Small Business Marketing Tactic: Local-Market Promotions!

Valuable pieces to complete your local-market promotional efforts:

1. Start with your sidewalk. Ask a local artist to provide a nice chalk design on the sidewalk just outside your business dor.

2. Business entrance. Place a greeter just inside your store's entrance. Be sure they are warm & genuinely welcoming to your guests.

3. In-store signage. Create various pieces of marketing collateral and place the pieces throughout your store (hang from the ceiling, position on end cap, cash-wrap at the register, employee apparel, trivia contest, etc)

4. Annual PR event. Take the opportunity to celebrate various milestones with events in your store (business anniversary, community outreach/public service)

5. Use your parking lot to host a live event/concert (There are MANY local artists eager to entertain. Host a community "battle of the bands"!)

6. Community. Host health screenings for your community. Be the "Goodwill" donation drop off site for a day. Partner with Red Cross to host a blood drive. Sponsor a 5K race for charity.

Small Business Marketing Tactics: Build Customer Loyalty!

Build customer loyalty. For companies that thrive on repeat business, such as coffee stores or bookstores, reward those who come back again and again with a free latte or other item for every 10 to 12 purchases. "It's amazing how few businesses do that!"

Small Business Marketing Tactic: SEASON GREETINGS

Small business owners have a GREAT opportunity to create additional events beyond the common promotional holidays throughout the year (i.e. Christmas, Mother's/Father's Day, Back To School, Labor Day, etc.). Savvy owners identify other key dates and craft potential for more success.

Examples:

FIRST DAY OF SPRING

The Spring season brings a sense of newness! Use the launch of the season to launch a NEW offering to your customers/community.

FIRST DAY OF SUMMER

Summertime delivers feelings of celebration, fun, and travel/escape. Incorporate the season feelings into your promotional themes & efforts.

ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONALS' DAY

Intentionally choose to equip your customers with ideas regarding how they may better service the staff, who support them.

NATIONAL BOSS' DAY

Keep the boss happy. Provide ideas how your customers may acknowledge their superiors' integrity, strength, talents.

SNOW DAY

Access your database (before the 1st snow of the year) and make plans to email your customers (teachers, parents of students, etc) a special offer.

Ideas include:

- special in-store discount they can use when the snow melts,

- link to a FREE online computer game that students may download & play (keeping them busy for a little time)

- link to an online coupon, which can be used to purchase ONLINE (offering FREE delivery)

NOTE...the coupon does not have to be for your product/services. Offer a coupon for PIZZA home delivery! :)

Be creative as you work to identify your own special "DAY" to celebrate and bring a special, customized offer to your targeted customers. If successful, make it annual (semi-annual event).

Your customers are sure to appreciate your offer.

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Maintain An Idea File

Create an IDEA folder for all those crazy ideas that only seem to have appear in your sleep state causing your brain to wake up in the middle of the night! :)

Write down ALL of these ideas:

* That have successfully worked for you in previous promotions,

* That you have seen others execute well (incorporate into your business model and give it shot)

* That you want to test with your target market.

Regularly read through your ideas, and you will be amazed at how well your brain will seem to click into gear as you easily:

- begin to customize and incorporate them into your own local market initiatives,

- create a brand new concept that can be executed within your marketing efforts,

- select the next idea(s) to incorporate into your immediate marketing arsenal.

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Build Customer Loyalty!

Build customer loyalty. For companies that thrive on repeat business, such as coffee stores or bookstores, reward those who come back again and again with a free latte or other item for every 10 to 12 purchases. "It's amazing how few businesses do that!"

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Library Science

Take an opportunity to visit your local library and read a few marketing books for FREE!

You will be amazed at the number of tactical ideas that will come to your mind that you can incorporate into your business today! ALSO, subsciribe to marketing blogs, join associations that relate to your profession, etc

Small Business Marketing Tactic: GROW SALES!

Encourage your customers to purchase while they are in your store!

How?

* Add inexpensive products near check out

* Offer sales promotion that entitles them to 20% off anything they can fit into a store bag

* Offer them a coupon sheet the moment they enter the store, THEN...

As they leave check out, give them a coupon sheet that is ONLY VALID the coming weekend in order to bring them back to your store!

Small Business Marketing Tactic: WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL!

After investing themselves into the mental, social and psychological growth of our children while providing other babysitting duties throughout the year, educators joyously exit the classroom by mid-June for a brief break to rest.

Local business owners have a great opportunity to connect with these educators & support staff!

Here's the plan:

1. Select a local school (public or private) that you have a personal connection (i.e. your child attends)

2. Identify the group of teachers that will interact with your child during the coming year

(i.e. 8th grade teachers, their counselors, & the school office staff)

3. After the Fall semester begins, forward each of these people a "Welcome Back!" gift bag filled with:

- Hand-written "Thank You" card or note that expresses genuine appreciation for their work

- Goody bag: lotion, hand sanitizer, pens, pencils, sticky notes, etc

- Coupon/Discount or FREE offer for your store's products or services that encourages them to come to your store before a certain date (helps drive traffic & measure the effectiveness of the exercise)

"Welcome Back" promotional opportunities can be timed to occur when educators return from :

- Summer break

- Fall break

- Christmas break

- Spring break

A Summer Vacation gift bag could be fun to create as well to thank them for their efforts during the year and wish them a restful summer break away from work.

These personal connections throughout the year are sure to generate warm awareness, trust, and NEW BUSINESS!

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Seriously Consider Including FACEBOOK Advertising To Your Mix!

