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5 Small Business Marketing Tips

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Couple running a small bookstore businessWhile the responsibility of owning your own small business can be overwhelming, it can also be very satisfying. It’s no wonder that small businesses continue to be the backbone of America’s economy. Almost 28 million small businesses employ 50% of the nation’s workforce and have created 65% of the country’s new jobs since 1995. Small business success doesn’t happen overnight — and it doesn’t come without a lot of work and worry. Small business owners are extremely skilled at providing their services or making their products, and usually, that’s what they like to spend their time on most. Dealing with other aspects of the business, such as accounting, HR or marketing can be either daunting or a drag. But, if you don’t send out invoices, you won’t get paid, and if you don’t do marketing, you won’t have anyone to invoice. Here are a few basic tips to get your small business marketing program underway.

1. Set a marketing budget. This is critical, because without a somewhat firm marketing budget, you run the risk of either spending too much or too little. Spending too much can leave you extremely dissatisfied when the results don’t measure up. Spending too little can stunt efforts that show promise. Ideally, your marketing budget should be about 7-8% of your projected annual revenues; but up to 15% if you’re running a start-up.

2. Develop a marketing strategy. With your budget in hand, map out your goals and plan the strategic marketing efforts that will help you achieve those goals. Identify your primary and secondary markets and research how those markets shop or search for your products and services. Are they mainly using their phones to search for your business?  Do they still read the newspaper every day? Do they use social media — and if so, which outlets?

3. Be part of the community. Your small business marketing plan should include ways to demonstrate your commitment to your community. Whether it’s through sponsorships, educational offerings, social media, donations or volunteer work, take an active interest in the people, businesses and happenings around you and your business will be rewarded. Remember, people do business with people they like.

4. Solve problems. A key component of your marketing strategy should be helping your customers solve problems — or get answers to their questions. Rather than using all of your marketing budget on hard-sell tactics, be sure to include some soft-sell techniques, like content marketing. E-newsletters, blog posts, webinars and instructional videos can all help you establish expertise, form relationships, get more referrals and increase search rankings — all while you’re providing a valuable, relevant service to your customers.

5. Be consistent. Part of your marketing plan should be a carefully timed schedule of all of your activities along with who is responsible for accomplishing each step along the way. Be sure to keep track of the plan’s progress. Lack of consistency and ill-timed promotions will kill the best of marketing plans.

BONUS: Don’t do everything yourself. As a small business owner, I can guarantee that you already have enough on your plate. Marketing is not an aspect of your business that you can afford to let slide, no matter how pressing your other priorities are. Delegate marketing tasks to other capable employees and hold them accountable for staying on track (and on budget). If you can’t delegate the implementation of your marketing plan to others in your organization, consider using an agency. Best wishes for small business success!

Where Is Your Small Business Going?

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Many small business owners spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning their killer marketing strategy for the next 6 months or a year. But, just like planning a vacation, having a written marketing strategy is critical to its success. If you don’t have a vacation plan, you might end up on stand-by, in a tacky hotel, or worse. If you don’t have a marketing plan, you can never be sure that you’re getting the best value for your marketing dollar, and getting the best results possible.

The Destination: Where Do You Want to Go?

Just like planning a vacation, the first thing you need to know is where you want to go, otherwise known as your marketing goals. Do you want to increase sales by 5-10%? Do you want a higher customer retention rate? Do you want to increase referrals? Whether your business goals are big or small, they are your “destination” and marketing can help you get there.

The Travel Budget: How Much Can You Spend?

You generally know how much money you’re willing to spend on a vacation. You need to also set a budget for your marketing plan. A good rule of thumb for allocating marketing expenses is to set aside about 7% or more of your annual gross income. And, just like deciding on how much you’ll pay for vacation lodging, transportation, meals and sightseeing, you need to divide your marketing budget into various initiatives, such as advertising, social media, public relations, direct marketing, collateral materials, trade shows, website design, search engine optimization and more.

The Transportation: How Do You Plan to Get There?

Once you have your destination and budget spelled out, you can start to think about the best ways to get there. This will largely depend on your type of business, what has worked well for you in the past and what has not worked. Typically, you will want to put the lion’s share of your budget into what has worked well, but you should also allot some funds for testing other initiatives. Be sure to be able to track and analyze the results from all of your efforts, so that you can see your expenses versus orders, and know each cost per order.

The Details: Should You Use an Agency?

Lots of people rely on travel agents to plan their vacation, especially if it’s a big trip with many details that need to be worked out. Having someone else who is more knowledgeable and has more resources at their fingertips frees you up to pack your bags and enjoy the trip. For the same reason, small business owners can use a marketing agency to help them plan their strategy as well as execute its components. Agencies can put your marketing plan in writing, devise all of the materials and sub-plans needed for each initiative, track results and more. This allows you up to focus on your product or service and the daily operations of your business. Bon voyage and best wishes for success!

5 Simple Rules for Successful Public Speaking

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Many experts recommend public speaking as an excellent way to promote your small business. When addressing a group, you have a captive audience and a chance to position yourself as an expert as well as persuade attendees to buy your products or services. The problem is that not all of us feel confident about our public speaking abilities. Anyone who knows me would not describe me as shy or lacking in self-confidence. It is a little-known fact that I struggle with speaking in front of large groups. And, sometimes it’s worse if I know many of the folks in the group. I’d rather do it anonymously for some reason. But, I can’t always control the audience, so I’ve developed some ideas and techniques to help small business owners prepare for — and nail — their speaking engagements.

