Small Business Marketing

General Strategies: How to get people to buy from you.
Market Research: Learning the who, what, where, when, why and how.
Advertising: Convincing people to buy from you.
Pricing: Techniques for naming your price.
Retail: Where the rubber hits the road.
Selling: How to make the sale.
Customers: The latest and hottest focus on getting and keeping buyers.
Networking: Techniques for keeping in touch.

Find an Empty Spot and Fill it

Niche marketing is finding an empty spot in the marketplace where you can gain a reasonable profit. Niche marketing is one of the greatest advantages to a small enterprise. The niche should be a...

Branding Your Very Small Business

Branding a small business product seems unrealistic because most branding ideas involve large sums of money consistently spent over a long period of time. If your business is small you should think of your marketplace in small terms. Branding requires the high maintenance cost of frequency and consistency. Creative cost controls allow for multi-media campaigns...

Apply the 80/20 Rule to Customer Base

When you analyze your customer database, don't be surprised if that reliable 80/20 rule is working. If you haven't been analyzing the ratio of sales to customers, now is a good time to do so...

Distinguish Yourself From the Crowd

Separating yourself from the competition is a key for any successful small business. Marketing textbooks call it Product Differential...

When Things Aren't Working, Try the Opposite

Just as you do with an ordinary power switch, if it doesn't work in one direction, you try the other. This same logic can be applied to marketing...

Humility and Modesty - Great for Monks, not for Businesspersons

There's a time to brag and a time to be humble. The skillful businessperson will strive to learn the appropriate balance...

What's Not Nailed Down is Mine

If you're looking for the ultimate maxim to describe ultimate aggressiveness - this is it...

If Your Work Were Easier it Would be Tougher

If your endeavors became easier to do more people would be doing them. Hence, you would have tougher competition...

Every Customer is a Profit Center

It's a no-brainer that profitable customers will result in a profitable operation. Be sure not to overlook the cost of complaint resolutions. Consider having more profit from fewer clients than from a mix of winners and losers by eliminating the losers...

Fish When the Fish Are Feeding

Any good fisherman will tell you how important it is to fish when the fish are biting. The same rule applies to marketing, when the market is hot concentrate on selling...

Have Your Doers Contact the Receivers

Contact with customers can teach "inside staff" more about their own contribution to sales than they'd learn any other way. Here are some ways to provide that healthy exposure..

Always Measure Twice What You Can Only Cut Once

This maxim is sound advice for handling a piece of lumber, it can also be applied to your advertising and marketing...

Competitor Not Bad - Just Different

Whenever someone begins bad-mouthing a competitor remember this mantra...

Bring Mohammed to the Mountain

If you can't bring the mountain to Mohammed then, bring Mohammed to the mountain...

Don't Announce Your Chickens Before They Hatch

Some of us have a tendency to announce or brag about a pending accomplishment. You can read the bold announcements of new entrepreneurs only to find, later, that most new ventures never produce any chickens...

You Are a Brand

You are unique. You are something competitors will find almost impossible to duplicate...

Unique Selling Position is a Better Phrase Than Product Differential

Instead of the old phrase "Product Differential", the technique for creating your niche in the marketplace is now called a Unique Selling Position...

Market Research on a Shoestring Budget

Market Research is an important function in marketing. However, most research is costly. Small business operators find it difficult to invest large sums solely to gather information which may not be 100% accurate. There are other options for your small business...

Look Outside the Majority Market

Market surveys indicate a major portion of consumers prefer specific characteristics in a product while a smaller portion favor slightly different characteristics. Big Box retailers and offshore manufacturers restrict many features to the majority market which can leave a large gap for the small business operator to fill...

Braggart Survey - Free Consultants

A successful business person will often remain tight lipped when you try to solicit some sensitive information. More...

Three Can Keep a Secret Provided Two of Them Are Dead

This is a good thought to keep in mind whenever you divulge business matters to anyone...

Do a Three-person Survey Without the Shoestring

You've heard about promoting your business on a shoestring budget. This is market research for when you don't even have a shoestring...

