Small Business Marketing Tips – Most Businesses are Making Money In “This Awful Economy”

I gave a marketing seminar this morning to a group of about 30 business owners this morning that was sponsored by the local Small Business Development Center.  We asked the question, “How many of your businesses are doing well?”  Two thirds of them raised their hands.

Of the hands that didn’t go up, a couple of them were just starting out so nearly everyone in attendance was doing well (or faked it to be in the crowd).  Think about it, the companies that are doing well were at a marketing seminar, learning how to do better!  I should have invited a couple of reporters but I wasn’t planning on sharing any bad news so they probably would have ignored my invite.

Bloomberg reported this morning that retail sales actually ROSE 1% last month!  I wonder if the lead-in story on the national news will cover it tonight.  I don’t watch the news so I guess I’ll miss it but I just did a quick look at abcnewscnncbsnew.coms and none of them mentioned it.

Now, I don’t doubt that a lot of industries are hurting, BIG TIME but it shows there is opportunity.  The worst thing to cut in a recession, marketing, is the first thing way too many companies cut in a recession.  Then their sales suck and they say it’s the economy.

If I were to quit marketing, my sales would suck as well. However, over the past several months, I’ve busted my butt to get new clients and it’s paying off, big time.  A recession is acutally good for my business.  Smart companies realize they need to do smart marketing so they call people like me.

That’s a good note to end this post on.  If you want to increase your sales and are ready to do what it takes, call someone like me. Actually, strike that last remark.  Don’t call someone like me, call me. 513-829-6368.

Small Business Marketing tips to Profit in a Recession – Advice from a Friend at the Small Business Development Center

I’m going a bit off topic with this post. My past few were about the importance of leverage and systems. I’ll be going back to the topic but I had a conversation with a Joint Venture partner today that I wanted to pass along.

He and I are both small business marketing and growth experts and are giving a Growth Strategy Seminar for our local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) clients. The SBDC is an organization funded by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that has a mission to help Americans start, build and grow businesses.

The Director of the local SBDC is a friend of mine who used to be president of a fairly large, worldwide insurance company. He’s working with the SBDC now because of his passion to help the small business owner succeed and prosper. In preparation for the seminar, we asked him what are the most important messages we need to communicate to seminar attendees (particularly in light of the tough economy).

Here is what he said is the most important marketing messages that business owners need to know:

1. Keep on marketing. This is no time to cut back on the life-blood of attracting and keeping clients.
2. Know your customers, their needs and why they are buying your product or service.
3. Have all clients and prospects in a database so you can regularly communicate with them and give them reasons to purchase from you. Use your database to build demographic and psychographic profiles of your target market.
4. Market to your target market. It is a huge waste of resources to be marketing to people who are not prospects. Unfortunately, most businesses spend the majority of marketing resources on people who will never buy from them.
5. Give clients a consistent experience. Remember that your product and service are elements of your marketing mix. For years, the buzz word has been “exceed expectations,” which is great but the first part is to provide a consistent client experience. Most people expect, and are satisfied if you do this.
6. Track and measure what marketing is working. If you don’t track, you don’t know if it is working. If it isn’t working, you are wasting resources. If it is working, you want to build on and improve it to maximize results.
7. Don’t try to find the magic bullet. Small improvements in different areas can yield exponential increases in sales.

There you have it. If you find yourself swimming against the tide or so overwhelmed with what you should be doing next, you want to give me a call. If you want to see how you can achieve dramatic increases in sales (or to just stop the bleeding!), you want to give me a call. I look forward to hearing from you.

Small Business Marketing to Up Your Profits in a Down Economy with Marketing Systems

One of the single biggest marketing problems I see with small businesses is the lack of a marketing system. Every thing they do is tactical and is rarely planned, budgeted, tracked or measured.

A media rep comes into the business and says, “You need my product to get clients.” TV, radio, newspaper, Yellow Pages or an agency. The thing is that they all have compelling stories and loads of statistics on impressions, market awareness, branding and loads of other marketing terms. Which do you choose?

Most businesses are in a “trial” mode and will keep trying whatever is sold to them, hoping that one of them will be the magis bullet. Worse yet, they continue running an ad without knowing if it is generating the results they need. They think, “Hey, I’m getting my name out there.” When somebody needs me, they’ll give me a ring.

As the spider webs gather on the phone, the owner gets frustrated, the ad rep tells them they need to run a larger ad or run it longer. That’s a bunch of garbage. If you had an investment that was tanking and your broker told you to wait or invest more, you’d find a new broker.

