Zero-G Creative

My New Year’s Small Business Marketing Count-Up

Jan 03 2008

Everyone’s been counting down for the last couple of weeks… Top 10 of this, top 100 of that. I thought it might be nice to do something different and count up my top five tips for small business marketing success in 2008.

1. Start an email newsletter. Every small business owner has a rolodex, portfolio or outlook database FULL of email addresses, probably 200-500 or more including customers, partners, vendors, prospects, colleagues, friends and family. How often are you communicating with them? Email is low maintenance, low cost (many email marketing solutions cost less than $30 a month) and helps you stay in front of people that may only hear from you a couple of times a year otherwise. Remember, it’s a lot easier to sell to and get referrals from people you know… And this doesn’t have to be a bhuge time commitment if you don’t want it to be. Your email doesn’t have to be weekly or even monthly, but it should be regular.

2. Narrow your focus. We all make mistakes and every business owner has at one time or another introduced a new product or service that just wasn’t profitable. The New Year is a great time to retire old or otherwise unprofitable services and focus more of your efforts on the products that are making you money. Going to market with a handful of great products makes a much better statement than having a dozen mediocre ones. And, as an added benefit, your marketing message will probably get a lot more clear and concise with a more focused offering.

3. Be original. Every business, just like every person is a little different. But within individual industries — especially in closed, regional or “niche” industries— something funny happens. Company A in a particular business will do something; maybe start a new promotion, put together a new package or change their prices and everyone else in the business will start to follow. Not because anything forced them, just because they feel that in order to compete with Company A, they also need a new promotion, package or pricing strategy. It’s a strange form of self-inflicted peer pressure I call “parroting.” And, over time, it can chew away a lot of the idiosyncrasies that make businesses unique. Nobody ever stood out in a crowd by being the same. That’s because people don’t notice “sameness”, we’re programmed to notice “differences”, the things that are inconsistent with our expectations. Most people would probably be hard-pressed to tell me the difference between a Toyota and a Honda or the difference between a Dell and an HP. But you could tell me the difference between a Honda and a Ferrari or a Dell and an Apple.

Don’t hide the things that make your business different from everyone else you compete with, accentuate them and get noticed.

4. Be consistent. We form long-term relationships with people that are always there for us, people that we can talk to and expect a certain type of response. But odds are you broke up with that crazy girlfriend or boyfriend that was always running hot and cold; telling you they loved you one day but acting like you didn’t exist the next. We feel the same way about brands and the companies we do business with. We keep the companies that we can trust, that are always telling us the same thing and acting the same way. We get rid of the ones that jerk us around, that shower us with attention during the sales process but then don’t return our phone calls for two weeks when we’re actual clients; we get rid of the ones that are always changing their minds about who they are and what they can do for us. Take the time and develop a story that you can stick to. Figure out what your brand is about and what you should be saying, and stick with it. Your customers will appreciate it.

5. Be a go-getter. It’s a sobering reality, but success as a small business owner isn’t easy to come by. In fact, many of us are destined to fail. How many depends on who you ask. I’ve heard a lot of people put the failure rate of small businesses somewhere around 80% — the kind of grim odds that might make a rational person want to take up safer hobbies like playing Russian Roulette or scaling Mount Everest for example. Here’s the good news… I did some research on this online and it sounds like the 80% may be an urban myth and many out there seem to feel that the odds of success are lot better than one out of five. Whew!

Now, the bad news… No matter what the numbers actually are, a lot of small businesses DO fail. The ones that succeed do it on a combination of dedication and guts. A little luck too, but luck runs out. In short, “if you build it they will come” is not a marketing strategy. Go get the word out about your business, do it any and every way you can and don’t be afraid to get creative.

Want to get the word out but don’t know where to start? Ask someone. A lot of marketing consultants would be happy to sell you a day or two of their time to help you put together a strategy for 2008, even if you don’t have the budget to hire them on the execution side afterwards. Prepare to talk realistically about your marketing budget — both in dollars and man hours — and collect all your current brochures, collateral and sales/marketing tools to share.

And if you need a referral, email me some information about your business and I’d be happy to make a recommendation.

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to a happy, healthy and profitable 2008 for all of us!

Published by Erik Wolf under Strategy