Smart Marketing for Customer Creation
Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 6:00 PM | Leave Comment
Small business owners cut the marketing budget at their peril because growth is rarely self-sustaining, even for giants like Coca-Cola.
Your growth must be fueled by wise, fresh marketing that reaches new customers and reminds existing ones of the benefits of doing business with you.
Reallocation is a better approach than reduction. Evaluate your marketing approach, cut campaigns and strategies that don’t yield results, and put those dollars towards smarter, proven marketing methods.
When you’re doing it right, marketing is an investment with quantifiable customer creation.
Small Business Marketing Your Customers Will Respond To
Your return on marketing investment (ROMI) is determined, per ecommerce consultant Alex Levashov, by dividing the Uplift in business by the Cost of achieving it.
If the result is positive, you’ve found a method that works. If negative, you’ve learned your lesson, and you can move on to another approach. The math is simple.
Here are four proven marketing strategies that should produce an uplift in sales revenue over cost when customized to your company’s goals.
-
Go Big in a Small Market
Before you can be a big fish in a big pond like Amazon, Alibaba or Apple, market with the goal of becoming a big fish in a small pond.
Determine the narrow demographic range that will most desire your product lineup, and invest in reaching them with marketing tailored to its wants, attitude, lifestyle and perspective.
For example, watch a few slides glide by at The Reformation, and its demographic target is visually displayed. Could your grandmother find a dress there to her liking? Maybe. What about your sister, niece or granddaughter aged 15 to 35? They probably already have.
-
Make Marketing Physical
Rather than a hands-on approach, this is a hand-out approach. Promotional products and gifts that are useful and branded with your logo, physical or web address and color scheme work because they stay with the recipient and remind them repeatedly about your existence and what you offer.
When a person writes with your pen, drinks coffee from your mug, wears your fleece jacket or marks dates on your calendar, they are subconsciously becoming your customer. When they need or want what you offer, you’ll be their choice.
-
Partner with Like-minded Non-competitors
Co-branding partnerships benefit both companies. Google glasses were high-tech, but low-fashion. Enter Luxottica, the luxury eyewear brand, and a dynamic partnership was formed.
Other examples on a large scale and across a wide swath of demographic targets are GoPro and Red Bull (Stratos), Benjamin Moore paint and the Pottery Barn (Experience Colors), Gap and The Global Fund (Product Red) and BMW and Louis Vuitton (The Art of Travel).
Look for local and online co-branding partners selling complementary, appealing products your target niche will love. Get creative, and make the end products work for both of you.
-
Always be Branding
This really is the underlying strategy for all the above. Branding attracts attention, keeps potential and current customers thinking of you and gives your team a sense of identity.
You brand your company by everything you do including its name, logo design, marketing strategies, advertising campaigns, approach to customer service and CRM, what causes you support and how you give back to your community.
Your brand is the holistic view people have of your company. Keep working in every way to tailor it to your audience in positive, appealing ways.
Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing
These four marketing tips for small businesses must be aligned with a single purpose.
Legendary management expert Peter Drucker said it well, “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.
Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.”
These tips cover the marketing aspect Drucker spoke of. Keep innovating products and/or services that will appeal to your customers, and stay hungrier than the competition. With that approach and attitude, your marketing math will be very positive.
Throw us a like at Facebook.com/doable.finance
