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Archive for the ‘Traditional Marketing for Small Business’ Category
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
It’s almost impossible to survive today without some kind of web presence. It is more and more becoming a necessity to have a website. In any kind of business, a website can be an essential marketing tool. Small business marketers have realized that a website can enhance their message, increase their brand image and provide potential customers with a better picture of what a business is all about. The website is the 21st century marketing brochure.
In essence, your small business website can contain elements (and I’d argue that it should) of several traditional marketing collateral:
- It is your digital brochure
- A website is a billboard on the Information Superhighway
- It can communicate like a TV commercial
- It should be a gateway for news media to your organization’s public relations strategy – i.e. a press release
- Through podcasting you can make your own radio advertisements
- Social media can turn your website into a word-of-mouth phenomenon
- You might call it an electronic kiosk
- Turn it into a bulletin board
- Each page on your website is like a marketing flyer
- Blog posts are like little postcards
If you take everything you know about traditional marketing and apply it to your website using the unique techniques that are effective for online marketing then you can have some powerful marketing. There isn’t, of course, a one to one parallel. Traditional marketing does have a style of communicating that is not considered acceptable online, however, while the styles of communication aren’t the same the methods of delivering that communication are similar enough that you can still transfer your off line traditional mareting materials to your online marketing plan.
Will businesses some day decide they no longer need a brick and mortar presence or traditional marketing strategy? Many have. What about you?
Tags: marketing, small business
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing, Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
Word of mouth advertising has been around for ages. It may be the oldest form of advertising. It is certainly the oldest form of unpaid advertising. But it can just as well be a form of paid advertising.
When a company gives out free samples in hopes that people will talk about them, that’s “paying” them to talk. Isn’t it?
It may not be a direct form of payment, but it certainly is offering an incentive. And as long as you aren’t requiring the recipients of your freebies to say good things – as long as you allow them to say whatever they want – then it is considered ethical. But have you considered encouraging your employees to be your spokespeople?
I’m talking about a tactic that isn’t discussed much. Think about who you have working for you. Do they Twitter? Do they have Facebook friends? Maybe you should consider letting your receptionist take a tour of the inside of your plant. Or perhaps you can give free samples to your truck drivers and see what happens.
There’s really just one rule where this kind of word-of-mouth encouragement comes into play. Be sure you are touching the people most likely to talk. If you manufacture women’s perfume, for instance, and you give free samples to your shipping employees, 90% of whom are single men, then you may not get much in the way of results. On the other hand, if your shipping department is 80% female and 90% of the remaining employees are married men whose wives fit your target demographics then that would be a good investment.
So who do you encourage to spread news about your company by word of mouth?
Tags: advertising, word of mouth
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Monday, July 12th, 2010
Every small business owner knows that survival doesn’t always mean doing what you set out to do in the first place. Sometimes you can add new services and increase your revenues by a lot. But what services should you add?
There are different approaches to adding sidelines to a business. But in general the following activities make good sidelines for most businesses:
- Consulting
- Speaking engagements
- E-books
- Radio shows
- Special events
A sideline is a part of your business that doesn’t really do anything to increase your customer satisfaction by itself. It should be related in some way to what you do, but it shouldn’t take it over (otherwise, it wouldn’t be a sideline).
For instance, let’s say you run an automotive shop. You get paid to fix people’s cars. You could start a number of sidelines to help increase your overall revenue, but the market for those sidelines may be a completely different market. You could consult with automobile owners one on one and teach them how to do their own automotive work. In this case you’d get paid by the hour, but all you do is communicate while someone else does the work.
Using the same scenario, you could get paid to speak at conferences about different aspects of automotive care. In that case, you’d get paid per speaking engagement.
E-books – Get paid for what you sell.
Radio show (or podcast) – Sell sponsorships.
Special events – Get creative and design your own revenue stream.
There’s really no limit to the number of sidelines you can have. Some website owners have created online sidelines such as niche directories, wikis, video channels and all kinds of other creative ideas. You should find out what your audience needs and meet that need, on the sideline.
Tags: business, revenue, sidelines
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | No Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
If you own a brick and mortar business and you’ve done some Internet marketing then you’ve likely discovered that there are some great ways to promote yourself online – some for free and some for a fee. But can an online business promote itself off line?
First, let’s define an online business. If you do business online, even if you have a website that promotes a brick and mortar business off line, then you are an online business. The way I see it, your online presence is pretty much a business of its own. It may be a reflection of your brick and mortar business and be branded under the same image, but your virtual business has its own drive as well.
So for the sake of this blog post, consider your website and online business presence a separate entity from your brick and mortar store. Can you promote it off line?
Not only can you, but you should. There are some online business models, of course, that would not do well with off line promotion, but if you are a local small business with an online presence then off line promotion should be one of your major initiatives. When you run your TV and radio commercials, mention your website. Add your URL to your newspaper ads and billboards. When you give speaking engagements, mention your website. These are all legitimate ways to promote that website of yours and the payback is tremendous.
Tags: off line promotion, online business
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Facebook has seen a rise in advertisers by 400% since 2009. Meanwhile, traditional news media are losing advertisers left and right. Is there a connection?
You bet your bottom dollar there is. Google has been the recipient of lost revenue for newspapers for some time now. And it could be Facebook’s time. But that’s not all.
The Associated Press is now including social media references in its stylebook to let journalists know how to cite their online sources. I suppose that’s a good thing considering that Danny Sullivan just tore them all a new one for not doing so.
Traditional news media have been accusing bloggers of stealing for a while now. Danny Sullivan, once a traditional journalist himself, this time turned the tables on them. But it seems that news has a way of circulating, both online and off line.
In this world of Facebook and Google, small businesses should understand that traditional media (aka marketing) and new media (online marketing) really go hand in hand. They may be stealing stories from each other (and advertising revenue), but when it comes to marketing your business, you can play to both fields. And you should.
Tags: advertising, blogging, marketing
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | No Comments »
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
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.
Tags: marketing, selling, value
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
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.
Tags: advertising, marketing, publicity
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
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?
Tags: integrated marketing, internet marketing, traditional marketing
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | No Comments »
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
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!
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 3 Comments »
Monday, September 14th, 2009
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.
Tags: advertising, off line marketing, online marketing
Posted in Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 9 Comments »
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