Alexander Hiam

Article / Updated 04-17-2023

Here are some things you can begin to do for a new marketing campaign for your small business. Before you hire professionals, see what you can do yourself. Compare your approach to that of your competitors When you compare your marketing approach to competitors, you easily find out what customers like best. Make a list of the things that your competitors do differently than you. Does one of them price higher? Does another give away free samples? Do some of them offer money-back guarantees? Make a list of at least five points of difference between your business and its major competitors based on an analysis of marketing practices. Now ask ten of your best customers to review this list and tell you what they prefer — your way or one of the alternatives — and ask them why. Keep a tally. You may find that all your customers vote in favor of doing something differently than the way you do it now. Create a customer profile Collect or take photographs of people (from Facebook or email thumbnails, and with the individuals’ permission) who you characterize as your typical customers. Post these pictures on a bulletin board — either a real one or a virtual one like Pinterest (set this board to private because it’s definitely not for sharing beyond your marketing team) — and add any facts or information you can collect about these people. Consider this board your customer database. Whenever you aren’t sure what to do about any marketing decision, sit down in front of your bulletin board and use it to help you tune in to your customers and what they do and don’t like. Entertain customers to get their input Entertaining your customers puts you in contact with them in a relaxed setting where they’re happy to share their views. Hold a customer appreciation event or invite good customers to a lunch or dinner. Use such occasions to ask for suggestions and reactions. Bounce a new product idea off these good customers, or find out what features they’d most like to see improved. Your customers can provide an expert panel for your informal research — you just have to provide the food! After they get to know you, they may be happy to give you ongoing quick feedback via a chat room, Twitter, or a group text message, especially if they use these media routinely themselves. Use email to do one-question surveys If you market to businesses, you probably have email addresses for many of your customers. Try emailing 20 or more of them for a quick opinion on a question. The result? Instant survey! If a clear majority of respondents say they prefer using a corporate credit card to being invoiced because the card is more convenient, well, you’ve just gotten a useful research result that may help you revise your marketing approach. Always ask people for their email addresses whenever you interact with them, through your website or in person, so as to build a large email list. Emailing your question to actual customers or users of your product is far better, by the way, than trying to poll users of social networking websites for their opinions. Sure, you may be able to get a bunch of responses from people on Twitter, but would those responses be representative of your actual customers? Probably not. Research government databases Many countries gather and post extensive data on individuals, households, and businesses, broken down into a variety of categories. In the United States, you can find out how many people earn above a certain annual income and live in a specific city or state — useful if you’re trying to figure out how big the regional market may be for a luxury product. Similarly, you can find out how many businesses operate in your industry and what their sales are in a specific city or state — useful if you’re trying to decide whether that city has a market big enough to warrant you moving into it. If you want to use the web to explore useful data compiled and posted by various agencies of the US government, visit the United States Census Bureau website and check out the data on households and businesses. This site is your portal to US data from the economic census (which goes out to 5 million businesses every five years) and the Survey of Business Owners. Establish a trend report Set up a trend report, a document that gives you a quick indication of a change in buying patterns, a new competitive move or threat, and any other changes that your marketing may need to respond to. You can compile one by emailing salespeople, distributors, customer service staff, repair staff, or friendly customers once a month, asking them for a quick list of any important trends they see in the market. (You flatter people by letting them know that you value their opinions, and email makes giving those opinions especially easy.) Print and file these reports from the field and go back over them every now and then for a long-term view of the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. If you don’t work for one of the handful of largest and best-funded companies in your industry, then your trend analysis should also include careful tracking of what those giants are doing because they may be setting marketing or product trends that affect the rest of their industry. Tracking media coverage is easy on Google or other search engines. Analyze competitors’ collateral Print out or clip and collect marketing materials (brochures, ads, web pages, and so on) from competitors and analyze them by using a claims table. Open up a spreadsheet (or draw a blank table on a piece of paper or poster board) and label the columns of this new table, one for each competitor. Label each row with a feature, benefit, or claim. Add key phrases or words from an ad in the appropriate cell. Include one to three of the most prominent or emphasized claims per competitor. When filled in, this claims table shows you, at a glance, what territory each competitor stakes out and how it does the staking. One may claim it’s the most efficient, another the most helpful, and so on. Compare your own claims with those of your competitors. Are you impressive by comparison, or does a more dominant and impressive competitor’s claims overshadow you? Do your claims stand out as unique, or are you lacking clear points of difference? Research your strengths Perhaps the most important element of any marketing plan or strategy is clearly recognizing what makes you especially good and appealing to customers. To research your strengths, find the simplest way to ask ten good customers this simple but powerful question: “What’s the best thing about our (fill in the name of your product or service), from your perspective?” The answers to this question usually focus on one or, at most, a few features or aspects of your business. Finding out how your customers identify your strengths is a boon to your marketing strategy. Investing in your strengths (versus your competitors’ strengths or your weaknesses) tends to grow your sales and profits more quickly and efficiently. Probe your customer records Most marketers fail to mine their own databases for all of the useful information those databases may contain. Study your customers with the goal of identifying three common traits that make them different or special. This goal helps you focus on what your ideal customer looks like so you can look for more of them. Test your marketing materials Whether you’re looking at a letter, catalog, web page, tear sheet, press release, or ad, you can improve the piece’s effectiveness by asking for reviews from a few customers, distributors, or others with knowledge of your business. Do they get the key message quickly and clearly? Do they think the piece is interesting and appealing? If they’re only lukewarm about it, then you know you need to edit or improve it before spending the money to publish and distribute it. Customer reviewers can tell you quickly whether you have real attention-getting wow-power in any marketing piece. Just ask a half dozen people to review a new marketing piece while it’s still in draft form. Interview defectors Your company’s records of past customers are an absolute gold mine of information that can be easily overlooked. Use these records to figure out what types of customers defect, when, and why. If you can’t pinpoint why a customer abandoned you (from a complaint or a note from the salesperson, for example), try to contact the lost customer and ask him directly. Ask kids about trends In consumer marketing, it’s best if customers think you’re cool and your competitors aren’t. Because kids lead the trends in modern society, why not ask them what those trends are? Ask them simple questions like, “What will the next big thing be in (name your product or service here)?” Or try asking kids this great question: “What’s cool and what’s not cool this year?” Why? Because they know, and you don’t. For example, if teenage girls know what the next cool color combo will be, the way to find out is simple: Ask them what colors they want their room to be. (Or visit social media sites that skew toward younger members and see how they’re decorating their pages.) Create custom web analytics Web analytics are readily available for your websites and blogs, but they’re mostly traffic counts of various kinds. You probably want to know about sales, not just visitors. What are the most meaningful indicators of success on the web? Just as you (hopefully) do off-line, track online sales, repeat sales, lead collection, quality of leads (measured by rate of conversion), sign-ups, use of offers (such as you may post on a business site on Facebook, for example), and overall revenue and returns from e-marketing. These numbers tell the story of your marketing successes and failures online and give you something to learn from as you go.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-27-2016

