Most people don’t like selling. Many people, in fact, see sales people as slick, fast talkers who will say anything to get the sale and the money. Unfortunately, there are sales people like that, but selling is not about just getting the sale. It’s about helping people and selling them on the benefits of what will help them the most.

But what is marketing? The American Marketing Association defines it this way:

”Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Notice that it’s not all about the customer, nor is it all about selling. It’s about creating value. And when you create real value for people, they will do business with you and they will tell their friends what you’ve done for them.

How many ways are you creating value for people? Do you notice they want to buy when you create the right kind of value? That means you don’t have to sell, the value does the selling for you.

Free publicity – does it exist? Sponsor a local event and you will receive free publicity. But sponsorships cost so is it really free? We talk a lot about online marketing but for small businesses targeting a local marketing, off-site marketing can prove to be invaluable – and if it’s free, more so.

Can you get free publicity off-line. There are several channels that are worth exploring although everything really does have a cost, even if it’s only nickels:

Yourself – have t-shirts printed with your logo and web address. These days there are kits that enable you to do it in your own home. Be smart – wear you shirt when dropping the kids off to school (or picking them up) and to casual social functions.

Your Car – you can do the same with your car – just not the t-shirt. A printed sign in the back window is quick and easy to produce with a color printer.

Business Cards – business cards are so inexpensive these days you can buy them for a fraction of a cent each. The key to business cards is placement. Don’t just scatter them everywhere, be selective and ask business that provide complementary services in your niche – offer to host there cards in return.

Simple, inexpensive, yet it helps to spread the word about your business. Does it work? I had to replace a window last week – who did I think of? Someone I see everyday wearing a shirt with a business logo – over time, it imprints on the brain. So yes – it certainly can work.

With all the talk going on about Internet marketing, you’d think traditional marketing products like brochures wouldn’t work any more. That’s not true. Not true at all.

While I still have a high regard for Internet marketing – even small businesses can’t get by without it any more – I’m not quite ready to abandon he old mainstays of traditional off line marketing. A company brochure can still get someone attention and a well-placed phone call can still attract good clients. The key is to use your off line channels, the traditional marketing tools, in conjunction with your online marketing tools and draw in new customers that way.

We call it integrated marketing. You integrate your new media marketing strategies into your old traditional marketing strategies, throwing out what is old hat and not working any more and replacing it with what will.

The key to good integrated marketing is to know what to throw out of your traditional marketing strategies and knowing what to keep then you’ve got to figure out what to do about the new marketing strategies. That’s where an internet marketing consultant can help you. Are you ready?

Traditional marketing for small business is just as effective for online businesses as it is for offline businesses. The core of any decent marketing program is a strategic plan than acts as a blueprint for each step.

Strategic plans are not new. They have been one of the laws of the business jungle when it comes to bricks and mortar businesses. For some reason, once we start to build an online business we throw away business practices that have been effective for hundreds of years.

Whilst it’s true that online businesses are different to offline businesses, many of those practices still apply. Putting together a strategic approach is one of them.

You know your business. That includes knowing your product and customer base. Putting together a strategic plan is not difficult – what seems to be difficult is the follow through. I have seen many business plans for online businesses, however most have been filed away and forgotten. If they had been followed, many of these businesses would have been far more successful.

Marketing is one area that is a little different. However, many of those traditional marketing for small business practices still apply. Do you have a strategic plan> If you do, do you ever read it to see if you’re on track? I bet many don’t!

It is increasingly becoming an irrelevant question – either/or. A few years ago you might have had a choice, but today your choice should be both. Promote online and offline.

Most shoppers these days begin their shopping online. Even if they purchase offline they are doing research online. That means the opportunities to touch your potential customer are manifold more than what they used to be. Before the Internet all you have was print advertising, TV, radio, and outdoor advertising. You have more options than that online today.  Plus, there is mobile advertising, e-mail, etc.

The most effective advertising utilizes a mult-tiered approach that focuses on reaching the right audience with the right message. Don’t toss out a medium just because you don’t understand it or don’t see the need. Do some research and study the market then attack where your prospects are.

