12 Things You Must Do To Market Your New Small Business

Simple, cheap steps you can take right now.

Starting a new business – even the micro-sized venture – can be overwhelming.  There’s so much to do!  Then, on top of that, I’m sure everyone’s told you by now that you need to market your business, too.

If you’d rather have a root canal than boast about yourself, then marketing may seem like a nasty downside that you’d rather ignore.  But how are potential customers going to buy from you if they don’t know who you are or what you do?  Your business is just starting out…you can’t rely on old customers telling new customers how wonderful you are, if you don’t have any customers yet.

Marketing at its most basic is telling people what you do and why you’re the best person for their needs.  It really doesn’t have to be complicated, or expensive.

If you’ve looked into marketing at all, you’re probably overwhelmed by all the things that “must” and “should” be done to market yourself.  Don’t let it bother you, and don’t panic about not doing it all.  No-one can do it all.  Rather, you need to pick and chose what works best for your business.

Here’s twelve basic steps to get you going:

Decide on your niche

Even as a small business, you need to specialize.  You can’t afford to compete against the mega-international franchises and corporations, and you don’t want to look exactly the same as the dozen other small businesses providing widgets in your area.

If everyone else sells the same identical widget as you, the harried customer will simply buy the best or nearest widget they can.  But if you were to, say, sell only left-handed widgets, then you’re making your product unique, and all left-handed people will automatically gravitated to you and your widgets.

Even if your widgets aren’t specialized, you can still serve a specialized market – stay at home mothers, for example, or the Chinese community in your town.

All your marketing efforts are channelled by your niche, and given power, so you must decide your niche up front.  A lawn sprinkler can spray water drops around and do little more than wet the lawn.  A lawn hose turned on full blast, and focused on one spot, can dig up divots and even crack windows – it has impact.  Focusing on a niche helps you get the most mileage for your marketing efforts.

Another reason to specialize is the sheer number of widgets out in the world.  Most consumers, given a huge range of choices, will pick the widget they perceive to be the “best.”  It’s a lot easier to be the best in a small pond than it is to be the best in the whole world….

Join your local chamber of commerce

If you are planning to sell your services or product to other businesses, then join your chamber of commerce.  There’s other similar organizations in most cities or towns, that bring business people together to network with each other, and becoming a member will instantly put you in touch with other businesses that could use your services or product.

Even if you plan to sell directly to consumers, these business associations also provide classes and seminars, formal networking events, and other resources to help your business thrive.

Business cards

Business cards are not an affectation, even for small businesses.  They’re worth the small expense.  Your marketing effort includes talking about what you do to people you meet.  Handing them your card gives them something that isn’t as easy to lose as a scrap of paper, and they don’t have to remember anything.  It directs them to your website and gives them all your contact information.   A business card can slide into a pocket, wallet or purse, and they’ve been known to survive the washing machine, too.

A well designed card includes a sub-title to your business name, that explains your niche.

There’s absolutely no excuse for not having business cards, these days.  You can get glossy printed cards by the boxful, for next to nothing, if you order from on-line printers like Vista (www.vistaprint.com).

Avery (www.Avery.com) sell blank business card stock that you can print at home for yourself.  These are not flimsy paper-stock cards with fuzzy edges, anymore.  They’re a standard, high quality card stock that pops out of the frame with a clean edge.  If you’re handy with a computer and manipulating graphics and fonts, you can design a four-colour business card that is indistinguishable from the expensive printed variety.

Thank you notes

Write notes thanking new customers, old customers for referrals, other businesses for their help or good service, people you meet who provide help in some way, anyone anywhere who has had some positive impact on you or your business.

Just like business cards, thank you notes are a great networking tool.  They’re sometimes considered almost old-fashioned, but there’s very few people that don’t appreciate a hand-written note in an elegant card, or on classy notepaper.

Thank you notes only take minutes to write, but their impact is immeasurable.  Your business card might get chucked out next time they’re clearing their Rolodex, but your thank-you note will be remembered…sometimes for years.

Your elevator Speech

It’s called an elevator speech because it’s short enough to say during an elevator ride.  It’s one or two sentences that describe what you do, and your target market (your niche).  Your elevator speech is a useful thing to create and memorize.  When you’re in conversation with someone, and the inevitable “what do you do?” is asked, you’ll have a great answer.

Elevator speeches don’t have to be smarmy, salesman-slick pitches.  You can write something that you can recite without blushing or feeling like a shark, but still explains clearly what it is you do, and who you do it for.

If you’re at all uncomfortable about networking, especially in person, having the speech memorized helps you relax during the awkward few moments when you meet someone new.

Learn the basics of networking

When you stop in at your local tyre store to have the tyres on your car changed, and you get into conversation with the mechanic about your business, that’s networking.

Networking is also telling your neighbour, or the new couple you invited over for dinner, about your products and services when they ask about the widget on your coffee table.

Networking happens anywhere and everywhere — not just at Chamber meetings or speed dating events, so it pays to learn something about how networking works, and ways to get more comfortable with it.  A large chunk of your business will eventually come from word-of-mouth – not just from happy customers, but from those people you ran into at the kids’ soccer game, who hand over one of your business cards to their neighbour who desperately needs a widget now.

Tell everyone you know

It doesn’t occur to many new small business owners that one of the largest networks they belong to is the one they use every day.  You should systematically inform everyone you know about your new business.  This includes friends, family, neighbours, association members, sports buddies, co-workers at your day job, your doctor, dentist, lawyer and accountant.  Everyone.

