So hold onto your small budget and get ready to invest some time.  Here are some simple solutions for the small business owner with limited resources or someone just starting out that doesn’t have the resources to spend yet.

• Trades:  Smaller media outlets often times accept goods for advertising.  For example, if you’re a car wash, offer the local bus company to clean the busses periodically in exchange for ad space. 
• Events:  Host a charity fundraiser.  You’re helping a good cause and you’re getting potential customers in the door at the same time.   Most charities will handle the marketing aspect of the event, so that saves you money.  You may even attract a little media attention.
• Social Media:  If you aren’t doing this, you’re crazy.  It’s free.  Did you hear that?  F-R-E-E.  It takes seconds to set up a Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or pretty much any other site account.  Social Media is definitely a learn by doing process.  So try it out.  There are resources all over the web with tips and tutorials if you are completely tech-illiterate.
• Get Involved:  Network, network, network.  Go to events, join your local Chamber and take advantage of all of their freebies, volunteer on committees for events or charities.  This hypes old fashioned word of mouth advertising.

These are all great ideas to get started.  But keep in mind that they won’t sustain your business forever.  You may think so as you start to see results but it won’t.  The best thing you can do for yourself and your business is to start working on a marketing budget and plan.  This may take time as well, but you can fill some of that time by taking my advice and working on some of the things I’ve mentioned.

Sooner or later, you WILL have to hit the marketing scene in some fashion and spend.  No matter what market you’re in, today it is competitive worldwide.  But at least investing a little time will hold you over.

I thought I’d take today’s blog entry and share some of the questions I have received.  Since I have never asked permission to publish names of business owners/associates, I will simply list a category of business and location.

Question:  Do radio and TV offer sponsorship for events or free advertising?   Non-profit organization, Rochester, MN    

Jackie’s answer:  The best way to get coverage for your event is to launch your own personal media campaign.  First, establish a well-crafted press release [example was attached] that emphasizes the reason for the event and the key points surrounding it.  i.e.  guest appearances, cause, etc.  Send the release out by fax or email and always follow up with a phone call.  [media contact list was attached]

Approach media companies and ask them for a personality to be involved as a master of ceremonies or a guest speaker.  This can help you gain not only credibility but can help with media coverage.

Always send out a second press release closer to the date of your event that will publicize your event from a different perspective than the first and follow up with another phone call.

Several medias will have a package plan for event sponsorship that often times uses lower rates or match scheduling.  Get in touch with the local sales managers and ask if this is something they are interested in doing.  Of course, don’t forget, you’ll need an advertising budget for this. 

Question:  How many times do you need to place an ad in a newspaper before you get noticed?   Local restaurant in SE Minnesota

Jackie’s Answer:  That’s a tough one to answer!  Since not everyone sees every page of every issue of the newspaper, it takes multiple ads to have enough frequency with a specific audience for the message to stick with them.  The actual frequency will depend on what’s being sold, who you are selling it to, and your messaging.

Print can work but it has evolved into something that needs frequency and consistency.  Placing even one small ad weekly will not work effectively.  As with any campaign, you need frequency and key messaging.

Question:  I read your blog about offering discounts to your loyal customers, especially during tough economic times.  But how do I determine the volume of the discounts?  Garden Nursery, Rochester, MN

Jackie’s Answer:  The best thing to do is to examine your cost to produce the products you are considering to use as ‘discounted’.  Examine the typical pricing of your nearest competitors, and know what your retailer is willing to pay and perceives as a ‘good deal’.  The full answer to your question will require some homework on your part.

Obviously you don’t want to cut into your profit margins.  That should narrow down the list for you right there.  If you have key sellers that produce larger profits, then don’t start there.  Look at inexpensive products that are popular or appealing to your clientele.

These are just a few of the questions I’ve had float into my in-box and all of these have been asked different ways by one or more people.  I felt this was a good opportunity to address some of these questions with everyone. 

I invite any of you to shoot me an email with your marketing questions and I’ll surly return my opinion to you.  You’re also welcomed to leave me a question through a comment on the blog and I’ll answer it!

Sure, you need key elements to have a successful campaign.  Among others, you need a good frequency, an adequate reach, etc.  Each campaign is unique and requires a different approach.  But one thing you can bank on is the message.  If you do everything else right and your message is wrong, you’re in trouble.

I’ll bet you’re wondering, just what is the right message?  As I’ve always said, each advertising campaign is unique.  Your message is going to depend on the results you have in mind.

How to make your advertising campaign go terribly wrong…

Blah, blah, blah.  Yep, it’s about as fun to read as it is to see or hear.  This is by far one of the biggest mistakes advertisers make.  They want to squeeze every single thing into one print ad, one TV ad, one radio ad, etc.  Stop it!  It’s annoying, it doesn’t work, and it’s just not the smartest thing you can do!

