Conquering Your Market With A One Man Army! A Complete Guide To Effectively Market Your Small Business.
1 • Understanding Marketing
If you ask any number of people what they do for a living, a few of them will tell your marketing. Rarely do two of these people do the same thing and yet they group their job under this loose heading. So to start, let’s define exactly what marketing is so we can make sure that we cover all our bases. In the broadest sense of the word marketing covers six key areas:
1. Market Research To Determine Your Target Audience.
The first step in any marketing effort is to choose a market. Perhaps the single biggest mistake in most small business marketing is never choosing or defining a specific enough market. If you have a product that everyone will buy you have a problem, reaching everyone with your message is very expensive. When I started my advertising agency I had a business that any other business could benefit from. Instead, I choose just 500 companies to market to, all of whom were in my geographic area and in my basic area of expertise. By focusing my efforts in this manner I was able to gain three national accounts within just 90 days from a ten-by-ten room with a staff of one.
Choosing a specific market is not enough though; next, you must determine whether there are enough clients, or would-be customers, in your market to justify the business or service you intend to offer. They must have enough discretionary income to be able to afford your products or service and you must be accessible to your targeted population base. The results of your market research will also be particularly useful in designing effective ads and promotional literature and in determining pricing, packaging, and selling methods.
2. Location of Analysis.
Although in today’s world of technology more and more businesses in the computer and service sectors are not location-dependent, for the average small business the old adage of what makes for good real estate holds true for what makes a small business successful. Location, location, location.
You must analyze the market in your present location, to decide whether it has the potential to provide the income you desire. It must have enough people of the right income, and it must be visible and accessible to those people or your business will not work. Even with enough people of the right discretionary income, you must also consider what other businesses are already in your market to shrink the number of customers you might gain in any given area. When I started in the martial arts business, I was the only school in the town of 60,000. It was an absolute gold mine! When I sold it there were 18 other schools in town! What had been a choice location had turned into a very tough place to make a living. By seeking out another location and moving to a growth area less than twenty miles away from where I was the only school in town, I was able to reproduce an excellent business with minimum effort.
3. Determining Your Product Or Service
What business are you really in? It sounds like a dumb question, but many people don’t know while others either are in the wrong business or, upon reflection, a different business than what they thought they were in. What you might think is obvious often is not.
For example, what business is McDonald's in? Burger King thought that McDonald's was in the hamburger business, so they spent millions telling people that their burgers tasted better because they were flame-broiled. The fact is that nobody cared, least of all McDonalds because McDonald's is really in the entertainment business. That’s why they have giant playpens, that’s why they have happy meals with free toys. That’s why they run ads with clowns, not chefs. My kids don’t care if Burger King tastes better, they aren’t going for the food!
Hello! It makes you think, doesn’t it!
Here’s another example, what business is a karate instructor in? If he is a traditional instructor it might be self-defense. If that is the business he is in, I guarantee you that he will have only a handful of students. If he is an aerobic kickboxing instructor, he might be in the fitness business and he’ll have lost people, mainly women going in and out with very few lasting more than nine weeks. If he is a savvy instructor who wants longterm success in the business and wants to capture as many people as possible, he is going to be in the, wait for it, self-development business.
I built a national organization on this premise, we help people become physically and mentally strong. Our physical curriculum helps people stay in shape and learn to defend themselves while our mental curriculum teaches key traits like self-discipline, confidence, and persistence. I feel that this combination is personal development at it’s finest, and I can assure you that over the long haul it’s a far more effective position than any other in that particular industry.
The point is that many small business owners spend thousands sending out a message about their business that is either wrong or ineffective in maximizing their potential. By analyzing what business you are in, and what products and services fit into that business, you will be able to maximize your market and boost your profits.
4. Pricing Your Products & Services.
Why do you charge what you charge? Most people base their prices on what others do or nebulous statements like, “that’s what the market will bear”. You must be able to price your product or service in such a way as to make a fair profit after expenses. You might find, as I did, that business soars when you raise your prices by over 100%. Challenge your packaging and your prices. You will find that packaging your products or services in creative ways is the fastest and easiest way to dramatically increase your business.
5. Advertising, Promotional Literature & PR.
This is probably what most people have in mind when they think of marketing. These activities are of the utmost importance and must be executed effectively to return maximum results for dollars invested. Most promotional literature is a giant waste of money for three reasons:
First, it’s not targeted to the right people.
Second, it’s not set up to read from the client’s perspective, not enough of “what’s in this for me?”
Third, it’s not tracked or followed up correctly.
By engaging in simple market research you can eliminate the first problem. We’ll get to the others later.
6. Sales.
Getting to the right people and generating leads is great, but if a sale is not consummated it will all be for naught. To sell successfully is an art, but it is an art that can be acquired. Different fields of endeavor call for different selling methods, but the basics of selling seldom change from business to business. Needs must be established in the minds of the customer, giving you a chance to provide solutions — whether that solution is a dozen roses, a computer that works, or a model train. Coordination of efforts All of the activities I have just mentioned must be coordinated into an overall effective plan of action, where each complements the other. You will quickly understand how each subject relates to and affects the others. Then devise your own course of action, taking into account your personality, background and skills, and the characteristics of the target market that you intend to service. As you listen to this section and the ones that follow, keep a pencil and paper nearby so you can jot down notes and ideas as they come to you. You should use these notes to help write a marketing plan. No matter how crude, plans that make their way onto paper are always more effective than those that don’t!
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