The intention is not to nag them into using your widgets, but to let them know about the new event in your life, and to ask them if they know of anyone who fits into your target market who might need widgets.  If you make it clear they’re not expected to buy, it takes the pressure off, and they’ll listen with more attention.  Give them a few of your business cards – one for them, and the rest to pass on to prospective customers.

Tell everyone you don’t know

This is where having a niche helps.  Eventually you will have told everyone you know, gained a few customers as a result, and be faced with having to find customers from amongst total strangers.

You could keep yourself busy for years reading up on how to find new customers.  There’s so much information out there it’ll make your head swim.  You absolutely should read and learn about marketing your business, but for now, there’s two things you can try to find new customers.

If you’re marketing to other businesses, try cold-calling.  Cold calling isn’t just for the fearless telemarketer, and you don’t have to come across with the same false cheeriness that telemarketers inject into their calls.  You don’t even have to phone.  If your target market is focused in one geographical area (your local mall or the main downtown street, say), you can walk in, and drop off flyers and cards, brochures, or whatever other marketing materials you have that provide information about your business.

Phoning is usually more efficient, and if you set yourself up with a simple script (try not to read it in a monotone when someone answers), then you’ll collect names and contact information for companies who have the potential to become customers.

The other method for reaching people you don’t know is direct mail, which works well if you’re selling widgets directly to consumers, too.

As a small business, you will find a simple letter the most effective and economic type of direct mail.  The more it looks like you have written to the recipient directly, the more effective the letter will be. That means no photocopying, and it means using mail-merge software so that each letter is addressed individually.  And for you, it means collecting names and addresses yourself.  You can’t afford to buy a mailing list, and it’s unlikely there’ll be a list available that covers your small niche.

It’s worth the time to build a tailored, focused mailing list of both potential and happy customers, and to keep refining and expanding it as you go.  It is a powerful resource you’ll use again and again.

You can also combine a direct mail campaign with follow-up phone calls (which aren’t cold, now that you’ve already contacted them by letter), to help find new customers.

Website

A website is essential.  It is the base upon which all other on-line marketing is built.  Most consumers, even the business kind, are used to being able to find a business site on-line, and they expect standard information on that site:  contact information, products and services offered, hours of operation.  You can also add pricing, if you’re selling retail goods, but service businesses might prefer to have customers contact them for pricing.

A website doesn’t have to be expensive.  But don’t settle for a free one.  At the very least, buy your domain (www.nameofyourbusiness.com), and find a web hosting service that will give you a basic site.  There’s plenty of software programs available that will virtually built a basic site for you, complete with graphics.  Strive always for a professional look that matches the style of goods or services you sell, but you don’t have to have the latest Java script and cascading style sheets in order to look professional.

You don’t have to sell your goods and services directly on-line.  You might prefer to direct customers to your brick & mortar store, instead.  But if you chose to sell on-line, you’ll also need shopping cart software and a merchant account for credit card transactions.  This is where websites can start to get expensive.  You’ll need an expert to build in the shopping cart software, and merchant accounts can be costly.

On-line classified ads & directories.

When you’re first starting out in business, you should spend a day or two finding every on-line classified ad and directory site you can, and listing your business, with a link back to your site.  It’s a big effort to start with, because there’s a ton of sites out there.  Select the top twenty or so, based on amount of traffic they get, and go back to check your listings every six months or so.  Classified Ad sites will need more frequent tending, depending on how long the ad stays “live” for.

Don’t overlook your city’s on-line yellow pages directory.  The on-line listings are often free, while an ad printed in the paper directory each year can be a horrendous price.  Wait on the printed ad until you can afford a display ad instead of the standard two line text entry.

Flyers at local related businesses

Other local small businesses are a great way to find new customers, if you think strategically.  You need to first look for businesses whose services or goods are related to yours.  If you sell rebuilt computers, then the local software store might be interested in have a small stack of your brochures on their counter for customers to pick up.  So might the ink recycling store.  Local schools may appreciate having someone to refer parents to for cheap computers for their kids, and the local library might, too.  You may need to think sideways to discover who has an associated business, but these relationships can be some of the most fruitful you’ll have.

Other local small businesses might carry your marketing materials just because you’re a small local business like them.  This is where networking pays off.

Stay healthy

While staying healthy isn’t directly related to marketing, it is a key to longevity in your business.  When you first start to build your business, time is at a premium, and there’s always too much to do.  It’s easy to skip sleep, meals, survive on crappy take-out, and fail to step outside for days at a time.

If you don’t want to keel over at your desk, you must take the time to sleep, eat well, and exercise.  Daily.  Also take time to dress and groom properly each day, even if you’re working at your kitchen table for now.  Otherwise, your standards will slide imperceptivity each day, and potential customers will eventually find your appearance less than enticing.

It’s a known fact that customers prefer to deal with the more attractive person out of two choices.  If you are fit, slim, full of energy and glowing with good health, with a nice smile and a positive attitude, they’ll gravitate toward you.

And you might just possibly live longer.

These are twelve basic marketing strategies you can use to help launch your new small business in style.  Once you become comfortable with these strategies, you can begin to tweak and swap them for new ideas.  Marketing is an ever-changing activity that provides the solid base on which your business can grow.

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© Tracy Cooper-Posey 2009. Cannot be copied or distributed without permission.