Rule #1: Believe in Your Message
In college I took a class that involved delivering a speech every week. While usually a straight A student, I was getting a C in the class. I was nervous while delivering the speeches. I tried to pick topics that were humorous but my jokes fell flat. My professor was not impressed. But, for my final speech, I decided to get serious and talk about something that I really believed in. The speech was about the need to end apartheid in South Africa and it earned me an A+. What’s more, I was not nervous at all while I gave that speech. And, my professor made me realize that my confidence and passion showed because I was being myself and talking about a topic that meant something to me. So, the moral of the story here is always talk about something you really believe in. If you’re not a natural joke teller, then don’t tell jokes. Just be yourself and show your passion for your business.

Rule #2: Be Prepared
In small groups or one-on-one, I have no problem “winging it”. But, important speaking engagements demand your full preparation. Pick your topic, develop your presentation (think of every word you want to say and get it on paper), and prepare handouts and visuals. Preparing presentation materials can be a daunting task for some of us, so consider getting professional copywriting and graphic services so that your visuals are as effective as possible. The more prepared you are, the more confident you’ll be. During your presentation, you should plan to engage your audience with questions and answers to make it more of a conversation. This will help you relax as not all of the focus will be on you for the entire presentation.

Rule #3: Practice
You can do all the prep work in the world, but if you never actually practice your presentation, you will never know where it has the potential to go wrong. And then you won’t have time to fix it. Practice delivering your presentation, along with your visuals, and make sure it all runs smoothly. This should be done a couple of days before your talk, so that you have enough time to get Powerpoint slides fixed, etc.

Rule #4: Get a Good Night’s Rest
This may sound elementary, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t take the simple advice of getting a solid night’s sleep prior to their presentation. Also, eat a healthy breakfast and don’t overdo it on the caffeine intake. If you are tired and stressed out, it will show. You want to be well-rested and relaxed when you get up in front of the crowd.

Rule #5: Relax
You are going to be talking about a subject near and dear to your heart. You have prepared a killer presentation with excellent materials and have practiced it thoroughly. You have gotten a good rest and had a healthy breakfast. You have done all you could to put yourself in an advantageous position and now is the time to seize the moment. You can do it!

Small Business Success Depends on Marketing

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In a down economy, businesses look closely at expenses and cut costs where possible to offset declining revenues. Cutting marketing expenses, however, is a bad idea. To build business and increase sales, marketing is critical, especially for small businesses who may be competing with larger companies. It’s tempting to think of marketing as just another expense. But, for small business success, marketing should be viewed as an investment with long-term value. Research shows that, during the past five recessions since 1971, companies that actually increased their marketing budget were more likely to have stronger earnings than those that did not.

Marketing covers advertising, public relations, promotions and sales. A process by which a product or service is introduced and promoted to potential customers, marketing keeps your product or service top of mind with potential customers. It helps you reinforce benefits to the consumer, distinguish yourself from the competition, clarify misconceptions, build your brand and establish your company as reputable and reliable.

Tips for Low-Cost Marketing Efforts

Not all marketing needs to be expensive. Here are a few ideas that will help you keep your business in front of prospective customers without breaking your budget.

Trade Show Alternatives: While you may not have the budget to attend your biggest trade show with a splashy booth this year, you can often work with trade associations to find other ways to get your marketing materials in the hands of trade show attendees. Often there are literature bins, tote bag stuffers, sponsorships and other lower-cost opportunities offered by the association. Consider having a special piece designed just for that purpose that really speaks to that specific audience with your benefit-oriented pitch.

Public Relations:  Do you have a new service or product, or an enhancement to an existing product? Generate free publicity with a well-crafted press release delivered to the right media. Find out who to send it to (specific names and email addresses) and follow-up to be sure they got it and answer questions they might have. Include images when possible to make it graphically appealing.

Social Media:  If you don’t already have a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn presence, set it up and put a plan in place to frequently post updates and answer questions/comments promptly. Post activities, images, promotions and other news that puts your business in a positive light and also encourages engagement. Offer incentives to your followers that will increase business and word-of-mouth referrals.

Sales Collateral:  Does your sales team have the most up-to-date materials that convey a clear, compelling benefit to the customer? Or, is the benefit lost somewhere on the page? A new sales flier, brochure or e-blast can give your sales troops, as well as sales, a boost. These materials do not need to be high cost — rather, they need to put your company’s benefits front and center. Good writing and design can help you achieve that.

Advertising: If you feel as if you’ve been burned before by spending a lot of money on a big ad that didn’t produce results, you are not alone. Many small businesses fall for the premise that a big ad will get them big results. A key component to advertising is repetition. Running smaller ads more often reinforces your message and reaches more people than a one-time ad. Another key is to have a strong message. A series of ads that builds on a running theme can help you tell a big story.

Website: When was the last time your website was updated? If it’s been a while, now is a good time to evaluate ways in which your website could be driving more business to your company. Posting a blog that tells your customers more about what your business can do for them is a great way to keep fresh content on your site and move it further up in search engine rankings. Also, the navigation should be easy and important information — your key message — should be front and center.

Without marketing, your potential customers may never be aware of your business offerings and your business may not progress. Using marketing to promote your product, service and company provides your business with a chance of being discovered by prospective customers. The Elliott Group can help with low-cost marketing efforts and advice to help you succeed.

 

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540-539-3409
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