Advertising for small business

1. What three things set you apart from your competition?

2. Do all of your promotional materials (brochure, flyers, ads, website, letters, etc.) tell your customers of the benefits of your product or service?

3. Have you tested different methods of attracting new customers, such as direct mail, telemarketing, the Internet, newsletters, Internet advertising and pay-per-click search engine advertising? Did you accurately measure the results?

4.Have you tested public relations (news releases, etc.) as a way to attract new customers? Did you accurately measure the results?

6. Do your ads give the reader a compelling reason to contact you?

7. Do you advertise in certain media (newspapers, radio, telephone directories) just because your competitors do?

8. When you speak to a potential new customer, do you use words that set you apart from the rest and immediately capture the customer’s attention?

9. Do you keep in touch regularly with your customers and prospective customers?

10. Do you and your staff spend time to learn new sales skills?

11. Do you have a process to generate sales leads? How well does it work? Is there a better way?

15. Do you ask for and use testimonials from your best customers?

16. Did you know that if you follow up a mail contact with a phone call you can increase the response rate tremendously

17. Do you realize that your competitors probably answered ‘no’ to even more questions than you did?

Sometimes we don’t see the forest for the trees.

Every small business owner wants good “Word-of-Mouth” advertising (also called ‘Buzz’ marketing in its Internet form). Nothing better communicates the quality of what you are offering better than the words of other people who have experienced doing business with you.

When you have a customer who is happy and satisfied, who you think will give you good “Word-of-Mouth”, why not ask them for a written testimonial?

One of the biggest obstacles to growing your business is convincing people that you can really deliver on your promises: a testimonial will do that. When a customer tells you they’re pleased, don’t be shy. Ask if they would be willing to share their experience with others. Most will actually jump at the chance to write you a testimonial. You know what it’s like to experience a great product or service - it’s so unusual you want to let others know about it. Include the customer’s name and, if appropriate, their business name on the testimonial. People don’t believe anonymous testimonials.

Testimonials are a very powerful tool. Include them in your brochure, in your sales kit, in your advertising, on your web site. Carry copies that you can hand out.

While everyone talks about the importance of “an Internet presence” and “doing business on the web”, it seems that Canadian businesses just aren’t getting the message.

Statistics Canada, the Canadian government’s  information gathering agency, on April 24/2008 released a study of use of the Internet by Canadian businesses. It seems that while 48 per cent of Canadian businesses make purchases online, only about 8 per cent have figured out how to sell their products or services online.

In a recent conversation with a friend of a client, I asked him how he goes about finding something he wants to buy. His answer was he first searches for it online. He doesn’t go to the Yellow Pages. He doesn’t look for ads in his local newspaper or a magazine.

This potential customer will find what he’s looking for online. He likely won’t find a Canadian business prepared to sell it to him. I can pretty much guarantee, however, that he will find a US supplier or one based in another country who will be able to sell the item to him, and in this day of globalization, it’s no problem for him to buy from that enterprising supplier.

This is a huge opportunity for Canadian small businesses. It’s not just the little guys who don’t have n Internet marketing strategy - the big players are missing the boat as well. So perhaps it is time for your business to get aggressive and go after all that market share.

This doesn’t just apply to consumers products and services. The business-to-business market in Canada is just as under served. So be a buyer and go online, do search for your products or services, look at what comes up. Are they actually selling online? What is their strategy? How can you improve on it?

The full StatsCan article can be found at: www.statcan.ca 

All the doom and gloom circulating in the media recently has brightened my day!

Why? I love a recession or “business slow down”!  While the media is busily depressing all the business people out there with predictions of financial disaster, for both our clients and our own advertising business this situation presents rich opportunities for growth.

It’s unfortunate that people today are so ready to fasten on “disasters” and “tragedies”. I call it the lemming effect. It means that they simply quit looking for business opportunity.  They give up. And as surely as night follows day, when they give up business disaster does consume them.

The very nature of business is to perpetually look for new opportunity. No matter how ‘bad’ a market is, there are always chances to earn business. In an economic scenario such as we see today, the big concerns will take a hit because intrinsic to to their size is a corresponding lack of flexibility and ingenuity.  Small businesses can thrive in these times for the very reason that they are small, flexible and can respond to opportunity as it presents itself.

Consumers still need the products and services your small business offers. It is up to us as business owners to find ways to supply these things and respond to what our customers need and want. It takes ingenuity, innovation, determination and hard work but I can guarantee that those who meet these needs will emerge stronger, with larger customer bases and more vibrant businesses.

The trick is simply not to buy into the pessimism. Look around you, look at your customers, look at the way you deliver your products or services. And have fun while your competitors give up.

Because we have a number of accommodations properties as clients, this article from Travolution caught my attention:

25 March 2008

Search engines are dominating how consumers look for hotels despite the best efforts of suppliers to grow their online presence.