Be particular.  Focus, focus, focus.  Get the traffic, get the business.  Once you get people in, it’s your job to sell them on the blah, blah, blah.  But you have to having something compellingto hook them first.  And trust me saying, “We have perrinials, annuals, sunflowers, a nice selection of hanging baskets, big ones, little ones, brown ones, blue ones…” is NOT the way to do it. 

We live in the world of over-communication.  This isn’t Mayberry anymore.  No one is going to take thirty seconds of their time to listen or read what your pedalling.  *Snore-fest*.  End of story.  You need relevance, not content.  Relevance sells, content puts people to sleep.

Do your due diligence, discover what your clients truly care about.  Talk about THAT.  Know your demographics and don’t reach.  Reaching is over-rated.  Find what works and it will come to you.

The best thing you can do is quit over-thinking it.  You don’t need to be all things to all people.  In fact, I’m pretty sure you can’t be.  Keep it simple, relevant and focused.

If you need help with your campaign’s messaging, leave me a comment and I’ll be in touch.

FACT:  Most people (67%) prefer using the Internet to look for a business.

FACT:  84% say the Internet is a faster way of finding a local business.

FACT:  63% say online business listings are more current than printed       Yellow Pages.

Source:  Mediacenter

I think the facts speak for themselves but I would like to share my thoughts.  Yellow Pages are a directory for businesses.  That’s it.  A directory.  And once that directory is printed, you have to wait a whole year to change any copy you have in it.  And speaking of copy, it’s generic.  Which is another reason why people prefer to find you online.  They can check out your website and see what you offer.  They have access to more than just a few words to sum up your business.

Those reasons coupled with some of the obvious [cluttered ads, large to store the books and can be hard to read, vast quanity of paper used in a 'green' world where we all strive to be enviromentally friendly, etc.] are exactly why the Yellow Pages of yesterday will be the fossils of tomorrow. 

Still a skeptic?  Here’s a few more facts:

FACT:  Internet search trends show fewer people use online Yellow Page websites.

FACT:  People find local business information through search engine results pages.  (Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc.)

Source:  Mediacenter

My philosphy has always been that no media is bad media if it is used effectively.  But over the last few years, I’ve seen so many changes in the industry and I have seen many medias combat the changes by creating new solutions, which is a good thing.  But not Yellow Pages.  At this point, I have to say that they are the wooly mammoth of their day.

Agree?  Disagree?  I want to hear about it, leave a comment and share your thoughts.

First, get your management to see that these aren’t complaints.  We’re simply talking about customer feedback.  Educate your management and employees that no comment is a complaint and every comment is feedback.  When your employees view feedback from customers more positively, they will handle the situation more positively.

Customer feedback creates opportunity.  It’s a great opportunity to build loyalty of consumers and your employees.  You can count on lower expenses and higher revenue when everyone is positive and prepared.

Here’s a few things that just might help you engage your employees so they will provide better service to your customers!

• VIEW COMPLAINTS AS FEEDBACK.  I think I already drove this home, but just in case…  Make a negative into a positive.  Do not allow the word ‘compaint’ to be uttered.  From this day forward, ‘feedback’ is the word of the day every day.
• KUDOS TO EMPLOYEES WHO GET FEEDBACK.  If your management views feedback as a bad thing, your employees will do the same.  Embrace the idea of gathering feedback and reward your employees (whether through incentive, verbally, awards, etc.) who can gather useful feedback from your customers.
• TAKE FEEDBACK SERIOUSLY.  Be a good listener.  Adjust your body language.  Make sure they know that you consider their feedback to be important.  Address the problem right away and assure them that you will fix it.  Don’t just give a refund and leave it at that.  That customer needs to know that you actually heard them and their opinion is important enough for you to address it!
• NO EXCUSES.  Do you really think customers care why things went wrong?  Nope, they don’t.  They just want them right again.  Solve the problem.  Don’t excuse it or blame anyone or anything else for it.  Just solve it.
• TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING.  Give your employees confidence.  Implement feedback training into your training period.  This is overlooked time and time again.  Stop it!  Your employees will feel empowered and be more likely to take control of the situation if they are trained to do so.  They also will feel more loyal to you for giving them the trust to handle any ‘situations’.
• SHARE FEEDBACK.  Don’t play the blame game and point fingers but most definitely share the good, bad and ugly with your employees.  Ask for their suggestions on how to address any problems and let your team be part of the solution.  Don’t forget to celebrate the positive feedback too!
• ONGOING TRAINING.  Implement ongoing training for your employees.  Even quarterly is enough to keep them engaged.  It’s also a good time to bring up examples of feedback for training.
• KEEP IT SIMPLE AND EASY.  Make it as easy as possible for your customers to offer feedback.  Please do not use lengthy forms or complicated answering services.  Look people and the eye and listen to them.  Read their faces, their body languages.  Respond to every piece of feedback - big or small.  Thank you customers, no matter what, and make sure when they leave they know how important they are to your customers.

