small business and marketing

small business and marketing

Strategies for Small Business Marketing Success

1. Introduction to Small Business Marketing

Small businesses, like all businesses, need to sell their products and services to a receptive market to make a profit. However, in addition to juggling marketing stipulations, small business marketers are required to fulfill an increased number of other functions, such as accounting and management. To aid these small business owners, we have developed some strategies for small business marketing success. Currently, there are approximately 9,000 businesses in the United States that generate revenues of more than 1 billion dollars a year, and thousands of smaller businesses that are no less successful. Although it is difficult for smaller businesses to compete, there are market-oriented approaches that have helped many to succeed. Our paper has been developed to evaluate the major marketing programs that have provided the foundation for successful small business marketing. After discussing several approaches for small business marketing success, we analyze numerous important product marketing strategies that have been utilized in successful small businesses’ marketing. Finally, we consider the strategy and options associated with the marketing mix of the small business.

Small businesses are too often considered to be the weak of the market economy. These businesses can in no way compete with larger and more established businesses, especially in the area of marketing and advertising because of their poor financial positioning. However, there are certain small businesses that have realized a niche in society and through correct market procedures, have discovered unique ways to compete successfully with the large businesses. The result of these small businesses’ marketing is an overwhelming record of success that has never as yet been documented in scientific or even in a popular manner.

2. Understanding Your Target Audience

Understanding target audience identifies the group of people who are most likely to buy your product or service. For example, if you invented a new tool for barbecuing, you probably should not target vegetarians! Your next step is to identify specific market segments within the larger target group. Are there more people likely to buy your new barbecue tool in certain regions of the country? Do you want to segment by income, by the age of the head of the family, by the size of the family? For example, you may decide that your barbecue tool is suitable for couples or for families without children living at home, but not for other families. If this is true, you’ve made your marketing task a lot easier by segmenting the market before you actually advertise your product. Because you can see that too broad a market segment will mean you’ve wasted some of your advertising dollars reaching people who are likely to ignore your message. Only once you’ve identified your most likely customers can you then decide how to reach out to them and motivate them to give your product or service a try. You must understand your target audience before you have a chance to choose marketing strategies that will appeal to them.

There are various issues you should address in order to execute an effective direct mail solicitation campaign. Understanding your target audience, the people who are most likely to purchase your product or service, is crucial. It is those people for whom you should design your marketing activities. As an SBO, you do not have the resources to be all things to all people. For example, if you have invented a new kind of baby toy, you should specifically identify the target market for your toy. If your market is too large—perhaps it includes all people between the ages of zero and five—you must narrow it down before designing a marketing mix to reach that target.

3. Developing a Strong Brand Identity

3) You’ve selected a name, developed a logo, and finally created a tagline. This brief, compelling line of text gives your target market a “handle” for your offering – thoughts or emotions, short and pegged to your business. After selecting your tagline, test its power by asking yourself a few more questions: Where are you now? Where is your market? What do you offer? Where do you want to go with your business in the future?

2) Every firm needs a logo, a visual symbol of the name and brand identity. The same questions you asked yourself about your company’s moniker can also be asked about the brand identity. Where are you from? What’s important to you? What do you value? What is its history? For the look to be truly personally meaningful, rich, and evocative, the answer needs to be “you”.

1) The secret of good naming is to make it personally meaningful. In choosing a name for the company, ask yourself questions like: Where do I come from? What do I value? Who is important to me? Answers to these questions will help you relate the business to your roots, stimulate your passion and commitment, and give it personal depth and dimension.

There are three basic identity elements to be developed. First, name your business. Second, develop a logo. Finally, create a tagline. Choose wisely, because each of these will set the tone for everything that follows: your firm’s website, the packaging for your product, business cards, letterhead, Yellow Page ads, the lobby of your firm’s headquarters, and even the envelopes you mail will be designed based on your decision as to your business’s name, logo, and tagline.

4. Utilizing Digital Marketing Tools and Social Media

Small businesses simply cannot compete with their larger counterparts in terms of their offline marketing budget or their ability to draw traffic from the Internet. However, this should not stop them from generating an online fan base and engaging with them. A business can attract traffic and fans by offering attractive deals, free samples, and advice. These can be promoted via e-zines and e-coupons, and e-surveys can show customers creative ways to interact with their business. By employing social media, a small business owner can update customers on new products or services, post videos, and offer promotions. The possibilities are endless and the results can be more pleasant as well.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another affordable and often overlooked marketing strategy. Either a business’ website is helping promote their business or their website is doing nothing to help their business attract customers. The use of proper SEO strategies will ensure customers can find their website when they do a keyword search. Entrepreneurs can search online for free or low-cost customized SEO tools that offer a detailed analysis of their website. This type of tool will provide reports on broken links, HTML tags, headline structure, duplicate content, and other areas and provide recommendations for improvement.

5. Measuring and Analyzing Marketing Performance

Miscommunication investment spending is the reason many small business/mid-market companies consistently miss reaching their goal of increasing sales and profitability. Most companies make these investments over time, without any plan or design for creating the “company dominance” or gaining the market position they need. Rather than being a guide on the path to a company goal, marketing spending has become an ongoing operating expense. Doing anything, for any reason, at any price. Companies desperately need a process to measure, predict, and analyze their brand preference per dollar spent. This skill is very hard to come by in the marketplace. Most companies hire advertising agencies to create their communication pressures, promotion pressure, advertising pressures, media buying pressures because availability is more important than capability. Your best bet is to maintain the position with share of voice. If your company grows slower than the market as a whole, you will end up with less market share. For the superior position in the market, you simply cannot allow any of your marketing pressure to be affected by someone else’s performance.

Measuring marketing performance is one of the most frustrating tasks companies face. Fred Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer of Outsell, states, “Marketers are no longer innocent of the need for measuring performance, but they remain guilty of doing little about it.” Measurement of marketing performance is important because it helps identify which programs work and which do not, assess marketing effectiveness and productivity, and determine if the company is gaining a loyal, profitable customer base. Organizations use the following concepts and methods to measure marketing performance: budgeting methods, customer analysis, promotion, distribution, and price analysis, and the concept of costs and returns. To support these methods, many companies have developed marketing accounting systems that focus on marketing-based assessment.