Smart Marketing

Small business marketing tip: Make it easy to do business with your company

Do you want to make your small business marketing more effective? Are you looking for more repeat customers from your small business marketing efforts? OK, I'd like to pass along some advice now on how to do all of these things with your small business marketing. But first a quick story to help me illustrate my point...

Recently, one of the blades on our kitchen's circular fan broke so I went ahead and ordered a new set of them. They came in the mail last week and I set aside an hour on Saturday to replace the blade. When Saturday came, I jumped into the repair process. But I was not prepared for the ordeal that was ahead.

I spent hours lugging ladders into the house, unscrewing screws that were barely visible, and performing gymnastic feats that surely the manufacturer would have shuddered at. Within the first hour I was so frustrated that I started yelling at my family. By hour 3 I was yelling at the neighbors (behind closed doors of course).

In short, the instruction manual had NO instructions about how to replace a fan blade. It didn't even have adequate instructions on how to disassemble the fan so I could GET AT the blades. So I was left to my own (very poor) handyman abilities.

In short, I wasted 3 hours of my Saturday doing nothing but getting frustrated at this company. I dragged ladders, tools and my son into the process and after 3 hours was no closer to understanding how I could replace a fan blade, let alone open up the fan to get at the blades.

Fast forward to this morning where I called up the headquarters customer service line. I was helped by a nice guy who meant well, but when he learned what I wanted to do, and for which model, he conceded that "Oh, it's not going to be easy". I then asked him why any good company would design a product that was so difficult to fix. And his answer spoke volumes. He said "I'm sure they didn't think about that".

Anyway, the offending company shall remain nameless, but I will put in a link here for those inquiring minds. It's the only way I can pay them back for a lost 3 hours this Saturday.

What can all small businesses learn from this? Just this: Learn how your buyers will be impacted by your product WELL AFTER they purchase it. To do this, do 3 marketing things right now:
1) Call up 3 customers today and find out what issues they've had with your product or service in the last 6 months.
2) Get them to tell you how THEY would fix the problem they faced. Take copious notes.
3) Ask them if you can stay in touch with them every 6 months or so. Call it a "virtual focus group" or whatever.

Only the best small business marketing folks commit to service AFTER the sale is made. And the really great ones commit to it YEARS after the sale is made.

Small Business Marketing: Color in Marketing Rules of Thumb

Many small business marketers anguish over which colors to use in their marketing. They wonder what do certain colors mean? How should I use color in my marketing ? Which colors should I use in my marketing? Every situation is unique for a small business, but here are some rules of thumb for using colors in your marketing:

1) Pay particular attention to your background color. Readability is easiest when the background color is white.

2) Pay just as strict attention to the color of type you use for your content. Research has shown over and over that the easiest type color to read is black.

3) Avoid using white text on a black background. Although this offers a high-contrast style, the eye experiences great strain reading large sections of white type against a black background.

4) Use screened colors (creating a lighter shade of a color) to give the impression that you are using more than 2 inks.

5) The color of the paper you print on will have a huge effect on the colors you've chosen. Pick colored papers carefully.

I cover many more of these rules of thumb for using color in your marketing in my book Stand Out from the Crowd; Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company Identity.

For monthly small business marketing tips like these, take a look at my Small Business Marketing Tips & Tools newsletter...

Search Engine Marketing; Check out Search Engine Standard magazine

I just finished reading the latest issue of Search Engine Standard magazine and I must say, I'm impressed. They keep coming out with insightful content to educate the internet marketer. In this issue there was an article by Nick Usborne all about calls-to-action that was worth the price of the subscription, times ten. If you haven't checked out this magazine, I'd urge you to give it a look.

They kindly extended a 67% off discount offer to my blog readers. So click on the link and then enter the coupon code HOLIDAY67 in the second screen and you'll get this fabulous resource for just $4.95US a year.

And for every new subscriber who takes advantage of this offer, they'll contribute $1 to Toys for Tots.

But HURRY, this offer is good only through December 10, 2007

Small business branding; Developing a FAQ page for your website

If small business branding is all about developing trust and credibility among your buyers, then what better place for a small business branding program to invest than in your website's FAQ page. If you think about it, this is where a large percentage of small business shoppers will go to get their questions answered about doing business with your firm. So, a FAQ page is actually a sales and marketing tool that can help qualify your website visitors and move them closer to doing business with you.

FAQ pages are so ubiquitous these days, that I daresay having one is a small business branding convention.

Here are some FAQ questions you should consider answering on your website's FAQ page:

* What does a _________________________ (e.g. marketing consultant) do?
* How is your firm different from all other __________________________ (e.g. marketing consultants)?
* What's the profile of an ideal client for your firm to work with?
* What reasonable outcomes can I expect from working with your firm?
* What do you charge? How do you bill?
* What are your terms?
* Do you guarantee your work?
* What steps are necessary before we can begin working together?
* What recourse do we have to terminate a relationship once our work begins together?

There are many more FAQ questions you could post on your site. If you're looking for more FAQ's, try talking with your customer service staff and searching through service email logs to discover which FAQ's should be included.

If I've missed a glaringly obvious FAQ that should be included...just post a comment here.

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