Customer feedback provides you with a gold mine of information to be used to improve your company.  Do not make the mistake of dismissing feedback.  Even if you don’t like what someone has to say, you need to listen and learn from it.  When you do that, your employees will do that and they will work hard along with you to improve your company. 

You’ll also have a competitive edge as the place where the customer really does matter.  Everyone touts good service, but do they really have it?

If you’d like more tips on how to deal with customer feedback or overall service, drop  me a line or leave a comment and I’ll get back to you!

There are several kinds of hooks.  So let’s get busy and start exploring some options for small business owners.

Restaurants:  Can consider placemat coloring contests monthly for kids.  Prizes can be free kids meals, etc.  This can give you the ‘hook’ of being the locally owned family friendly restaurant.

Gas Stations:  Locally owned gas stations can consider giving out a free newspaper with every fill up.  This also deters customers from paying at the pump and gets them in your store.  And we all know what happens when we walk into a gas station/convenience store.

Floral shops/Garden Centers:  Try giving free seasonal flowers with every purchase over x-amount.  This creates the illusion that your customers are getting a great deal.  It doesn’t take long for gardeners to tell all of their gardening friends that they always patronize your business because they get freebies.

Scrapbooking/Stamping stores:  This market has exploded in the last five years.  It’s become very competitive as well.  Keep a basket of odds and ends at the check out.  Left over decals from classes you hold, ribbon, etc.  Let your customers pick out of your goody basket when they purchase something at your store.  Crafters are always looking for odds and ends and this is a great hook for your target market.

These are all great examples of subtle hooks that catch on with your existing customers and encourage “word of mouth” advertising.  They’re simple, inexpensive, and highly effective.

There are so many ways to use hooks in your advertising.  Posing a question to create interest is a hook.  Your local news does it all the time.  They make statements that interest you enough to learn more and tune in later.  The same holds true for your advertising.  Pose a question in your advertising and elude to the answer.  Draw them in, curiousity killed the cat but it also turns consumers into cash. 

Using hooks is highly effective.  You have to be remembered and you have to provide the reason to be remembered.  Do not just rely on your products or customer service.  It’s not enough anymore.  The market climate is too competitive to just sit back and think that because you offer what you feel is the best, it’s enough.  It isn’t.

If you need help refining your hook, feel free to send me a message or add a comment.  And while I’m good…the line and sinker part of the equation will be up to you!

Sometimes when we’re panicked, like during a recession, our logic goes right out the window.  And sometimes when we lose our logic, we don’t even realize it.  Let’s take it back to basics.  Go ahead and take a deep breath while we run it down together.

RESIST NEGATIVITY!  I know it’s hard.  It’s all over the place; the media, friends, family, customers…  But you have to do it, you just have to.  True story – I walked into a small local business the other day and a staff member was talking with a customer about how bad our economy is.  Are you kidding me?  Don’t do that.  Seems simple, doesn’t it?  Then you shouldn’t have any trouble implementing this rule:  Cut it out.  No negativity.

ASK FOR FEEDBACK!  Do not assume that your customers are satisfied.  EVEN if they have been a loyal customer forever.  Repeatedly ask them how they are doing and take their suggestions seriously.  Now, more than ever, your customer needs to feel like a part of your success.

TAKE COMPLAINTS SERIOUSLY!  No matter how proud you are of your product, remember, your product is for your customer – not for you.  You are nothing without your customer.  If it’s not working for them, then its just plain not working.  Be flexible and open minded and you will gain loyalty.

THINK OPPORTUNITIES!  Pay attention to what is going on out there!  There will be money coming into certain sectors of the economy through various stimulus plans.  Take notice of that and steer your marketing in that direction.  Give them a reason to chose you.  Don’t take the back seat and wait for someone else to do it.

DO NOT STOP MAKING YOURSELF VISIBLE!  This one baffles me!  Why oh why do small businesses stop marketing when times are tough?  How are you going to ever get out of your rut if no one knows you’re there?  Especially now when there are businesses closing up, you will be forgotten if you don’t keep yourself out there.  Just be smart, that’s all.  Don’t get in over your head.  Don’t sign annual contracts, don’t spread yourself too thin, pay attention to what is working, take the time to do a little research.  Plan month to month if you need to, its ok.  Just don’t do nothing.  Nothing equals death to business.

You can do it.  You can do it.  You can do it.  These are just a few things you really need to evaluate and implement.  This is serious stuff right now and you can’t afford to do nothing and get sucked in to the negativity.  Chin up, head up, you WILL survive and you will be better for it.

Let’s look at some tips to help your small business achieve their goals and maintain growth without the large price tag.

