Marketing strategy

A stressed looking business owner, with the quote, "think you can't afford marketing? Do you have any choice?

Three quick, cheap, and easy marketing wins for small business

I speak to a lot of small business owners (particularly the really small business owners) who tell me they don’t do any marketing because they can’t afford marketing. To which I respond: You’re probably already doing marketing, but you just don’t know it (whether you think of it that way or not, your website is important marketing!) Doing a tiny bit of cheap marketing is better than doing no marketing at all and How the heck are you going to...

A man looking at a planning board, with the quote, "Want to fail at marketing your small business? Try to do too much."

How to fail at marketing your small business: try to do ALL the things

Let me tell you a story. I recently talked to a small business that had hired an experienced marketing person to put together a marketing plan for them. That person put together a very professional and thorough marketing plan. A plan that simply didn’t work. What went wrong? Well, that thorough marketing plan, with all the best practices and bells and whistles, failed to take one thing into account: the fact that it was a small business. With a small...

A person offering their hand to shake, with the quote, "Unless you don't really like your money, there are much better ways to see if a marketing iniative might work than to just "give it a try".'

How do you know if that great marketing idea will work for your business?

We’ve all had it happen: a salesperson walks in your door (or your inbox) and tells you all about this great small business marketing thing that will attract more customers. You want more customers, you think to yourself. Should you try it? Will it work? Well, there are two ways to find out. One way is to go ahead and purchase their thing or ad space or what-have-you and see what happens. Now, let me be clear; I do NOT...

Woman with a megaphone, and the quote, "You won't attract new customers if you only talk to your current ones"

Marketing pro tip: stop talking to the same people.

Ask anyone what marketing is, and most would say that it’s advertising. (We’ll save whether or not that’s really the best definition of marketing to another day.) In other words, they think it’s getting your product or service out in front of new potential customers. Emphasis on the new. With that in mind, you may be surprised that a lot of small business owners forget to promote their business to people outside their own customer/fan circle. Why? It’s probably because...

An audience under a quote that says, "If you don't know who your customers is, YOU CAN'T MARKET TO THEM."

Want small business marketing that works? Get to know your customer.

First, the bad news: the statistics on new business failure are pretty grim. About half by year five. Yikes. Think about that for a moment, but don’t panic. Because there is good news. The good news is that many experts (Forbes and Business Insider among them) cite a failure to understand and connect with customers as a top reason for a lack of success. And, while you can’t control macro shifts in the economy or really even market demand, you...