Marketing Guide for Small Business Owners

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FACT: The latest statistics prove that 90% of new businesses fail the first year. And 90% of the rest fail in the next 4 years.

Why? One leading cause is poor or non-existent marketing. In this Internet-driven day and age, those who do not know how to market your business and find targeted leads via the Net have little chance for success.

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This step-by-step marketing guide for small business owners is intended to provide you knowledge and the small business marketing tools you need to stay ahead of your competitors. Now you can consolidate, organize and modernize your marketing so you can do what you want to be doing – making sales and making money.

Today You Start to Succeed –
Are you ready to do What You Have to Do?

If the answer is no, then go no further. No one is going to do it for you.

Well, not exactly. We do implementation work but you need to assist in the construct. After all, no one knows your business better than you! To get started, let’s look at some fundamentals of marketing.

Introduction – The Marketing Mindset

When most people think of marketing, they think of advertising, brochures, websites or newsletters. In fact, many people have a negative impression of marketing – they think it boils down to convincing (perhaps even manipulating) people to buy something they don’t want or need. When they think of selling, they think of the proverbial used car salesman who won’t let them walk away from the lot without a car with all the bells and whistles at an inflated price.

What are Your Misconceptions about Marketing?

What does marketing mean to you? To many small-business owners, it means “networking” (i.e. trying to meet as many people as possible), “advertising” (i.e. running ads in newspapers/ radio/TV, mailing fliers/postcards/letters), “Internet marketing” (i.e. putting up a website and running an on-line ad campaign to get traffic to your site) or “sales” (i.e. pitching everyone you know on the benefit of your services).
Many small-business owners start off with one type of marketing but soon become frustrated with how ineffective and time consuming the process is. If they run ads, they wonder why no one is calling. If they set up a website, they wonder why no one is visiting their site. If they cold-call prospects, they wonder how many calls it takes before they find an interested buyer (many times, it’s 1-2 out of 100 calls!)

Feeling disillusioned, they turn their attention to another type of marketing, hoping it will work better for them. A few months later, they turn to something else. And so this “marketing” cycle continues until the small-business owner gives up or reverts back to other ineffective methods in the cycle.

What is Marketing?

Marketing is more than a one-time act or marketing campaign. It is a system that starts with careful planning and targeting of a particular group of people with similar characteristics. How well do you know your target audience? What do they do for fun, at work, with their families? Who are they? If you start to see each as an individual and cater your marketing to them as if you were having a personal conversation with your college buddy, Joe, or your grandmotherly neighbor, Ruth, your marketing will become more effective.

Here’s the fundamental secret of marketing. It’s not about bloated hype and gimmicks. By getting to know who your prospects are, what they want, and what they need, marketing helps you uncover what these prospects are looking to buy, so you can provide that product or service! It’s so much easier to give someone the opportunity to buy something they want than to sell them something they don’t think they need.

When you know something about your prospects – what their biggest problems are, what they are looking for in a solution, how they want to buy – you can have a genuine conversation with them. No longer do you sound like a pushy salesman encouraging them to “Buy now!” No longer do you put out generic marketing messages that sound the equivalent of “I’m great! I have so much experience! Hire me now!”

Instead, you build rapport with prospects by providing them with educational marketing materials that educate them about ways to fix their biggest problems. You give them value upfront so they start to trust your expertise and respect your knowledge of the subject – so that when they are ready to make a purchasing decision, they call you.
Yes, you read that right – prospects can and will call you! With the right marketing message and an offer they can’t refuse, you’ll have a constant stream of prospects that can’t wait to learn more about your products and services.

What makes a good offer? Something that is valuable to them right now. Offer them a free report or tip sheet or audio program that explains common problems they might be having, offers suggestions on how to fix those problems, and educates them a bit about your services.

To get your free information, they must take a small, low-risk step like visiting your website to download it, calling your office to request it, or mailing back a reply card.

This acts as a way to screen out tire kickers while allowing those truly interested to raise their hands and say “I’m somewhat interested. Tell me more.” Sure, there will be people who will request your free material who won’t buy from you, but you’ll be building a contact list of much more highly qualified leads who already know who you are, are willing to be educated about what you do, and have already taken the first step of contacting you.

The Marketing Mindset

“Marketing” is an umbrella term that involves everything you do to attract clients and help them solve their problems.

It includes:

The types of services you offer.
How you position and package your services. What you charge.
Your marketing materials such as ads, websites, brochures, and newsletters.
How you present yourself in meetings.
How your staff treats clients through phone and email.
Networking – such as lunch, golf, or organizational events.
How you get referrals.

As you can see, marketing is not just a set of tools to communicate with prospects and clients. Marketing is a mindset. It is more than the casual philosophy of “just do it” – just send out those postcards or catalogs or newsletters and wait for the phone to start ringing. It’s about everything you do or say to customers and prospects through any type of medium – phone, email, brochure, website, etc.

Also, marketing is an ongoing process. Think of marketing in the same way you approach your company’s finances – you do the books and pay your bills on a routine basis. Marketing should be no different. What do you need to do every month, every week, every day to get your message out there? It can take upwards of 8 contacts with a person before they even remember who you are!
The purpose of this guide is to help you create a monthly marketing plan that you can use to make your marketing campaigns a funnel to successful sales.
To get your copy of the guide, and to receive other periodic business marketing tips, simply give us your email address in the form provided for you to the right of this message.
Note: Your mileage will differ from others it is all determined by your marketing plan. What is guaranteed is without an actionable small business marketing plan you will fail. Stumbling through one marketing campaign to the next marketing campaign is a surefire way to increase your workload and decrease your revenue. Don’t drive your business into the ground, plan for success.

P.S Enjoy the read, it may well be the most important read that you can take to the bank. For the health of your business, please take the time to the read the short guide and get back to us. Your feedback is most welcome.

We are for hire! We are an offshore company and are passing on to you some savings. Due to a lower priced labor we have very attractive rates. To view our rates and learn more on how we can benefit your business visit the hire us page.

If you would like us to help you personally, call +507-250-0457 or email emergency@bizmeds.biz today.