Small Business Marketing Strategies

Those of you who’ve read this blog for a while know that I originally started my career in door to door sales. Yeah, it’s not for everyone 🙂 But of course…neither is lifting weights or playing in a band, which are other activities I’ve grown fond of. But here’s something you can take to the bank…these things definitely force you to find something within yourself that you might not ever know was there otherwise. And that can be pretty beautiful.

It’s one of the reasons I love blogging and marketing my business in a public forum like this. I know the content here goes out to thousands of people; it’s kind of hard to not do your best. Let’s be real. You’d have to be a pretty big loser to be cool with having a sucky blog.

Push, Learn, Grow

So bottom line, I’m a fan of anything that pushes you to learn and grow. Love it or hate it, working in direct sales gets the job done. And for the record, I know for a fact it can be done ethically and for mutual benefit. It just happens to be the case that, unfortunately, many people are lazy bastards and willing to take their sales skills and use them unethically. It’s a shame, but it’s not a reflection on sales. It’s a reflection on the human race. Sorry, but sometimes people can suck. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch for me to say this. It’s not news. I think we can agree?

One of the situations that I learned from in sales was having guns pointed at me. I live in Indiana, folks. When you randomly knock on doors trying to sell stuff, some people don’t dig it. I know, big surprise, right? Well, a small percentage of people out there are aggressive, and a certain percentage of those people own guns. It didn’t happen often, but it happened more than once.

Instant Significance

As you might expect, wielding a gun makes you instantly significant. Trust me, having a gun pointed at you changes the situation pretty quickly. It’s a horrible approach of course, but I have to admit, it’s an effective way to get a result.

It’s occured to me that if everyone was packing heat, then guns would be a lot less significant. If we lived in a world where we were regularly prepared for that type of confrontation, then pointing a gun at someone wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal. If someone pointed one at you, you could simply point one right back. You’d be ready for that shit. As it turns out, this isn’t the world we live in. Very few people carry guns these days, and I’m cool with that. But this does create an opportunity for someone who is willing to use a gun. If you’re willing to cross that line, then instant power and significance are yours for the taking.

In business, we all seek these exact things. Every business wants to be different, powerful and significant. In fact, the information product industry is full of products which promise instant power and significance. And buy them by the millions. Be honest. You want to standout. You want to be significant. You want to affect a large change in the world. You want everything that a gun would provide you. But you’re just not willing to cross that line. Kudos, you’re not a redneck 🙂

Just remember what we’ve learned here. A gun is only significant when no one is ready for it. It’s only truly powerful when it’s rare. And it’s only powerful when you’re willing to cross the line and actually use one. Thankfully, there’s not just one line. There are millions of them.

Crossing Lines

Every day you can look out at your marketplace. Observe what people are complaining about. Take note of the problems your customers are having. These are lines you can cross anytime you’re ready. They are the lines that no one else has crossed. They are the lines that no one else, until now, has been willing to cross. They are your golden opportunity to obtain instant significance and power in your market.

You don’t need an expensive information products to teach you this. And you sure as hell don’t need a gun. You just need to listen and create solutions. Look at your systems. What can you do now, today, that your competition simply isn’t willing to do? What line can you cross today? These are the small, rare and beautiful opportunities that create powerful relationships with your customers. They are the little details that make all the difference.

Good business is about crossing those lines and doing what others aren’t willing to do. A business that crosses lines is the one that commands attention and becomes irreplaceable to the customer. If you want that type of loyalty from your customers, you need to break rules. Thankfully, there are always a lot of rules begging to be broken.

You are not objective when it comes to your marketing. It’s not your fault. I’m not objective when it comes to my marketing either. It’s impossible to be objective when you’re the one who creates something.

• Is your latest blog post one that will engage your readers and get them to act?
• Is your website’s layout clean and easy to navigate for your visitors?
• Are you losing leads, because your opt-in form is hard to find?

As marketers…as business owners, we are not qualified to answer these and many other important questions on our own behalf. It is our customers who decide, so it is our job to listen and learn. It is not our job to cram marketing down their throat and then simply sit back, waiting for the orders to come in. Good marketing is…and always has been…a conversation.

This is why blogging is such a powerful marketing tool…because it is first and foremost NOT a marketing tool. It is a communication tool. Good marketers are good communicators. Perhaps the best book ever written on how to be an effective web marketer is How to Win Friends and Influence People…a book written decades before the internet even existed. Why? Because it teaches you solid principles on how to, well, win friends and influence people. This is exactly what marketing is always about, and blogging hasn’t changed that.

What HAS changed is that now we have the choice to bring the conversation front and center. What HAS changed is that we now have technology which allows us to interact with thousands, even millions, of people in a way that is very time-effective. This is the highest value of blogging to business owners…effective, personal communication in a way that leverages our time.

If your message is convoluted or obscured…you’ll know soon enough. Your readers will tell you by either complaining, not ordering from you, not signing up for your list or talking about you with others. Silence is also feedback. Most new bloggers seem to fear this kind of feedback, and that’s understandable. Feedback is not always fun. It is, however, an essential part of marketing, and without it your marketing will never be more than guesswork or a crap shoot. Feedback rocks. It can be tough, but at least it sets you on the right path…if you listen to it.

If you want to get some professional feedback on your blog or website, check out this page. I’m happy to do an entire site critique for you.

Zappos randomly surprises their customers with shipping upgrades. Not all the time, but sometimes. The surprise is delightful to the customer and costs Zappos very little. It probably wins them a customer for life more often than not. Not a bad return on investment, especially when that investment is only a few bucks.

We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.

Not only does an act of kindness like that often win a customer over, it also encourages good will. This causes the happy customer to spread a positive message about you. A little goes a long way. We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.

One small act of kindness doesn’t cost much, and it has the potential to create an advocate. This is the process of reaching out to just ONE person, who will likely reach out to many others on your behalf. This is leverage at it’s finest. We need more of this in business today. A single advocate for your business offers a far better return on investment than focusing large amounts of time and money trying to get a .1% better conversion from an old, tired marketing piece. Yet this is exactly what businesses do.

Established business owners with thousands of past clients will spend their entire marketing budget trying to reach new customers, and meanwhile they ignore everyone who’s already bought from them. I see this all the time. The people who have already bought from you aren’t old news. They’re your biggest asset. Treat them as such. Spend more time and money here than anywhere else!

This doesn’t have to be overly complicated. The whole point in fact…is that it’s simple, effective and inexpensive. Think of ONE simple thing you can do to surprise your customers or clients this month. Genuinely surprise them with something cool, and watch what happens. You’ll be delighted at the response you get.

One final thought; in order for this to be awesome, it has to be genuinely valuable and cool. Don’t fall into the temptation to send them some branded postcard that says “thank you”. You know the postcard I’m talking about. It says “thank you”, but it REALLY says “hey look at me and how nice I am”. Would your customer ordinarily pay money for it? If so, you’re on the right track.