The goals of marketing your business and products are to find new clients and to keep your existing ones. So how do you do this? Use some marketing guidelines to devise a successful marketing plan, attract new customers, create more sales leads, and close the deal. Follow some basic design tips for your business card and newsletter to market you and your business in the most positive way.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-27-2016

Business innovation usually isn’t on people’s agendas or weekly calendars, but it’s the most significant thing you can do to make a contribution in your workplace or boost your own career. Ask yourself what you could do today that might improve the way people work, shop, or live, or that could cut costs, solve a problem, or break through a barrier that’s slowing you or your business down.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

The goals of your marketing plan are to evaluate the situation in your market, align your marketing strategy with that information, and assess how you’ll use your marketing tools to carry out the strategy. To come up with a successful marketing plan, follow these guidelines: Evaluate last year’s marketing budget to identify the most successful advertising or marketing method. Give it a larger share of your budget this year. Adjust your pricing and products to reflect the current economy. Unbundle and reduce costs and prices in a slow economy. Bundle more goodies and raise prices in a growing economy. Use a template to make your plan more professional and accurate. There are templates and outlines you can use so don’t reinvent the wheel. Spend only what you can afford on marketing. Your marketing budget should come out of your gross profit. Don’t commit to too much spending all at once. Modest growth is far easier to achieve than aggressive growth, so keep your plan affordable and your goals reasonable.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

It's important that your marketing plan keeps you selling to existing customers, but growing your business depends on finding new buyers. Try these marketing tips for attracting new customers: Rent a small booth at a trade show. Bring lots of brochures and business cards, plus samples or poster boards telling stories of how you solved problems for happy customers. Post special offers on Craig’s List. Go to http://www.craigslist.com and see if there is a local Craig’s List site. If so, post free ads for special offers of your product or service at special introductory rates. It’s a great way to attract new customers. Ask for referrals. Give existing customers a reward (such as a gift or a coupon on future purchases) in exchange for referrals to their friends or business associates. Start an expert blog. Offer weekly advice to customers based on your special expertise. For example, if you’re in home construction, cover how to winterize your home.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

