Small Business, Big Impacts

Marketing for small business - 10 tips for Making Your Message Matter®
in marketing communications.

By Lisa Martin

Overwhelmed with how to organize and implement your marketing campaign? Learn how to kick start your campaign by developing sound marketing strategies and put them in practice with LeapFrog Solutions' top 10 tips for marketing success.

Of course, the best methods will differ depending on your personal style, industry, and budget. Despite the increasing impact of technology on marketing, most of the key things you can do are still aimed at standing out in your market and building relationships. If we had to pick the top ten approaches they would be the following:

1. Define Your Company.
Ensure your team has a clear message and mission statement defining who your company is and what they do. For instance if each of your employees had 2 minutes to tell us what your company's specialties are, would they all say the same thing? Having a set mission statement and an elevator pitch that encompasses the essence of your company will ensure consistency and eliminate confusion with your future clients.

2. Start With a Marketing Plan.
Small businesses often make the mistake of implementing tactics on an ad hoc basis without putting a marketing plan in place. This wastes valuable time and money communicating to customers who don't have a need for your service or product. Each marketing plan should begin with research and analysis of the current market and should include strategic steps with measurable objectives.

3. Be S.M.A.R.T. About Your Objectives.
S - specific
M - measurable
A - achievable
R - realistic
T - time specific
When setting goals there are hopes/dreams and then there are wants/needs. When putting your plan together, ensure you are realistic about what you need to accomplish. Ensure your objectives are relevant to your current market and enhance progress towards reaching your financial goals by reviewing each of your objectives through the S.M.A.R.T. methodology.

4. What's Your "Secret Sauce"?
What sets you apart from other companies who provide similar products? Identify your key points of difference and then make your advantages easy to understand. You can gain a competitive edge in your market by knowing and communicating your key point of differentiators to your specific audience.

5. Client Retention.
Focus on keeping your customers. History proves that retaining your customers is far more cost-effective than trying to attract new ones. Many companies are extremely focused when pitching a new client, but find it hard to sustain the same amount of attention after the client is won. We find that it is just as important to place emphasis on retaining those clients as it is when you are attempting to gain their business from the start. One way to ensure client retention is to build relationships and make that personal connection. When working with a client, don't sell, help people buy. When you truly put the client's interests above your own, you will become a consultant, a team member, and a partner for them.

6. Work for Referrals.
Word of mouth is the least expensive and most effective way to get new business. If you have a client who absolutely sings your praises, don't be shy to ask them for a testimonial for your Web site. It is always comforting for a potential client to hear about your past success stories and why you are so popular with your clients.

7. Keep Your Finger on the Pulse.
So you researched your market and you have your marketing plan in progress, but as we all know, the market changes quite often. In order to identify new areas of opportunity you need to keep track of these changes and identify how they affect your business while ensuring the ability to adapt your marketing plan to these changes.

8. Integrate Your Marketing.
In this day and age there are many different ways to reach your potential client. Using your market research, determine which medium is the best fit for your company, but be sure to diversify as your market changes. For example, you may have been targeting your clients by sending direct mail information packets over the years, but as your customers developed with technology you may want to reassess and possibly post your information on a micro site for easier access, accommodating to their new natural source for information.

9. Did it Work?
All this is meaningless unless you measure. Marketing in any sense of the word is a step in the right direction, but without measurement, how do you know if it is working? While you are implementing your plan, you should track and evaluate your efforts each step of the way. This will save you valuable time and money, as it will show which tactics worked for your business and which should be modified or not be repeated in the future.

10. Learn from Your Experiences.
Just because you didn't win a certain client's business doesn't mean you can't gain something from the experience. Taking the time to see why you both won and lost clients will only help your company become more effective and improve your business results year after year.

Lisa has more than 20 years of professional marketing communications and project management experience. She specializes in developing strategic marketing campaigns for high-technology clients, as well as association-sponsored conferences and trade shows. Lisa has extensive project management experience in Web site design and application development, graphic print design, and video production and is also recognized for her innovative work in Web site development and multimedia presentations. She is a featured speaker at numerous events focusing on the effective use of multimedia and Internet marketing including the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS), Women in Film and Video, National Women's Business Center, and the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. She sits on the Board of Directors of Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, NVTC (Northern Virginia Technology Council), Leadership Fairfax and Volunteer Fairfax. In addition, she is a graduate of the 1999 Leadership Fairfax program and the 1999 NVTC Mindshare program.

Lisa graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor's degree in Marketing and French and received her MBA from George Washington University in Marketing and International Business.

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