Before you advertise, you need to think of how you are going to systematize your marketing. The advantage of the marketing system is that you can actually plan on results. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if you implement a certain element of your marketing system, you will most likely make a fairly predictable amount of profit?

Companies all over the world are doing it everyday. The owner knows what business is coming in and where it is coming from. Once I set up a system in a business and test my materials, the owner knows that if they send out a certain mailing to their clients, they will make a predictable return. If they run a particular ad with a particular offer, they know it will make them a predictable amount of money.

You can do the same in your business. In my previous posts, I talked about leverage. Now we are into the systems and the types of systems that you can build in your business. I make money and get referrals through the success of my clients, not due to the size or frequency of their media buys. Stick with me and I you will learn the basic elements of implementing my powerful and guaranteed Hidden Asset Marketing System in your business.

Small Business Marketing to Up Your Profits in a Down Economy

The most powerful, simplest and inexpensive marketing strategies to bring your business a flood of sales and waves of profits is the joint venture (JV) or strategic alliance. Essentially, you are leveraging the relationships another business has with their customers to build your own business. They work as well in both online and off line and can be very simple or very complex, multi-million dollar deals.

Your starting point is to identify non-competing businesses that have a client profile similar to yours. Approach the owner with a letter or phone call and let them you have a unique idea that can generate a lot of new clients. There are a couple of things you can try.

One is to offer to pay for a mailing to their clients recommending your service or product. Include a special offer, with a deadline for redeeming, that is unique to their clients. I’ve found that creating a coupon on which the offer is printed improves response.

Some businesses you approach will express concern about the confidentiality of their list. If so, offer to have them send it directly to their list themselves. You will want to write the sales letter or coupon yourself but allow them final approval on the copy.

Another tactic is to create a mailer on which you both print an offer and mail it to your combined client lists and share all expenses equally.

I believe it is very important to conduct due diligence and to take the time to get to know your potential business partner as well as the quality of their products and services. If you plan on recommending somebody to your valued clients, be sure they will meet your standards and expectations.

Typically, only about three of ten business owners will wish to pursue a joint venture so you’ll need to make several calls but it will be well worth the effort. In my opinion, the JV is about the most powerful marketing strategy any business, large or or small can implement.

How to write your Unique Selling Proposition

Once you’ve completed the research on your Unique Selling Proposition, you need to craft your initial USP. Don’t try to create a slogan or be cute. Write between 60 and 100 words that capture the essence of your uniqueness.

Once you have that and believe it fits the bill, start to wordsmith it down to fewer words. Read it into a recorder and play it back to see how it sounds to you. Improve it and then set it down for a day or so and read it again. Does it sound compelling? Is it filled with benefits for the client? Will it make a prospect say, “Really, tell me more?”

This video goes more into depth about actually writing your USP and gives some great tips and pointers about creating a powerful USP for your company.

Increase your profits in a down economy- Part 2

Where do you want to spend your marketing dollars in a “down economy?”  In my last post, I wrote about how the media plays a big role in the perception of the economy.  If you believe them, the entire world is now broke and living in boxes underneath highway overpasses.

Business owners start to believe that there are no longer clients willing to buy from them and they enter a hibernation mode, hoping they will make enough sales to survive.

Have you been to a department or grocery store lately?  If so, you may have seen what I have been seen.  People are buying things.  Have you been to a restaurant lately?  Did you notice that people were buying meals? Have you noticed a dramatic decrease in rush-hour traffic because nobody has a job any more?

Hey, I believe there are some serious problems with the economy but the fact of the matter is that people are still making and spending money. The wise business is not retreating. Instead, they’re spending marketing dollars wisely. They are throwing useless “brand/image” advertising out the door. They are demanding accountability from agencies and others selling them media.

The way I look at it, if your marketing isn’t delivering a measurable return, either get rid of it or figure out how to measure it. There are companies out there that do detailed ROI projections for capital investments but often spend the same amount of money on marketing with no strategy to measure return.

The bottom line is that this is the worst time to cut back on your marketing. Your competition is probably doing it so why not take advantage of the situation to strengthen your presence? When things turn around, there will be a lot of your competitors who may be great buyout targets.

You also need to spend some serious time strengthening your relationships with your clients. Be sure you are maximizing revenue from each transaction. Be sure your sales reps are well-trained in selling skills and product knowledge. Be sure your service staff knows how to up-sell and cross-sell.

Finally, quit listening to the media and chart your own future.