The Beginner s Guide to Small Business Marketing. By Leah Cobb LJC Creative

Transcription

1 The Beginner s Guide to Small Business Marketing By Leah Cobb LJC Creative

2 Reality Check As consumers, we often pretend marketing doesn t affect our daily lives. We insist that we make our own, unbiased decisions about the products we buy, uninfluenced by any compelling graphics, catchy slogans or promises on labels. And we re not being honest. The truth is, marketing messages are constantly surrounding us, telling us what to buy, what services to trust, what our next move should be. And as consumers, like it or not, we listen. So how does this affect you on the other side: as one small business competing against thousands of others to deliver a winning message to those consumers? Does your business have a real, tangible marketing plan to reach your target audience? The most successful companies do. Putting that plan together can sometimes be tricky. Where do you start? With a wide variety of outlets for businesses to reach the public, be it print advertising, SEO, SEM, tradeshows and events, product placement or otherwise, you need to assess what the best investment actually is for YOUR unique organization. More clearly, you need to determine what investments will actually produce the best results. Is creating a marketing plan for your business even worth the time, effort and money? You bet! Read on to find out why.

3 Creating An Effective Brand Contrary to how a great many start-ups think, running a successful business is not just about making money. You ll need to spend some too. So before you even CONSIDER rolling in the dough, set a budget and aim to give your business a winning personality. In the marketing world, we call this a brand. Creating a strong brand identity is the most effective way to earning your customers trust, and without one, you run the risk of looking unprofessional, unorganized and unreliable. Just as an artist would never sell his expensive painting without signing it first, shoving your product at anyone who walks by without attaching your company s identifying marks to it will hardly make your brand a household name. If you can`t commit to your own brand, why should they? If you don t want to be forgotten, make sure you establish a unique style that puts your business above your competitors. Establish a relatable voice that your customers WANT to listen to. Pick out a consistent color scheme, font style, illustration and most importantly, hire a professional to create a logo that makes your brand instantly recognizable. Your logo is your business face it is CRUCIAL and it needs to effectively explain your brand in an instant. So don t risk poor design that harms your credibility. Think about how you want the public to view your business and then stick to it! According to the Custom Content Council, a good 78% of consumers believe that organizations providing branded content are interested in building good relationships with them and they ll keep coming back! But if you can t commit to your own brand, why should they?

4 Telling Your Story Any successful brand has a great story to go along with it. And though you may have just jumped into this business because you like it, your audience needs the inside scoop. Consider questions such as: what inspired you to create this business? What is it about the services you offer or the products you sell that beat your competition? Think about who your primary audience is and what keeps them interested. Think about your location and how to create leverage off of that. Anticipate common questions your audience may ask and how you can address their needs. Take a look at your website or existing marketing material if you have, and consider what you might be missing. Ask a friend to look over it and give honest feedback. Is your message understandable and compelling to someone who s never heard of you before? Take the time to write your answers down. Think about your current relationship with your audience and where you d like to be in the next 1, 5, 15 or 25 years. Once you ve addressed these questions and gain a better understanding of who your business is and what you want to represent, you ll have a much easier time telling that same message to your audience. Think about it this way: If YOU tell your story right they will too.

5 Getting Your Message to the Masses Once you have your story straight, your marketing plan needs a medium - the method in which you reach your audience. Depending on your budget and product/service offering, your marketing plan may include mediums such as: print advertising, tradeshows, radio or tv campaigns, online advertising and/ or social media campaigns. Each medium offers its own unique opportunities and it s up to you to determine the most effective ways to reach your audience. So before throwing money into anything, set some goals. Do you want more sales transactions? Do you want to increase the percentage of returning customers? Do you want to generate leads on your website or have a certain amount of people show up to your event? Set short term and long term goals that you can revisit as time goes on. Here are just a couple popular marketing mediums to consider: Print Advertising One of the oldest forms of marketing, print advertising has stood the test of time. Though online marketing has also quickly become one of the most important ways to reach your designated audience, print and offline promotion is still the number one paid platform for content marketing distribution, according to The Content Marketing Institute. That said, even smaller publications, like Coffee News, have served as great advertising solutions for small businesses across Canada. Coffee News, now going for 12 years strong, has an average distribution of 3,000-5,000 readers per weekly edition in small communities and 10,000-12,000 readers in larger areas, serving as a reliable marketing medium for many small businesses looking primarily to

