Smart Marketing

Small Business Marketing; Consider using a Style Guide to Boost your Brand

Most small business marketing departments start developing a hodge podge of marketing materials and before they know it, the small business' brand and marketing efforts look haphazard.

To address this small business marketing issue of haphazard marketing, consider using a style guide. A style guide is a set of standards for the design and creation of marketing materials.

A solid style guide will help you maximize the impact of your small business brand by standardizing the use of such marketing elements as:
* Brand personality
* Brand name conventions
* Logos—construction, usage, use with other logos
* Taglines & supplemental signatures
* Color, typography, backgrounds
* The use of white space
* Contact info (websites, phone numbers)
* Company identity materials
* Collateral materials

If your small business marketing efforts produce more than 3 pieces of marketing material a year, you should consider developing a style guide.

I'll talk more in depth about style guides, and the incredible impact they can have on your small business' growth, in future issues of my newsletter Marketing Tips & Tools.

Small Business Marketing Tip: Networking Rule #1

Whenever a small business marketing person meets with another to network, I advise that small business marketing person to ALWAYS come prepared with a leave behind. A leave behind is a relevant marketing tool that's given to another to help them understand better what the small business person's company does.

I should hasten to add that a proper leave-behind is in addition to a business card. A business card is simply a printed form of an introduction ("Hi, I'm Jay Lipe with Emerge Marketing and here's my card").

A leave behind is any information or marketing tool that builds upon the conversation taking place. Some of the most common leave behinds I see used by my small business marketing clients are:
* Brochures
* White papers
* Articles of interest
* Case studies
* Article reprints
* DVD's or CD's containing information about your company

There are probably hundreds of others, but the point remains: As a matter of course always provide a leave-behind at the close of any networking meeting. It helps deepen your guest's understanding of your business, provides them something to store in their files and provides them with an opportunity to pass along something about your company to others. Not to mention it's a nice gesture to leave someone with a "gift".

Like what you read here? I cover a host of practical small business marketing tips like this in my newsletter Marketing Tips & Tools.

Small Business Marketing: We Hold These Small Business Marketing Truths to be Self-Evident...

In today's world, it's difficult to find hard and fast truths in the world of small business marketing. But after helping hundreds of small businesses with their marketing, I have landed on a couple Small Business Marketing Truths. They are:

The most effective marketing comes from dialogues with your market - Too often we marketers presume to know what our market wants. Or even worse, we research our market, yet do it only once. The most powerful marketing efforts spring from ongoing dialogues we have with a market member. And the ongoing nature of these dialogues provides us with the up-to-the-minute knowledge to make shifts and adjustments in our marketing efforts.

There are no standard ways of marketing, only standard marketing conventions - Every business is different, and these differences show up in their seasonality, culture, product mix, pricing structures, vendors, partnership agreements, and hundreds of other facets. To say one marketing tool will produce the same response for every other company, is the worst kind of marketing ignorance.

Momentum and activity are 2 of the most valuable internal outcomes of marketing - When a small business begins a marketing initiative, the greatest returns, at first, are often internal. Employees sense a new energy and are naturally curious. Some may see that "we're finally marketing this company". It may take time for your market to generate external returns like leads, sales or revenues. But internally, if you pay attention, you'll see a host of more intangible rewards come to fruition immediately.

Marketing arguments must be backed up with rationale, otherwise they’re just opinions - Too many marketing discussions lack quantitative metrics to reinforce the points made. For example, I hear the comment "I don't like our advertising" all the time. And that's fine. But when I probe further with the question "Why?", the rationale ends there and I'm met with the response "I don't know, I just don't like it".

Ultimately, your market holds the final answer - Let's face it, we marketers don't know everything. And despite all our posturing in the board room, or the rationale based arguments we make (see above), if our market hates our new marketing, then they hate it. Period. Even if it wins awards, the fact that it generates few sales lands back in our lap. Be sensitive to what you know and don't, then look to your market for the final answer.

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Small Business Marketing: Set a business card goal at each networking event

If you're a small business leader, responsible for the marketing of this small business, here's a great tip for when you attend a networking function:

Networking Tip: Every time you attend a networking event, put a certain number of your business cards in your pocket. Not 100, not 50, but a specific number of business cards that you can realistically give away during the function. For me it's 5 business cards.

Then, do NOT leave the networking event until you have given out all of these cards. Too often small business marketing folks wander aimlessly around a networking event and struggle with boosting their awareness.

What this 5 Card Giveaway networking strategy does is provide a goal, (I will give away 5 business cards), and then provides an incentive for achieving the goal (I will leave the event). You will feel proud and a great sense of accomplishment after giving away that 5th card...believe me.