Almost three out of five consumers used a search engine to find a hotel, according to a study by the BDRC, overshadowing the 36% who browse direct on a accommodation provider’s website.

The British Hotel Guest Survey 2008 also revealed city destination websites outperformed travel intermediaries such as online travel agencies, grabbing a 24% share over the 19% for third parties.

The BDRC said bookings are increasingly being carried out on hotel sites but third parties such as Expedia (40%), Lastminute.com (36%) and Ebookers (22%) continue to feature prominently during the research stage.

The top four hotel chains for the internet bookings in 2007 were Travelodge, Premier Inn, Holiday Inn and Hilton.

Overall the total number of leisure bookings made over the internet has continued to increase rapidly, growing from just 11% in 2000 to 70% in 2007.

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Small businesses are often over-whelmed by or simply don’t understand Web marketing.  The facts clearly point, however, to a growing relevance  to every business.

Small businesses rarely have the tools to valuate their website in the increasingly competitive environment on the web. Recently we came across a free tool that helps evaluate a site’s strengths and weaknesses as well as point the way ahead to improving website performance.

It’s easy to use, quick and from our tests, quite accurate:  www.websitegrader.com

Most, in fact, virtually all in my experience, small businesses ignore one of the most effective methods of generating business: direct mail or email – I call them Direct Contact.

There are two basic forms of Direct Contact: first is contact with established customers; the second is contact with potential new customers. For years the only way to do this was through the mail, but with the advent of the Internet email has become a very powerful way to connect with customers. In this post I will deal with keeping in touch with your existing customers.

 It always concerns me when clients dismiss a marketing tool out-of-hand, when they actually know little about it, and often Direct Contact falls into this category:

 “Direct Mail doesn’t work. I just toss junk mail in the recycle bin.” The logic is that it is just a waste of money. Yet oddly enough, we continue to receive direct mail – both addressed to us and “Bulk” mail, from major advertisers. Why is this, if it doesn’t work? The truth is that while most people do discard so-called junk mail, people who are in the market for the advertised item or service will notice it and some will read it. If the offer is compelling enough, gives the reader a reason to contact or visit the business, and this contact will result in a sale, then the mail has done its job and the mailing will be profitable.

 So the reason that big advertisers spend the money to reach you with mailings is for the simple reason that they do work.

 Now, almost any small business owner will know of some example of direct contact marketing failing. Fair enough. Take the time to find out exactly how that effort was done, however, and you find in every case that the mailing was done in a very off-hand way, ignoring some very basic rules.

 It costs money to acquire a customer. Businesses spend money on their location, on their business’ physical appearance, on their merchandise displays, on signage, and so on. These are all investments, tolls used, in their marketing, in acquiring their customers.

 The cheapest customer to acquire is the repeat customer. You need to retain your customers and one important way of doing that is to stay in touch with your customer to encourage them to return and make another purchase or use your services again.

Let’s discuss one form of Direct Contact – addressed mail or opt-in email.

Direct contact is a proven productive way to retain customers. When they know and like a business, customers are much more likely to read and consider messages they receive from that business. Addressed direct mail has a much higher response rate than unaddressed mail. Opt-in email (where the customer has requested the email) produces much greater results than spam just sent out to random email addresses.

Any small business that is not keeping in touch with their existing customers is losing a goldmine in profits and probably losing customers, to boot.

In your Direct Contact, whether by mail or by email, you must give the customer a compelling reason to do business with you again. This may be a new product or service, an improved offering, a special price, information on using your product or services, or other information that impacts the customer in some meaningful way.

The frequency of these contacts depends on the frequency of the buying cycle for your product or service. If it is something the buyer will purchase daily, it needs to be more frequent than something they purchase only occasionally.

The mailing piece or the email message sent must look professional. The old adage that “the medium is the message” is still true today. If your message looks unprofessional then your business will look similarly unprofessional. Just because email is easy to send out, do not send them out without careful thought and preparation, the same amount of preparation you would put into a printed mail piece.

Measure the response to your mailing or email. Not every idea you have will work. If you are unsure of an idea, test it with a small scale distribution that you can then follow up on.

Once you have established a format and frequency that works, commit to it in the long term and stick with it. Try new ideas, test them and build the successful ones into your program. You’ll find you create long-term loyal customers.

(This is a posting we made on another blog, but felt it merited inclusion here.)

At one time or another all of us have made News Years resolutions, and a few weeks (or days!) later have quietly dropped them. Well, I urge all of our clients to make New Year resolutions (i.e., goals) for their business. Every year. How many new customers will they attract this year? What part of their inventory do they want to sell more of? Whatever your business, in what way do you want to improve it?

There is a pretty simple, foolproof way to ensure that business resolutions actually come to pass (it works for personal resolutions, too).

