Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

What canoeing can teach you about business

I'm back! I spent the last week with my husband and kids, floating the Current River in Missouri. As I'm working today, my mind keeps wondering and I find myself right back in a canoe. So I decided to go with the flow...Here's some of what I learned about canoeing and how it applies to business:

1. Don't move suddenly or lean heavily in any one direction, you're liable to capsize. Business is the same, maintaining a good balance is absolutely necessary. We have to work on all aspects of our business, marketing, operations, sales, etc, not just 'lean' in one direction.

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Following through on follow up

Okay, so it's Thursday afternoon and I'm still trying to follow up with all the little 'loose' ends before I go out of town Saturday - you know what I mean, the person you left a message for that hasn't called back yet, the email reply you need to send to a client with an estimate for work, the new contact you made at the networking event yesterday that you promised to connect with on LinkedIn, and the hundred other similar things.

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Don't let your customers slip through the cracks

Last week I was looking at my schedule and it showed that all four of my boys had appointments coming up soon to have their teeth cleaned. That got me thinking. I couldn't remember when last I'd had my own teeth cleaned but I figured it was probably at least 8 - 10 months. So I called up the dentist's office to get an appointment. I sure was surprised! According to their records, the last cleaning I had was May of 2007! So I quickly scheduled an appointment for next week.

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Work Smart, Not Hard

Business owners are one of the hardest working groups of people out there. They are tough go-getters that can solve any problem, overcome any crisis and out-work any employee. These characteristics are a key reason that your business is such a success – they are also the key reason why it’s so hard for you to grow the business. You are so used to doing everything that you have made yourself into the most indispensable employee of your business.

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Why You?

Today there is an abundance of choice for the consumer. Technological advances, changes in consumer service, in methods of delivery, and other innovations all lead to more and newer products and services for the consumer to choose from. In 1948, the average grocery had 2,200 products. In 1972 it was up to 9000 products, by 1994 it was 19,000 products and today it’s about 45,000 different products! Think about how many you actually buy.

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Testing, Testing, 123...

If you go to the grocery with $5 in your pocket, there is only so much food you can take home before you see flashing lights in the rear view mirror. Not so with marketing $$$. You could spend $10,000 on a campaign that gives you 5 customers or it could give you 500 customers. The difference is in the message. Changing a single headline can change your response rate significantly. Same with the wording of the offer. So always test out different versions of your marketing pieces before rolling out a full blown campaign.