. Then they will start coming to you. In his book ‘Growing Your Service Firm’, Robert Craven writes that an expert has 7 characteristics and how to develop them. This involves focusing on your unique USP which will make you stand out and then writing, speaking, knowing the right people, possessing a good website and database, having an expertise or an ‘ology’, and making the best use of testimonials and endorsements.

Following this through to your online presence also requires effort. This is good news for small businesses as once you have established your website, many of the methods are free.

Marketing Ideas For Small Business – Being Simply Irresistible

You need to make it so irresistible for a targeted new customer or client to buy from you for the very first time, that they will find it impossible not to. Does that sound expensive? Not when you consider the lifetime value of that loyal customer. How are you going to keep them?

Marketing Ideas For Small Business – ‘Best Friend Forever’ Policy

Just like a close personal friendship or partnership, you must respect and nurture your relationship with your customers if you hope to harvest the best results from it. Be their trusted adviser. Communicate good news, and keep in touch just like you would with a best friend. This will make it impossible for your customers to want to look elsewhere for the services or products you offer.