Write the goals down. Post them where all the staff can see them and talk to your staff about them. And develop a plan with intermediate goals on the path to achieving the large ones. Write them down and post them. Focus on the smaller goals and just watch the larger ones succeed.

In any instance that I can think of, for a business to achieve goals means they need to involve their marketing strategy. If you continue to do the same old - your results will be the same old. Further, since for small business every facet of the business that results in a sale is really part of the marketing continuum, small businesses can’t separate out their advertising from the way they deal with every person who has contact with their business, not just their buying customers. I do mean everyone - the postal delivery person, the service tech who comes in to fix the furnace - everyone.

Be consistent. When you develop your new message to achieve your goal - make sure that’s what is being relayed to all the people your business deals with - customers, suppliers, bookkeeper, your accountant, the guy in the store next door, the person who walks into your business just looking for street directions. Get enthusiastic and stay enthusiastic. Stay focused.

Now if this sounds like just a little too much trouble, remind yourself that if your business isn’t growing or expanding in some way, it is really on the road to closing its doors. It is just a matter of time.

Small tourism operators tend to discount the value of the Internet and websites in marketing their businesses. These statistics from a study released in 2005 by the Travel Industry of America highlight the error of that thinking.

Importance of the Internet to travel (2004):

- 85% of US Internet users are travellers (96 million adults)

- Of 114 million US travellers, 67% (76.4 million) use Internet

- 52% of online travellers are women

- 48% of online travellers have children

- 50% of online travellers have income over US$50,000

- 67% of online travellers consult the Internet to get information on destinations or to check prices or schedules

- A majority of online travel planners use destination websites

- Online travel planners do a variety of trip planning activities on the Internet: among the most popular are searching for looking for places to stay, maps or driving directions

- Strong growth in online travel booking: 41% (39.0 million) of online travelers are booking or making travel reservations online. This may include booking an airline ticket, hotel room, rental car or package tour online

- Nearly all of those who make travel reservations online say they made reservations for pleasure, vacation, or personal purposes. About three in ten say they made reservations for business or convention purposes.

- A majority of online travel bookers have reserved overnight lodging accommodations, and over one-third have made rental car reservations over the Internet.

Source: Travel Industry of America, Travellers’ Use of the Internet, 2004

Is it time you reviewed your website and online marketing strategy?

When you started your business (or if you are just starting out), odds are you enthusiastically told everyone you knew, handed out business cards and took every opportunity you could to promote your business and products.

As time goes by, these things inevitably seem to fall by the wayside. Yet these are some of the most effective business-building marketing techniques available to small businesses. No matter how many employees you may have, you - the business owner - are always the best promoter. If your friends are aware of what you sell and how enthusiastic and committed you are, they will be equally enthusiastic proponents. If they know about a new product or great deal you are offering they will tell other people who may be looking for the products or services you sell about your business. If they have a business card to pass along - maybe even one with some sort of special offer printed on the back and only available when the business card is presented - they will happily hand it out.

When you hand out business cards, hand them out in pairs, so that the recipient has one for themselves and one to hand out to some they know who may need your products or services.

Too often we fall away from the very things that can help our small businesses succeed.

One of the beauties of a small business is that it is small. It’s flexible and can respond quickly to opportunities that arise. The Big Box stores can’t do this. Their promotions have to be meticulously planned and costed-out and that takes time.

Take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself to tell people about your business. Be sure to give them a solid reason to do business with you and not your competition.

Are you a member of your local Chamber of Commerce or Board of Trade? These groups usually have opportunities for members to promote their businesses to other members. Keep in mind that even if your customers aren’t businesses, other businesspeople are consumers as well. Usually they are motivated to support local businesses, just as they hope that other local businesses will support theirs. Chamber meetings are great places to hand out lots of business cards. Our local chamber has local networking opportunites called Business after Business held from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at a member’s place of business, where chamber members can learn about the products or services the business offers, meet the owner(s) and enjoy refreshments and socializing. These are usually very well attended and are a great way to promote members’ businesses.

Another oft-neglected tool is cross-promotion. This works wonderfully for the big guys - you’ll often see movies, for instance promoted through fast food chains and vice versa - they’ve identified a common customer who purchases both items. This can work very well for small businesses - think of how many of your customers also shop at other, non-competing businesses. Find a way that your businesses can co-operate to market to your shared customers. One example in our local business community is a gas station with a car wash that has a display of a local mechanic’s business cards with a 10% discount at their till to hand to customers who may need work done on their cars. The mechanic hands out a promotional coupon for the car wash at the gas station.

Simple things like networking and cross-promotion cost very little, yet can produce big results for small businesses. Be flexible, be prepared to take advantage of every opportunity and keep your eyes open. A good marketing campaign can boost any business, but first you need to pay attention to the basics.