PS Make sure you put your 5 business cards in one pocket (or portion of your purse) while storing any business cards you receive in another. That way you don't mix up the cards.

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Advertising and Promotion in South Africa-5 Questions for Johan Bester

I recently caught up with Johan Bester, CEO of Communication Works, a marketing communications expert based in South Africa. Here are 5 questions I had for him:

1. How is marketing in South Africa different from marketing in the United States?
Marketing in South Africa tends to be more subdued than in the United States. One has to consider the cultural differences between the two countries; South Africans are generally less expressive. South Africa has also been in the grips of a very repressive regime until a mere 13 years ago. That has had an enormously stifling effect on the population. The good news is that in these past few years there has been an explosion of entrepreneurship, so that right now South Africa is a very exciting place to be. Lots of innovation taking place… it’s a hub in the process of waking up and finding its feet… It will be interesting to see where SA lands over the next few years.

2. Are there any unique marketing methods you see in South Africa that you may not see as often in America?
The Stormhoek winery has had phenomenal success using a combination of highly innovative marketing methods, including making great use of their own and other people’s blogs. They have capitalised on the new media in an innovative way. Nothing unique in any one of their methods; but the way in which Graham Knox, owner and previous advertising professional, has blended the various methods, quite phenomenal. To use a tiny budget ($7,000) and massively outperform rival estates using much larger budgets ($3 Million) quite astounding. Growth in exports is also quite phenomenal.

It is of interest to note that Stormhoek has also won the “Grand Prix” award in the South African Sunday Times Marketing Excellence Awards.

3. If you had to boil your marketing advice down to 5 words or less, what would it be?
Let your customers market you.

4. Any advice for American firms wanting to export to South Africa? What combination of marketing strategies seems to work best in South Africa?
Bear in mind that South Africa is a small market as compared to the United States. Relatively, there has been a massive growth in Internet usage. Seek out blogs and find ways to contribute to them. Note too, that Facebook has close on a million users in South Africa. In the end, however, it depends on what it is you want to market...

5. In your opinion, who are (were) the best marketers of all time and why?
Claude Hopkins for his uncanny ability to see the obvious things. Jay Abraham for his inspirational ability to leverage combinations of things that were there all along, but nobody thought of doing it quite that way.

Thanks Johan and best of luck...

Small Business Marketing: How do you market your small business in a recession?

Most small business marketing efforts are now coming to grips with the possibility that our economy is heading into a recession. If you are a small business owner in charge of your marketing, here are two marketing plan adjustments found in my Special Report "How to Market Your Small Business during a Recession":

Keep firing your marketing guns - The tendency in a recession is to reduce the frequency of your marketing communications. But, be careful with cutting your frequency. Cutting it in half means your prospects will hear from you 50% less often. Using an eight-mailing direct mail campaign as an example, why not stay with eight mailings, yet reduce the costs of each mailing? Print one-sided versus four-page. Eliminate enclosures. Print black & white. Reduce paper sizes. Mail third class for postal savings. Anything to reduce costs of the mailing, but retain your frequency.

Offer bite-sized nuggets - During a recession, your selling cycle will be longer. Uncertainty about the future prompts prospects to postpone buying, or even making a decision, until they absolutely must. To counteract this, give your prospects “bite-sized” ways to purchase your products. Offer a scaled down version of your regular product offering. Produce an informational product that allows prospects to "do-it-themselves". TActics like these let people “try a bite” of your company without a long-term commitment.

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Website marketing: 3 phrases that should never make their way onto your home page

Small businesses should pay a lot more attention to the copy on their website's home page. After all, along with the graphics, it's the first thing a visitor is greeted with that deepen that visitor's understanding of what that company is all about.

To improve small businesses website copy, I'd like to point out some copy phrases that should never appear on your home page:

1) "Established in 1994, we..." - Visitors are looking at your home page to see if you have what THEY need. This phrase belongs in the "About Us" page where the visitor will click to learn more about your company.

2) "Congratulations...." - This phrase is lifted from an actual website's home page. It then goes on to congratulate Heather Cornsquatter on winning the flat screen TV during their open house. Not many visitors really care. Announcements like this are better served in the "News" or "Announcement" pages of your site.

3) "Welcome to XYZ's website..." - When visitors arrive at a website, they're really not looking for a welcome. Maybe when they enter a building, but not a website. Save this greeting for in-person.

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Small Business Marketing Tip: How NOT to Ask for Referrals

Too many small business marketing people ask for referrals the wrong way. Here are two ways a small business marketing person will incorrectly ask for referrals, and then the better way for the referral to be requested:

1) Wrong: Asking " Is there anyone else you know who could use this product or service?" - Not only is this a closed ended question, with "no" being too easy an answer, but it also doesn't help the recipient narrow down their network to come up with a name.

