Marketing has changed from one-to-many to One-to-One

Over the last several years, there’s been a fundamental shift in marketing and advertising.  The growth of
advertising has come to a stop as the mass-market has splintered into hundreds, and thousands of smaller niche  markets.

Mass-market advertising has lost impact as savvy business owners have implemented better strategies for communicating to their prospects, instead of the entire market.

In the 60’s and 70’s, Budweiser was the King of Beers, Alka-Seltzer was the cure-all for stomach ailments and the  Pepsi Generation chose Pepsi as their soft-drink of choice.  Maxwell House coffee was good to last drop and if you wanted, McDonald’s was your main choice.  While these brands still exist,each of the mass-markets they appealed to became a myriad of sub-markets.

The micro-brews appeal to the different tastes of beer drinkers.  There are dozens of cures for stomach ailments,  depending on your symptoms.  There are soft-drinks for every taste, diet and activity level.  The coffee options changed from regular or decaf to a taste for every palate and fast food has gone from burgers and fries to healthy sandwiches and a myriad of ethnic choices.

Society, our economy and consumer preferences have changed dramatically.  Cable TV,the internet and other technologies seem to give us limitless choices and they are forever expanding.
The list of changes is endless and growing daily.  Unfortunately, many small (and large) businesses follow the old model of marketing to the masses, paying to communicate to everybody, rather than their niche clientele.   They are frustrated with wasting their dollars on marketing that doesn’t deliver profits.

What does this mean to you and your business?  In a word – OPPORTUNITY!  Countless businesses and entrepreneurs are making incredible profits by adopting the marketing strategies we implement for our clients.

They look at their businesses, their clients and themselves in a new way.  Their clients aren’t a single
transaction.  They see a lifetime relationship that’s worth thousands, even tens of thousands in profits  and referrals.

In this Small Business Marketing Guide we will divulge the insider secrets and strategies our clients pay us handsomely to teach them and implement in their businesses.  As you read through these posts, I’m pretty sure a light bulb will flash in your head as you realize the incredible power of mymarketing system and how it can easily work in your business.

Start with a Plan

Where to start?  With an ad in the Yellow Pages, a newspaper, a magazine or on a billboard?  Do you join a
networking group and get your name out there?  The media and ad reps and web firms will find you and all have the greatest stories about exposure, market penetration and all other wonderful phrases that will have you dreaming of clients beating down the door.

They all have compelling stories and each has great potential.  But before you start running ads, you need to
start with a marketing plan.  Don’t worry and start working up a sweat.

You’re not going to be preparing a plan to present to Donald Trump on the Apprentice.  You re laying out a plan for yourself (if you are going to use it for financing, you will need to be a bit more formal and detailed).

I’m going to approach this as if you are doing this for yourself and layout the basics in a series of blog posts.  The summary is available to subscribers to Paul Flood’s Marketing  Moments e-zine, which you can subscribe to by clicking here or by filling in the brief form in the upper right-hand corner.

I’ll break this down in a series of steps and exercises you can follow to create a marketing plan that is just
right for your business.

Welcome to The Small Business Marketing Guide

Small business marketing seems to be a mystery to so many business owners.  You open your door or “hang out your shingle” and wait for clients, customers or patients to flock to you.  Things are slow and you
start to wonder what is happening.

Don’t they know you have the best products, a degree from a great school, a certification and incredible credentials?  You know your better than the rest and you can really help people.  Now – welcome to
the real world!

People don’t care what you do or how great you are.  They care about what you will do for them.  You need to let them know and you need to get them to pay you for your product or service.  The thing that makes that happen is marketing.

In school they taught the 4 P’s of marketing.  Product, price, place and promotion are the core elements of marketing.  Knowing this is about as helpful to your growth as what you learned in accounting – debits on the left and credits on the right.  What they should have taught you in school is that “everything that you do in your business is marketing.”

There is no other business discipline that affects every area of your business as your marketing.
Unless you have paying customers, you only have an idea.  The longer it takes to get them, the more stressed out you become.  You buy books and tapes, you run ads and send our post cards hoping to get clients.  The bills pile up and the stress increases.

I’m here to help you, the small business owner, by teaching you the concepts behind my Hidden Marketing Assets System.  You will learn the key fundamental strategies as well as loads of proven  tools, tips and
ideas to help you build a marketing system that will bring you the profits you have so long pursued.

I hope you learn and I hope to learn from you.  Please comment on my posts and also feel free to share your experiences with others.   If I can help you succeed, I will have succeeded.  Tell others about this
blog and be sure to help spread the word that there is hope!