1.  Don’t Advertise Like A Big Business.

      Big business advertise primarily for branding purposes.  They want household name recognition to generate future sales.  A small business simply cannot afford to do that.  Small businesses need to have dual purpose advertising.  Not just name recognition, but offers throughout their marketing plan.  This can be an easy way for prospective customers to respond to your marketing.  No one says you have to give away the farm, but look to entice.

2.  Reduce the size of your ads.

      When you’re looking at radio or television, the quickest way to save advertising dollars is to reduce the size of your ads.  Instead of running a thirty second ad, look at doing a fifteen or ten second advertisement.  Keep them simple and to the point with a sense of urgency.  They work when produced properly!

3.  Partner with other small businesses.

     Step out of the box and do some joint promotion with a non-competing business(es) that share your target market.  You can share information about their services in your store and in return they can do the same.  This doesn’t cost you anything you don’t already have made up.  You’re out nothing, so try it.

4.  Utilize your existing customer base.

     Give incentives for your customers to crank out referrals for you.  Existing customers are naturally trusted by their friends, family, and associates.  This is an underestimated marketing tool for small businesses.

5.  Up-sell your current client base.

     It is so much easier to get more business out of someone who is already loyal to your product than to get someone unfamiliar with you to change their buying habits.  Create ‘specials’ exclusively for existing clients and give them the heads up about new products before they are announced to anyone else.  This can be done in enewsletters or mailers after you’ve created your client list.

Five simple tips that are effective and low cost or free.  Also five simple ways to combat big box stores.  Consumers feel like a number when they shop at big box stores.  Sure, they can find everything under the sun there and find competitive prices too.  But they can’t be treated like they matter.  Small businesses have the power to do that, YOU have the power to do that.

Your pockets aren’t as deep as the big corporations, but you can be effective in your own market by following these few simple tips.  You cannot put a price on inventiveness and customer service and that is where YOU WIN!

There comes a time when direct mail becomes junk mail.  Still, business owners don’t always learn from their own personal mail they throw in the trash.  I’m going to keep it simple and break it down with some tips to help you effectively use direct mailings.

First and foremost you HAVE to have a ‘call to action’ in your mailing.  If you don’t - forget it and save yourself some money because you will be literraly throwing it away if you don’t.  A mailer is not a billboard, it is not a tool for you to ‘brand’ yourself.  You must have an offer, you must, you must.  Free is good when it comes to mailers.  Do a free evaluation, free gift, etc.  If you can’t do free, it has to be a deep discount.  None of this 10% or 20% off stuff.  It has to be BIG and it has to be broad.  Do not offer a discount on something that only a few select people may need.  Hook those potentials! Offer something that just about everyone could need or want.

Once you get down the basics above, focus on the little things.  But do not move onto this step until you have offered something of value for free or deeply discounted. 

So what will help? 

• Use highlighting color on your free or discount offer.  It really does help attract attention. 
• Make your offer the predominant feature of your mailing. 
• Make it easy to respond to the offer and don’t make an offer with conditions. 
• Use short copy points, very short.  Do not list 20 things you offer.
• Keep it clean and professional.
• Make your location/web/phone information easy to find and read.
• Start small.  Experience with smaller mailing lists before you take a big plunge so you can fine tune what you’re offering and make sure it’s working. 

Often times, small businesses especially, treat a direct mail piece like a brochure.  Well, it’s not.  It’s a quick sales pitch to peak the interest of your potential customers.  Brochures are for those that are already interested in your services and want to learn more.  Mailers are to get people in your door.  Once they’re in, they can get to know you better.

Following these simple tips WILL help you improve your ROI.  Don’t believe me?  Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Get involved. One of the most under used marketing tools is getting involved with a non-profit charity. When done smartly, this can be a large return on investment and give you a tax write off at the same time. Not to mention the benefit of making a mark in the community as an outstanding business that is willing to help those in need.

Pick carefully. There are literally thousands of charitable organizations out there! Do a little research and find out which ones best suit the demographic of your business. For example, a purse store would be a great match for Breast Cancer Awareness but probably not so much for Alcoholics Anonymous. And keep it to a minimum – this is very important. Do NOT try to spread yourself thin. Pick a few organizations that you think you can have a beneficial partnership with and stick to them.

Now the important part – do not just write a check! Sponsor events, this is key, you will then be getting advertising in return. Read through sponsorship agreements carefully and make sure that you are getting the full benefits of your commitment. Look for things like verbal mentions in their advertising and at the event. Also look for logos on print brochures or advertising.

Make sure you can write your check out as a donation. This will ensure a tax write off for your business. You will litterally be marketing yourself, branding your commitment to a cause in your community, creating trust with consumers, developing community relationships, and writing every monetary amount off on your taxes.

While this is brilliant, it can’t carry all of your marketing needs but it can certainly cut into them and end up saving you thousands at the end of the day. Besides, its just a good thing!