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

The farther you keep your enemies at a distance the less you know about them and their activities...

Meeting Demand Is Better Than Creating It

Many entrepreneurs start off on the wrong side of demand. The ones who struggle start by doing what they like or by exploiting certain skills and assets. Any success seems to result from adjusting initial plans to finding a niche...

Avoid Sounding the Da-da-da-daaahh

In marketing, salespersons need to think in terms of the customer's needs, not in terms of their need to sell the product...

Word-of-Mouth Advertising is Best

Word-of-mouth is fine for an established business but, for a start-up, it is a poor method to rely upon. Word-of-mouth advertising has two pre-requisites...

Be What You Say You Are

Be what you say you are in your advertising and other promotions. Conversely, do not advertise you are something you are not...

Sharpen Your Focus on Your Target Customer

Before you spend a lot of money on advertising, and throughout the early stages of your enterprise development, sharpen your focus on your target customer...

When You Lead a Horse to Water - Make it Drink

Disprove the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water but, you can't make it drink," by writing ad copy that makes people act...

Choose Your Advertising Medium With Great Care

Where you deliver your advertising message is as important as what is in the message. Choose your advertising medium with care...

Aim at Your Target

Until your business and your market saturation is mature, aim directly at your target rather than taking shots in the dark...

Exploit Unused Low-Cost Media

The two major costs of advertising, copy and media, can be done in-house...

Systemize Negotiable Pricing

Small businesses are viewed by consumers as having negotiable prices as opposed to the fixed prices of chain store operations. To preserve your sanity and a minimum profit margin, consider a control system for on-the-spot negotiating. ...

Price Ranges Help Your Customers to Buy

Customers can be confused when comparing commodities at different price levels. Give your customer a clearer choice for making comparisons by using price ranges...

In Volume Pricing, Make Each Unit Profitable

There's a joke about a merchant selling an item for $9.95 that cost $12. When asked, "How do you make money?" he replied, "We make it up on the volume!"

Raise Prices to Stimulate Sales

Is your product undervalued? Consider raising prices as product credibility and acceptance increases...

It's Easier to Make Money with Quality than with Volume

It's easier to make money with higher quality products or services than with selling lower-priced and lower-quality products or services in volume...

No! You May Not Help Me!

How do YOU feel when greeted with the standard cliché, "May I help you?" Are you tempted to retort angrily with, "No! You May Not!" The words may be sincere but the tone is often not...

Mitigate Oppressive Security with Humor

Anti-theft security systems are becoming quite sophisticated. Nevertheless, the more obvious routines do pose a negative influence on shopping comfort...

Passion is Attractive

Some call it enthusiasm, spirit, energy, or charisma. Whatever you call it showing passion in what you do is attractive to others...

Develop the Art of Saying Thanks

One way to develop the art of saying thanks is to prepare cards, templates or other stationary, so that you can quickly take advantage of an opportunity to thank someone...

Create a List of Who-do-you-know Prompts

Improve your prospecting by developing a set of who-do-you-know prompting questions for each of the standard ways for describing a prospect or target...

Find Out Why Your Customer Left

Exit Interviews are a standard (albeit seldom practiced) procedure when an employee voluntarily resigns, why not apply the same concept to your customers?

Give Your Customers a Warm Welcome From a Greeter

Large retailers must employ friendly greeters at their front door to offset their otherwise impersonal self-service and confusing arrays. One of the advantages small businesses have over large corporations is their ability to be closer to the customer...

How Do You Spell Service?

People are quick to state that Service is an important key in marketing, however, the specifics of service are often missing...

Today's the Day to Love Customer A

On each day choose a customer to show your appreciation with a note, a phone call, a simple gift or with casual gestures and one-liners...

Read Their Lips

Notice how some companies solve problems by passing it to the advertising department. More...

Learn How to Listen

Many selling manuals remind the salesperson to listen for the prospect's needs before launching into a litany of your product's features. This is not easy to remember during those first uneasy moments of a sales presentation. Perhaps you should replace that word 'presentation' with 'interview'...