3 Easy Small Business Marketing Tips

Often we just don’t have time to study and read a lot of marketing technique and strategy theory, right? In that line of business thought: short, fast, and that darn popular term for MBA graduates “Action Items” here are three small business marketing tips for this week, month (or until whenever I get around to posting more) 😉

These first three marketing tips aren’t necessarily “next day magic”, but do take a little time and effort, however, that’s the whole point. These are designed to help you get stable growth and a long term increase in customers, not just a quick burst then a week later you’re right back where you started.

1. Give your current customers resources that make it easier for them to increase your word of mouth marketing efforts. You can do a lot more than just ask your customers to spread the word about your business. Give them some tools. If they are loyal customers, there’s a very good chance that they’ll be willing to evangelize your small business. Easy resources you can make readily available to customers: Share methods in your email newsletters (addthis, etc.), discount cards or days tied into bringing in friends (Car Pool Tuesdays, etc.), rack cards (vista print is for more than just cheap business cards), pocket sized menues, integrating QR codes into your print and email marketing so that customers can easily bookmark and forward. Get creative.
2. Locate and identify organizations (companies, community groups, etc.) and design a package that encourages participation of the entire group. Examples: fitness centers targeting HR departments to offer employee discounts for the entire company; restaurants approaching community groups offering to host meetings or events; vocational schools approaching high schools, VA offices, education consultant groups, etc. and hosting special (exclusive) information session events; restaurants working with colleges to accept meal plan cards. There options in this area are many; you just need to sit down, identify targets, and start talking with an offer that uniquely benefits the needs of the group(s). Start with your top 5 so it’s not too daunting a task to begin a dialog with all of them.
3. Direct mail isn’t 100% dead – use it as a method of getting initial recognition of your brand. You can buy mailing lists all over the place online; very inexpensive and relatively up to date. You can also get 2 sided postcards printed online for very little cost, an most decent printers online also will take an Excel mailing list, address and mail them for you w/ comprehensive mailing services. Give it a try if you haven’t yet. You will never know if it works or not unless you try. My position is use a post card mailing as PART of a larger campaign: print a thousand or so more postcards than you will mail. With the excess, use them as rack cards: put them in laundromats, coffee shops, bars, cafe’s, hair salons, anywhere someone is likely to hang out long enough to let their mind wander a bit a look at things around them. Do this because even if they don’t give the postcard they god in the mail a second thought, by seeing it AGAIN in a different environment their “need” to pay attention will be triggered because the look (the design) will feel familiar. It’s getting an increased ad impression frequency, but in different environments using the same media. You’ll get a lot more of their attention on that second impression: it’s like when you learn a new word, then suddenly you start to recognize its use a lot more in various situations. It’s not that it’s being used more, it’s just that you recognize it now.