6 reach their local community. With newspapers, magazines and trade journals readily available to the public, there s an option for any budget. Coffee News, for example, currently offers advertisers yearly plans for as little as $15 per week. With short term options also available and free ad changes to each business that signs up, Coffee News offers a big market reach at little cost. Plus, 51% of readers report responding to ads in the newspaper at some point. The response rate YOUR business gets depends on how you choose to present your message. Take Paul Langlois of Home and Office Handyman, for example. Paul has been advertising in Coffee News for four years. Throughout those years, he experimented with various advertisement designs and noted that an ad with a picture of himself generated work for smaller projects whereas an ad with a group of handymen generated calls for larger projects. There s an option for every budget. Effective imagery in any sort of advertising is important. Even initially having a well-designed logo and creative business tagline can often inspire the rest of the design to reel your customers in. This takes some creativity so if design and layout is not your forté, consider hiring a professional to see your goals through. Many newspapers, including Coffee News, have skilled designers who will produce the ad for you. As your campaign runs, pay attention to what imagery and messages your customers best respond to and fine-tune the details as you go. Customers respond to businesses who respond to them. So, while you should always remain true to your brand, never let it get stagnant. If something is not working the way you anticipated in order to meet your goals and serve your customers, don t be afraid to revise your strategy. Maintain the trust of your audience by keeping your message relevant through the years.

7 Online Marketing As much as we d love to say Coffee News or any other printed publication can do it all, choosing just one marketing medium like print advertising is NOT a strategic marketing plan. The online market, for example, is one you don t want your business to miss out on. And with the Pew Research Centre reporting that 91% of internet users credit search engines for bringing them the information they re looking for, Search Engine Marketing (SEO) is an important investment to include in your marketing plan. Qualify search terms that relate to your business and optimize your website to be found easily on top search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. You can also invest in programs like Google Adwords which allow you to place ads at the top of search engine results, driving even more traffic to your website. Social media advertising is the same in its appeal to drive traffic to your content. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have effective advertising programs that you can customize to get the leads you ve been looking for. You don t even necessarily have to spend money on social media to make it a success. In a nutshell, you can build traffic by asking engaging questions, posting industryrelated news and interacting with other pages, tagging back to your own. Just make sure you keep up with the conversation. Needless to say, the online marketing world is vast. Aside from social media and search engine optimization and marketing, you can also seek out popular online directories to post your business information and be found. Create a presence on Google+ and purposefully ask your customers to leave online feedback for you on your page after a positive experience working together. The more reviews you have, the more easily you ll be found and the more followers you ll gather. Offer incentives to your customers to prompt their engagement.

8 The Variety Show Whatever marketing medium you choose to follow, remember it should not end with just the one method. Again, a well-crafted marketing plan is NOT the following: 1. Place an ad in a newspaper 2. Enjoy the flood of customers 3. Make money. Lots of money. If only the business world was so simple! A successful marketing plan needs to have some thought put into it. It may take a few revisions; it may take a LOT of revisions. To keep up with consumer demand, you can definitely expect your marketing plan to change over time. If it doesn t, something is wrong. What works for one season might not work for the next so stay on your toes! Angie Garred of Dive Outfitters has been advertising successfully in Coffee News for over 11 years, yet knows the importance of diversifying her marketing efforts. Having variety really helps, she says. If you focus too much on one marketing stream, you ll miss out. We do online marketing and direct mail as well as Coffee News and by taking advantage of all, it really rounds out.

