Small Business Marketing Strategy #6
Small Business Marketing Strategy #6: Speaking of media relations and effective public relations techniques, another strategy worth exploring is to let the media know that you're an expert in your field and are available as a source of news, expertise, or professional opinion. Depending on your credentials, as well as your comfort-level with being interviewed by a reporter, you might want to send a brief letter outlining your accomplishments and expertise, and encourage them to call you if they need comments, quotes, background information, or opinion on a news article or feature story they're working on. The positive publicity, credibility, and recognition you could potentially get from this kind of coverage can potentially give your business or practice a real boost.
Small Business Marketing Strategies #7: Business cards can either by a waste of paper or an effective bridge between a prospect and their potential to be a long-term client. Business cards are an integral element of your company's branding strategy, and can sometimes make or break you when it comes to getting prospects to take you seriously. A lot of companies skimp on business card design, concept development, and printing; and that lackluster image is conveyed directly to prospective clients. Bottom line is: Your chances of favorably impressing prospects will improve substantially if your business cards are printed on high-quality paper, display a professional-looking logo
, and uses a font style that's easy to read and is representative of the nature of your business. Your business cards should also contain either a well thought-out slogan or a short bulletted list that capsulizes your services, your expertise, and your commitment to excellence.
Small Business Marketing Strategy #8: Anticipate why a prospective customer might be reluctant or ambivalent about doing business with you, and then make sure to address their concerns in a clear, deliberate, and confident way. Guarantees of satisfaction, believable testimonials from satisfied customers, and assurances of dependable customer service after the sale are a few of the ways that you can reduce sales resistance. In many cases --especially in business to business marketing situations -- a necessary marketing tool for winning competitive bids is a well written business proposal.
Small Business Marketing Strategies #9: If you find yourself chatting with a blogger who's in your profession or industry, but does not directly compete with you, offer to fill in for him, occasionally, as a "guest blogger". Blogging can be a pretty arduous undertaking, so they might welcome the chance to take a break and present their readers with a slightly different point of view. Make sure, of course, that you are allowed to include one or two links back to your website. This will accomplish two objectives: 1) You'll probably draw in anywhere from a "trickle" to a "flood" of additional traffic to your website, and 2) Inbound links to your site from other relevant, high quality sites can help improve your search engine positioning (ranking) in Google, resulted in more targeted traffic and potential customers.
Small Business Marketing Strategy #10: When developing a business marketing plan
, don't forget that there is a huge range of business marketing ideas you can employ, many of which are free or inexpensive. Business marketing ideas and techniques include yellow pages advertising, Pay Per Click advertising on Google and other Internet portals, Internet video marketing, exhibiting in trade shows, networking at local/regional professional conferences and business groups, knowing how to write a business proposal for business to business marketing campaigns, using direct mail as a channel for reaching your prospects, distributing coupons, brochures, advertising flyers, postcard marketing, sponsoring contests, and of course, traditional media advertising, such as radio advertising, TV, newspaper, electronic newsletters and other email marketing tools
, and magazine display ads. Raising your visibility through participation in online social networking sites, such as Linkedin.com, is becoming an increasingly effective way to gain valuable exposure. Since the Linkedin community consists primarily of business professionals, executives, and business owners, actively participating in it can be a valuable part of a business to business marketing campaign.
That's just the short list of the different marketing strategies you can pursue as part of a planned marketing campaign, so devise an exhaustive list of possibilities, target your audience, and then plan a business marketing campaign based on your budget and your goals. And by the way... if writing effective marketing messages, advertising fliers, website content, and business articles is not one of your strong points, consider the cost-effective services of an experienced freelance content writer and business copywriter.
Small Business Marketing Strategies #7: Business cards can either by a waste of paper or an effective bridge between a prospect and their potential to be a long-term client. Business cards are an integral element of your company's branding strategy, and can sometimes make or break you when it comes to getting prospects to take you seriously. A lot of companies skimp on business card design, concept development, and printing; and that lackluster image is conveyed directly to prospective clients. Bottom line is: Your chances of favorably impressing prospects will improve substantially if your business cards are printed on high-quality paper, display a professional-looking logo
Small Business Marketing Strategies #9: If you find yourself chatting with a blogger who's in your profession or industry, but does not directly compete with you, offer to fill in for him, occasionally, as a "guest blogger". Blogging can be a pretty arduous undertaking, so they might welcome the chance to take a break and present their readers with a slightly different point of view. Make sure, of course, that you are allowed to include one or two links back to your website. This will accomplish two objectives: 1) You'll probably draw in anywhere from a "trickle" to a "flood" of additional traffic to your website, and 2) Inbound links to your site from other relevant, high quality sites can help improve your search engine positioning (ranking) in Google, resulted in more targeted traffic and potential customers.
Small Business Marketing Strategy #10: When developing a business marketing plan
That's just the short list of the different marketing strategies you can pursue as part of a planned marketing campaign, so devise an exhaustive list of possibilities, target your audience, and then plan a business marketing campaign based on your budget and your goals. And by the way... if writing effective marketing messages, advertising fliers, website content, and business articles is not one of your strong points, consider the cost-effective services of an experienced freelance content writer and business copywriter.







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