Just because you’re running a small business that doesn’t mean you should have a sucky marketing. Quite the contrary, you can accomplish what you want if you have the right product aimed at the right audience. Here are few tips that should help you along the way:
1. Don’t spend your ad bucks like a big business
Big companies often have different goals with their marketing activities. They could be investing in the hard-to-measure brand building campaigns, and you need something else. What you do want is either highly targeted and measurable, or ridiculously cheap (or free) like SEO and some social media tools.
2. Differentiate your product/service – you’re either cheap or premium
However, bear in mind that you don’t want to go into the price war – they always end-up badly for the smaller players. However, if there’s room, try offering a cheaper option to your customers. If that’s not an option (competition is more efficient), offer a premium version. In either case, you should define what kind of customer you’re targeting.
3. Talk to your customers
You should consider your customers as a best source of information. Ask them how can you improve your product/service? What is the best way to reach them? What it would take for them to recommend your company to their friends and colleagues? How can you serve them better? This is the way to win their hearts and minds, and get more referrals for your business.
4. Team-up with other small businesses
When set properly, joint ventures work like a charm. See if some other company could help you improve your offering. Similarly, find out if you could help improve third-party’s product and/or service. Talk about this with other small businesses and try to come up with a win-win scenario. The easiest way to get started is to tell your website visitors about some other company’s offering while asking that other company to do the same for you.
5. Experiment
There are quite a few marketing tools out there. Viral marketing is big, and so is social media. If you still haven’t, try experimenting with some of them. Read some e-book if you’re not sure where to begin. By all means start cyber-schmoozing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Listen to the conversation and when you have something to add – do it.
And that ends our list… But you should read more about marketing your business. The great resource we’ve found is “Small Business Acceleration“. It offers a ton of valuable marketing information, insider tips, and links for your business. Do check it out.