When marketing your products or business, the basic business card is a low-cost, highly effective tool. Your business card gets passed around to a lot of people, so make sure it’s printed professionally and provides enough information. You want your business card to present you and your business in the best possible way. Try these design tips: Print custom business cards for specific events (your local copy shop can do short runs for you on the cheap). Design a two-fold, triple-sized business card (its face looks like a normal card, but when you open it up, you get a mini-catalog or brochure). Include customer quotes or testimonials on the back of your business card. Put a beautiful landscape photo on your card to make it appealing and memorable. Include a tagline emphasizing your benefits to customers or your mission statement. Use unusual, high-quality paper to give your card a unique feel in the hand. Always have a business card with you and don’t be afraid to ask for referrals (people are usually more than happy to help). Update your logo and layout to make your card look more sophisticated than the competitors’ cards.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

After you’ve met a prospective client and given your presentation, how do you close the deal? If you want to take a different approach to closing the sale, try using a closing technique different from your usual one: Direct close: Ask your prospect whether he’s ready to place his order. Trial close: Ask him to make small decisions that may eventually add up to a completed order. Wrap-up close: Summarize your presentation and his needs to set the stage for order-taking. Process close: Take him to the next steps as if he were going to order (for example, write down specifics of what he needs). Analytical close: Examine the pros and cons of different options or otherwise analyze the prospect’s decision, leading him to a logical purchase option. Sales promotion close: Offer a discount, time-sensitive extra, or other incentive to get him to make the purchase.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Your newsletter is an effective, low-cost marketing tool that delivers information about your company, product, personality, and values to engage people, spark interest, and build customer relationships. Keep these guidelines in mind for your newsletter: Do lay out your newsletter with plenty of headers, subheads, boxes, figures, or illustrations. Don’t invest in expensive four-color printing; desktop publishing, Web distribution, or photocopying are best unless you have a large, paid circulation. Do build and nurture your own in-house list of customers, leads, and referrals. Do understand the difference between an e-newsletter that annoys the recipient and a valuable e-newsletter people look forward to receiving. Do send your newsletter to a media list to generate publicity. Don’t charge money for your newsletter unless you want to make it a serious product on its own rather than a publicity piece for your business. Do provide useful information, tips, and news about your industry in every issue. Don’t go into your own products in too much detail; otherwise, readers won’t value the newsletter as an objective source of information.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

To get more people interested and asking about your offerings, you need to have an abundance of lead-generating information out in the market at all times. Try some of these best all-around marketing choices: Toll-free telephone numbers (a big source of leads despite the rise of Web-based marketing; advertise your toll-free number everywhere) Directory listings (don’t forget Web directories!) Web site address (in all your materials and ads) Reader service cards (in trade magazines, along with your ad or insert) Blogs that share your expertise within your industry Offers of free catalogs (through ads, brochures, directories, and Web site) Coupons and special trial offers of all kinds Publicity (any media coverage tends to generate leads)

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

If you’re bursting with good ideas, but your boss always rejects suggestions out of hand, it’s very hard to stay positive and continue to think innovatively. Use these suggestions to keep your own creative spirit alive and to try to bring about positive change in your business in spite of the negative atmosphere: Brainstorm strategies for making change. You and your coworkers have probably witnessed some improvements and changes in your workplace. Even the most negative boss can’t stop all forward progress. So ask yourself how those changes came about. Determine what process is most acceptable to your boss and who he feels he has to listen to. Then re-create the successful strategies when you decide to propose something new. Avoid too much interaction with a negative boss. Try to keep face time to the minimum required and to keep your encounters civil and polite. Spend as much time as you can interacting with people who are more positive and have a healthy can-do attitude so that your own attitude doesn’t turn negative. Innovate outside work. Find ways to engage in creative, forward-thinking activities such as volunteer work, a part-time extra job, an internship, or a hobby so that you stay fresh and get to strengthen your innovation muscles. A bad boss is no excuse to let your creativity atrophy! Make suggestions on paper, not in person or by e-mail, to give your boss time to digest them. The longer you can delay his response to a suggestion, the more likely he is to get over his initial knee-jerk resistance to change and actually look at the merit of your idea. Allow your boss to revise your idea and propose it as his own. It’s frustrating when your boss rejects your suggestion and then proposes it himself a month later. But look at the bright side: At least this means there’s a way to make progress, even if it does involve accommodating an overinflated ego. Build your own coalition for innovation. Sometimes, it’s possible to reach out to others in power in a workplace and build a strong personal network based on your bright ideas and enthusiasm for positive change. You may be able to work with your coalition to bring about innovation. Let them pull your boss’s strings and force him to bring your unit in line with the new direction you helped create. Watch the bottom line, and jump ship if your boss seems determined to run you up on the rocks. The biggest problem with change-resistant bosses is they don’t lead very well. Often, their department, division, or business does poorly for lack of innovation. If that’s the story at your workplace, you probably should begin to look for another job with a better boss and more momentum. It’s hard to be a rising star when you’re working on a sinking ship.