Right: Instead, the small business marketing person should ask "WHO in your network is looking for ......?"

2) Wrong: Asking "Who do you know who may want a ........ (your product/service)" - The problem with this approach is many people in your recipient's network may not know what product or service their looking for. In addition, if they've talked with your recipient about their needs, they've probably expreessed that need in terms of a current problem they're facing.

Right: Instead, you should ask for a referral based upon a common problem your buyers face, for which your product or service is the solution. For example, you could ask "Which small business owners do you know who have a mental block about doing their own marketing?"

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Small Business Marketing: How to Get More Referrals for your Small Business

Any small business marketing effort relies on referrals to grow. But I find many small business marketing folks are reluctant to ask for referrals. Here's one surefire way to ask for, and get, more referrals for your small business...

The next time you are one-on-one with a networking contact, or introducing yourself in front of a group of colleagues, say the following: "I am looking for..." and then define the type of company and situation that makes for an ideal client.

For example, I typically say "I am looking for growing companies with between 10-100 employees who need a marketing plan".

When you state upfront to your audience, exactly what you are "looking for", you do two things. First, you define an ideal client for your audience. And second, you subtly ask for a referral. The nice thing about this approach is that you aren't directly asking for a referral, but instead, you're indirectly asking your audience to keep on the lookout for this kind of ideal client.

If you use this approach in the next 10 conversations you have, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at what referrals start coming your way.

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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...

A Couple of Ways to Improve your Marketing Proposals

For many small business marketing efforts, a marketing proposal is THE key document. Here are three ways to make your marketing proposal work harder:

Always include a section entitled "Cost of Not Doing Business"

Clients need to  be reminded that NOT inking a deal with your firm is more costly than signing the contract. That's why I recommend that a marketing proposal always include include a section entitled "The Cost of Not Doing Business with XYZ Company". Then outline what costs the firm will incur by not giving your firm the business. Common costs of not doing business are: 1) Lost sales to competitors 2) declining sales 3) Eroding profits 4) Lower awareness or 5) Lost momentum.

Always offer a range of options for the client to choose from

Offering a good-better-best array of pricing options subtlety shifts the decision making over to the client. In today's opt-in marketing world, clients like to feel like they're in control. Offering an array of options in a proposal helps the client reach a decision faster, and also lets them feel as if they are still in charge.

In future issues of my Marketing Tips and Tools e-newsletter, I'll cover even more Marketing Proposal Tips.

Small Business Marketing Tip - Make your URL more readable

Most small business marketing people look for ways to make their brand stand out. Here's a great way to do this with your small business website's address, or URL (uniform resource locator).

If your small business website URL combines several words (e.g. www.emergemarketing.com), make sure to capitalize the beginning letter of each word in the string. So, www.emergemarketing.com would be written www.EmergeMarketing.com . Make sure you do this in any offline marketing effort (e.g. direct mail, etc) as well as in your online efforts (e.g. e-newsletter).

When you do this, you help the reader distinguish the different parts of a URL and make it easier for them to understand and internalize your small business brand. If you don't do this, readers of your promotional messages will find it that much more difficult to understand what your site is called.

For example, when you read the URL www.gooverit.com you may be tempted to think it's the GooVerit site rather than the GoOverIt site.

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Small business pricing; The metrics behind Radiohead's marketing move

The numbers behind Radiohead's creative marketing approach to its pricing are in, and they're not encouraging. You'll recall that Radiohead adopted a "pay whatever you want" approach to its recently released album. Because the English band lacked a major record label, it decided to deliver its album on its own website and asked each consumer to pay what they wanted. What were the results?

According to data released by comSscore inc., of those consumers who downloaded the album:

• 62% paid nothing
• 17% paid less than $4
• 6% paid $4-$8
• 12% paid $8-$12 and
• 4% paid more than $12.

Disappointing to say the least if you're an artist contemplating doing this. A clear majority got something for nothing and 85% of all consumers paid less than $8. Clearly, given the chance to pay what they'd like, consumers will take this opportunity to pay less than the stated price.

There's an important lesson for small business marketing here: Arrive at your prices after a thorough analysis of your margins and your competitors' pricing, then assertively defend your price by explaining all the value in your offering. If you don't, buyers will immediately challenge your prices and expect a pricing concession. This kind of aggressive pricing negotiation will only become more common as record labels train the public to pay less than market value.

If you'd like to learn more about small business pricing, read my recently published article "4 Ways to Market and Sell your Services with Price" over at the RainToday.com site or subscribe to my Marketing Tips and Tools e-newsletter.