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Are you Wasting Money with These 7 Marketing Mistakes?

May 5, 2012 1 Comment


Many small business owners think of marketing as a black magic that involves spending lots of money in advertising in the hope that it will magically bring additional customers and sales. They get frustrated when not as many customers as they had hoped show up and the scant few that do never return again. The worst part is business owners feel they have no choice but to continue doing this because they will lose even more customers and sales otherwise. As a result, they end up wasting their hard earned money on marketing when they could have received better return on their money.
While consulting with number of small business owners we have uncovered several recurring mistakes that many of us make in terms of marketing. By simply understanding those mistakes and taking steps to avoid them from happening with your business you can not only save money on marketing, but also get much better return. The list below shows 7 common mistakes many small business owners make. We also show references to other articles that provide additional details and explain how to prevent them from hurting your business.
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How can you Beat the Larger Rivals at their Own Game

November 16, 2011 1 Comment


In the previous post we mentioned that it is possible to beat your larger competitors and own a successful small business. Many small business owners are scared of their large competitors because of their wrongful perception that large companies can use their size and vast resources to drive smaller rivals out of business.
We described why this is not true in the last post. Here we will take it one step further and show how you can beat those larger rivals.
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Yes, You can Beat the Larger Rivals at their Own Game

November 12, 2011 2 Comments


Many small business owners are scared of competing against their larger rivals. After all, large competitors have all the resources at their disposal to put you out of business, right? It is a battle of David versus Goliath! What chance does David stand against the Goliath?
While it is true that Wal-Mart has put number of mom-and-pop shops out of business in the last 10 years, there is hope for small business owners. In fact, we believe you can beat them at their own game and become a very successful small business owner. You probably are thinking we are nuts and don’t know what we are talking about, but allow us to explain.
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How to Team up with Cool Businesses and Improve Sales by 10%

October 12, 2011 Leave a Comment


In the previous post we mentioned that small businesses can improve brand and increase sales by 10%-20% by teaming up with “cool” businesses. Subway’s partnership with American Heart Association to position them as a healthy food purveyor by teaming with an organization that promotes heart health is a great example. Recently, Ford announced partnership with a Zipcar to improve their brand perception in the minds of college students based on the same principle.
Small businesses such as yours can also realize benefits from such partnership. It can improve the brand image of your company by “rubbing some the coolness” from your partner to your business. In the process, it can bring new customers and increase sales from those new as well as existing customers. The association can also teach you a great deal about how to work with and attract different customer base.
The key to successful partnership is to understand your overall objectives as well as the target customer base you want to attract and find businesses that are deemed as “cool” by those customers. This needs careful planning on your part. We have come across number of ways in which businesses have gone about implementing this. Below we explain some of the tactics based on our experience and observations.
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How to Grow your Business without Spending a Fortune

July 27, 2011 Leave a Comment


The great recession of the last 2-3 years has made many small business owners skittish about spending money even if it can help them improve sales in the future. Many of the small business owners are hunkering down to survive till the sky is cleared. They are happy with maintaining current sales and making reasonable profit. While we agree that these are difficult times for all small business owners, you should not have to sacrifice long-term benefits at the expense of short-term survival.
We believe, there are ways to satisfy both the needs of conserving cash and growing your business at the same time. The key is to utilize low-cost marketing techniques to improve sales combined with flexible operations to control cost. We have covered several of these techniques in previous posts. Below we summarize them for your convenience.
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How to Run Successful Free Sample Program

June 22, 2011 Leave a Comment


In the previous post we discussed why giving out free samples needs to be part of marketing strategy for every small business. There are number of benefits small business owners can obtain by giving out samples to existing and new customers. The key to achieving these benefits is to execute the program well. You have to ensure that you reach out to target it to the customers you want to attract. Give out free samples to anyone and everyone and you will waste your money without reaping proper benefits.
To successfully run the sample program you should aim to reach maximum number of potential customers in your target market. You also need to look into getting recommendations from influential people that your target customers admire. Here are some suggestions to make that happen.
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Ductz – Champion of Customer Service and Marketing

June 15, 2011 Leave a Comment


If you have been a regular reader of this blog you know that we are strong proponent of customer service and “non-traditional” marketing to improve sales and customer loyalty. We strongly believe that by paying attention to customer service and marketing with emphasis on fundamentals of products and services you can not only significantly improve sales but do so with lower marketing budget.
We are always on the lookout for companies that follow this approach and came across one such company last month at a customer service seminar at IKEA in Canton, MI where I was presenting. I met Dayn Benson, who is Director of Operations at air duct cleaning and HVAC restoration franchise called DUCTZ. Ductz has garnered number of accolades and experienced rapid growth in a short time after being founded in 2002. It was ranked No. 1 in its category by Entrepreneur magazine’s recently released 30th Annual Franchise 500.
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10 Marketing Acts that Generated Enormous Business Buzz

June 8, 2011 Leave a Comment


As we discussed earlier buzz marketing can help small business owners achieve high return on their marketing investment. We also showed you practical ideas that can generate buzz with your customer and community and improve your sales and customer loyalty. The primary ingredients required to create buzz are buzz-worthy products, suspense, conversation and scarcity.
Some companies have a knack for creating the buzz. Remember the TV commercial that Apple produced to introduce Macintosh computer. This is a must see commercial, along with host of other things Apple has done over the years. Besides Apple, number of other companies have generated buzz and made their brands famous by producing innovative, out-of-the-box stunts. Below are some of our favorites.
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15 Practical Ideas to Generate Buzz for Your Business

June 5, 2011 Leave a Comment


In the last post we talked about how buzz marketing can help small business owners stand out in the crowd and enable them to compete with large companies. Buzz marketing also helps lower marketing cost for small business owners because it costs less compared to traditional marketing avenues such as newspaper, radio or television.
The primary ingredients required to create buzz are buzz-worthy products, suspense, conversation and scarcity. In this post we provide you with practical tips you can use to generate buzz about your business. As you will see the key theme in each of these tips is doing something expected or even outrageous.
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How to Generate Buzz for Your Business

June 1, 2011 2 Comments


Buzz marketing, also known as viral marketing or work-of-mouth marketing has been the buzzword talked about in marketing circles for the last decade. Simply put, buzz marketing is about getting people to talk about your business by using unconventional marketing tactics. These days consumers’ ears and eyes are so inundated with marketing messages that it is difficult for small businesses to stand out and get noticed unless they do “something different.” This is where buzz marketing helps.
Buzz marketing not only helps businesses stand out from the crowd; but it does so by businesses having to spend less money than traditional marketing techniques such as newspaper ads or television and radio commercials.
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