Have you ever just felt that your business and what you do is nothing special? No matter what you sell or where you are located or even where you market, your business faces lots of competition. And as you dig deeper into who your competition is and what they are doing, your feel nothing distinguishes your…
A Business Truth –There is no need to market if your small business does not offer great customer service? And by customer service, I am not just talking about a good return policy. Customer service starts in the pre-purchase decision making effort through purchase and then right on to use, today, tomorrow and for the…
If you have followed this blog, my colleague, Becky McCray, has provided lots of ideas for building communities and the small businesses in those areas. Her blogs have suggested things such as Pop-ups – https://smallbizsurvival.com/2014/03/what-is-a-pop-up-business.html Shared spaces – https://smallbizsurvival.com/2017/04/small-town-retail-trend-shared-spaces.html Tiny businesses – https://smallbizsurvival.com/2017/03/tiny-businesses-in-storage-sheds-a-rural-economic-development-tool.html I am adding another thought to this list by suggesting that a business or…
Think about why you marketing effort. Are you bringing more customers into the store now or are you looking to build your customer base for tomorrow? Both are worthy goals and both should be on your mind as you develop your marketing plan. What happens though is most often marketing focuses on today and we…
Read anything offering marketing tips and you will be encouraged to learn who your customers are. You want to understand the demographic make-up as well as their likes and dislikes and, of course, what they buy. Yet, so often that is the end of the effort. Getting the data can be done with registration information,…
In most small-business startup manuals, you, the owner, are encouraged to define your audience. While a great early step, it often is done incorrectly. The instructions ask you to define your customers or potential customers in terms of: What they like to do Where they gather What they buy What drives them Where they live…
I regularly hear these words from small, rural business owners. How marketing was not something that took so much time and effort. They talk about putting an ad in the paper and they were done for the week. Marketing was advertising and it was done in the local paper, on the local radio and, if…
If you want to increase the sales of your product, you must get it in front of more people. While there are many ways to make that happen, a way used by many small businesses is an affiliate marketing program. It’s simple in the concept, one business agrees to carry another’s person’s products, usually on…
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