When it comes to marketing, one of the most important questions you’ll ask yourself is, “Who is my ideal customer?” This is an important question because that’s who you should be marketing your services toward. Everything you do should be targeted toward your ideal customer, but there are some basics to get out of the way before you start marketing. Ask yourself these questions:

• Are there enough people that fit my ideal customer profile to make marketing toward that audience worthwhile?
• If I can snag just 2% of that defined market, what price point would I need to make a full-time living? Is that possible?
• Where does my ideal customer hang out? What websites does she visit?
• What does my ideal customer read?
• Who are my ideal customer’s friends?
• What values does my ideal customer hold?
• What is the best way to build rapport with my ideal customer?

Answering these questions can give you some clue as to whether or not you should pursue your business plans. You may need to tweak your plan based on the answers to these questions. If capturing just 2% of your target audience couldn’t possibly earn you the money you want to earn then you may not have a broad enough audience. How do you fix that?

The goal is to know your ideal customer. You have to know as much about her as you can so that you know how to reach her and how to communicate with her once you do. How well do you know your ideal customer?

If you’ve been online for a year or more you’ve likely heard someone yell out in a crowded theater, “Content is king!”

OK, if you don’t go to crowded theaters then you may not have that. There. But you’ve heard it somewhere. But here’s the news. Content is NOT king. According to Carl Ocab.

Actually, Carl makes a good point. Marketing is Numero Uno. And content is a part of marketing. I agree with this, of course.

It’s been this way since the beginning of advertising. Ever since the first cave dwelling brochure, written in hieroglyphs, of course, marketers have been the king of the world. They do their best work through content. But it’s the marketing that wins the prize.

So, do you have a marketing plan? Does it include great content? Talk to someone who can make it happen.

Let’s face it, you only have so many hours in a day and you can’t spend all that time marketing. You have just a limited amount of time for that one activity. How do you spend your time marketing? Should you be on the social networking, optimizing your website, buying banner ads, link building? What activities should you put your time and budget into?

That’s a good question and one that, inevitably, every business owner will face. Many small business owners just brush it aside and never answer it. Then they wonder why they go out of business a year or two later.

Marketing is important. Today and tomorrow. You’ve got to define your marketing funnel and the sooner you do so the better. Who is your ideal customer? What does he or she want? How are you going to help that person achieve their goals? What do you have to offer him or her? Better yet, how are you going to reach him or her?

In order to reach the ideal customer, you have to know a little something about him. You have to know what he desires and what he needs. But you also need to know where he hangs his hat. Will you find him at the local barber shop or down at the mall? Once you define who your idea customer is and where you’ll find him + what his most heartfelt need is then you can start marketing. Spend your time in the same places as your ideal customer, participating in activities that will allow you an opportunity to build rapport. That’s marketing 101 and it hasn’t changed.

If you are looking for a quick and easy way to prospect for new clients in your local area without using the Internet, there is an old-fashioned way of prospecting that requires nothing more than a phone book – the Yellow Pages. Take them out of the attic, they are still useful!

Here’s what you do:

1. Open up the Yellow Pages to the business category that fits the profile of the clientele you want to do business with
2. Scan the ads in that section of the Yellow Pages to see who has purchased the quarter page ads or larger
3. Circle all the large ads with a big red marker
4. Compile a list of businesses whose ads you circled – include name of business, type of business, address, and phone number
5. Send a personal letter to the business owner asking for a meeting to show them what you can do for them
6. Follow up with a phone call

Note that this works best for business-to-business professionals. If you target consumers then the Yellow Pages won’t help you. But many B2C businesses use the White Pages as a cold call list. The Yellow Pages can help you plant a seed in your local community by targeting known paid advertisers of a certain business type.

Whether you have an existing online business or a traditional storefront with an online presence, you will likely find yourself in situations in the real world where you’ll discuss your online business with people in the real world. Off line, that is. How do you take advantage of those situations?

There are a variety of ways to take advantage of off line promotions. One of the most powerful and effective ways is to simply put your web address on your business cards. People do read those and they keep them for future reference.

But I’d consider the business card a starting place, not a stopping place.

You’ll also want to utilize other ways of self promotion. You can use car magnets, which usually work while driving around town (and if you do a lot of driving a car magnet can increase your visibility tremendously), T-shirts, pens and pencils, banners at trade shows and such, and even billboards. If you have the budget for it, you might even try T and radio advertising.

The idea is to use off line methods of promotion to drive traffic to your website. This is perhaps the best way to get new traffic to a new local website since you are active in your community and doing business with local people. Become a master of off line promotion and you’ll see your online business survive and thrive.