9 Keep in mind, rounding out YOUR marketing plan might look different than it does for Angie s business. For yours, it may mean developing a stellar contentfilled website (you should ALWAYS do this), engaging your audience in social media, running a blog, buying some radio spots for a particular promotion and/ or investing in online advertising. Or, it might mean cold calls, direct mail, print advertising and/or networking at local industry events. The point is, every organization s marketing plan will vary. What works for some does not necessarily work for others. Find out what works for your business, but don t commit to just one avenue to engage your audience. Your audience listens in different ways and if you have developed a strong, relatable brand, you can reach more ears with your message. Putting It All Together Whatever marketing mediums you choose, they should always lead up to the same end goal, so make them work hand-in-hand. Run time-framed marketing campaigns that span across various mediums. For example: If your focus is driving more traffic to your website or social media page, be sure that in any marketing collateral you print, you draw attention to that website or social media page! And when customers type in that URL or scan that QR code, be sure there s content worth looking at when they get there. That said, if you DON T have a website yet, strongly consider getting one. It is the number one effortless go-to resource for your audience, and if you don t have one, you risk losing valuable customers to your competitors. Generate leads at events by hosting a contest that passersby have to sign up

10 for your newsletter for to enter. Following the event, send an thanking them for stopping by and reminding them how your business can be of service. Use social media to post videos about your business, promote your upcoming events and even share your excitement over your latest appearance in Coffee News. If you look at the bigger picture and focus all marketing activity on your brand s goals, your organization will be one that people will not forget. The Importance of ROI Getting your audience to listen is one thing, but HEARING feedback from that audience is another. At the heart of any great marketing plan stands your ROI, or Return on Investment. The question, Is this marketing strategy going to help me meet my overall business goals? should be the first thing you ask before diving in. And once you dive in, you need to measure your success to see if it`s the right path to continue to take. Yet, so many businesses in North America don t even track their ROI. They spend countless dollars without ever knowing what was successful and what was not. Don t fall into the same trap!

11 How you monitor your ROI can greatly depend on the marketing mediums you choose to use. For example, internet giants like Google, Yahoo & Bing have made it easy to track the success of your search engine marketing efforts through web analytics. Reading the measurements provided in an analytics program will help you better understand where your customers are coming from, what search terms they used to find you, and the content they re most interested in once they ve found you. Measuring ROI in any other medium is important too, and it sometimes can be as simple as asking a question when new customers call or . I keep track of where calls are coming from by referencing our data base. I ask where callers hear about us and they say you know that little brown newspaper and I know it s Coffee News, advertiser Paul Langlois reports. If you have a larger business with many different marketing outlets, you can also consider investing in a formal Customer Relationship Management system, or CRM system. These quality computer-based programs will allow your company to track lead sources most effectively and measure out what marketing mediums are most successful for your business over time. The importance of measuring your ROI extends beyond knowing where your customers are coming from and where your money went to bring them in. Measuring your ROI sets your business up to see the value in connecting with your audience and creates further goals for you to attain in the future. The results of one marketing campaign could inspire changes to the next. Knowing your ROI can help you fine-tune your budget. It can provide you with the resources to make a bigger investment or better reach a niche market. Knowing your ROI for every marketing effort you make also ensures that you stay connected with your business. You re not just floating along; you re in control. It s easy to throw an ad out into the world and hope for the best. But if you re concerned with gaining customers, retaining them and keeping your revenue on the up-swing year after year, your marketing plan is never complete without a strategy for measuring ROI.

12 A Purposeful Future Marketing can be expensive but effective so don t throw money down the drain on the wrong methods! Invest purposefully to thrive naturally. If YOU see the value in your business, others will too. Having a strong brand is absolutely essential to maintaining the trust of your audience once you ve identified them. Keep them coming back by staying relevant to their needs. Above all, give your customers a reason to listen to you and then make sure you listen to them: that s the key to any successful marketing plan. About the Author Leah Cobb is a freelance marketing & communications specialist, with concentrations in graphic design and professional writing. With creative flair, she helps small businesses brighten up their brands and deliver engaging messages to their unique audiences. She also currently works as a graphic designer for the advertising department of Coffee News. Learn more about Leah s business, LJC Creative, at