The Nielsen Company reports time spent on social network and blogging sites account for 17% of all time spent on the Internet (August 2009), which is almost triple the percentage a year ago. As people continue to length the amount of time they have available to social networks, small business owners need to realistic start considering those key networks into their marketing mixes.

These industries have started to use FACEBOOK as a viable option in their advertising efforts:

- Automotive

- Business to Business

- Consumer Goods

- Health

- Public Services

- Retail Goods & Services

- Software

- Telecommunications

- Travel

- Web Media

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Take A Vacation!

Life is busy. We know that life can generate a laundry list of elementary items on your list of things to do. So, as you endeavor to work hard and invest so much of yourself into your business, PLEASE remember to take some time to step away and rest.

Pause and take one hour today for something YOU enjoy that has nothing to do with your business.

1 HOUR! You need the rest. Your mind needs to think about a life outside your four walls of business, even if it's a metaphorical journey of mind down a remote path to the beach you have dreamed to visit.

As you slowly manage to awaken your enjoyment of life outside the walls of your business, you are sure to find a new world of creativity, energy and enjoyment that will further fuel your success.

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Educate Your Customers!

Life is an education process!

Research to find an interesting fact that relates to your business or industry and then incorporate it into a marketing tactic for your customers. The fun fact finding mission is sure to open your eyes and mind to a world of interests outside your four walls (yet within your business arena). Plus, if opens your customers' eyes to you and your business as you provide them with the helpful information as you share your interesting find and provide it to them as a simple FYI.

Announce it on your:

- Facebook

- Twitter

- Blog

- Post in your store

- Smaller print run on business cards (with link to blog, facebook, twitter, etc)

Encourage customers to forward their facts & finds as well (& recognize those submissions once you've confirmed them to be truth). The exercise is sure to generates word of mouth!

Small Business Marketing Tactic: 63% Of Consumers Look To Website For Information!

63% of consumers and small business owners turn to the internet first for information about local companies!

It's TRUE! According to research from Webvisible and Nielsen, reported by Marketing Charts, though 63% of consumers and small business owners turn to the internet first for information about local companies and 82% use search engines to do so, only 44% of small businesses have a website and half spend less than 10% of their marketing budget online.

Give serious thought to providing your customers and potential customers with a website that they may:

- easily navigate

- access the detailed facts about your business offering

- quickly contact you via phone, email or status update using FACEBOOK (yes, seriously!)

Remember, you are not commissioned to be all things to all people. Keep your customers in mind as you create a simply, clean website that provides your customers with the information they need to keep coming back to you!

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Share Industry Research Findings With Customers!

Read market research on your profession, industry, product, target market, etc. Figure out how to share that research within your daily dealings with your customers, in your advertising, etc.

Some examples,

- the owner of a local coffee & tea shop can easily promote the health benefits associated to people add green tea to their list of daily beverages.

- a local florist can instruct pet lovers on the dangers that certain plants can cause to loved cats and dogs. (posting flyers at local veterinary clinics, etc)

- a professional organizer can publish the research results from a study of homeowners, who discovered the large amount of "wasted" time they had spent searching for their keys, important documents, etc in their cluttered lives.

- a commercial cleaning service owner could publish the psychological findings of how certain air-freshening scents cause patients to feel more relaxed when they enter their physician's office.

Small Business Marketing Tactic: The Power Of Your Voicemail Greeting!

For many small business owners, the telephone voicemail greeting is your first impression with a potential new client. Remember the power of our voicemail greeting!

Greet your current & potential customers with a message that includes:

1. The current date

2. Memorable message that provides "tip of the day"

3. Basic information about your business

- business hours

- location

- when they can expect for you to return their calls

PLEASE follow up and RETURN their calls when you say you will!

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Create A Coupon Calendar!

Today is a great day to start thinking about the new calendar year! Reward you customers by providing redeemable coupons on the calendar AND do it at little or NO hard cost to your bottom line.

How?

1. Research inexpensive calendars that can be printed to include coupons

2. Determine the number of coupons that you want to include on the calendar

3. Calculate the total cost to design & print the calendars

4. Divide the number of coupons by the total cost, so you know COST PER COUPON

5. Solicit your local non-compete business and sell AD SPACE for them to also provide a coupon on these calendars that will be distributed for FREE to your customers

As an added thought, you can offer the calendars to your local non-compete businesses too (for a fee!), and they can distribute to their customers too thus increasing the number of impressions for your coupons as well!

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Access The Industry Vertical of Social Media

In an Entrepreneur.com post from 9/30/09, Carol Tice reminds us that social media is not exclusive for those massive crowds of Twitter and Facebook. Some industries have their own silo of media that are being created to help members connect with each other and with your target audience.

One example she provides is LocalDirt.com, a new portal that connects farmers with customers nearby. How it works:

Farmers receive web-based orders from buying groups

Consumers arrive to local farmer's market and picks up the goods.

In its simplest form, the site basically makes shopping for local food easy!

Hmmmmm...encourages me to explore those industry verticals in my work....Shoot! Better yet, I think I will create a mini-silo on my own!

Small Business Marketing Tactic: Connect With Your Local Newspaper!

Connecting with the editor at your local newspaper, you have an opportunity to have your voice heard by your entire community!

A few ideas:

1. Create an annual award and publcize it. Outstanding Employee, NO ACCIDENTS in 5 Years, etc

2. Write a "Letter To The Editor" of your local paper/trade periodical

3. Offer industry tips in an article to your local paper/newsletter/home owners association newsletter