- Don't Advertise Beyond Your Means: Large corporations advertise to create brand recognition and future sales because they can afford it; a small business can't typically afford to do that. Instead, design your advertising to produce sales now, on your budget. Another smart idea is to always include an offer or discount in your advertising.
- Set up Joint Promotions: Reach out to some non-competing small businesses serving customers in your market. Offer to publicize their products or services to your customers in exchange for their publicizing your services to their customers. This usually produces a large number of sales for a very low, to no, cost.
- Support Endorsed Relationships: An endorsed relationship is similar to a joint venture – with one big difference. The person you do the venture with actually gives you their professional or personal endorsement.
- Build a Well-Connected Network: One of the biggest myths in business is that you must have a large network if you want to succeed. The reality is that the size of your network is not what’s important. It’s the influence of the people within your network that counts.
- Offer a More Economical Version: Some prospective customers can’t, or are not willing to, pay what you’re asking for your product or service; others would rather pay a low price than get the best quality. You can avoid losing sales to many of these customers by offering a smaller or stripped-down version of your product or service at a lower price.
- Throw that Antiquated Marketing Guide in the Trash: If you want to avoid wasting piles of money and missing countless sales opportunities, throw your old marketing guides and audio programs in the trash can. See what’s working now, with today’s variables in play.
- Use “Attraction Marketing” and Not Pursuit Marketing: The most successfully marketed businesses gain the attention and interest of potential clients by making themselves attractive. In short—they make customers come to them. This is simpler than you think. People find a blog, page or site ‘attractive,’ so they recommend and forward it to their contacts, their colleagues and their friends. Attract clients rather than pursue them simply because people hate being chased or pursued. Spend a day doing cold-calling and you will learn very quickly just how much people love to buy, but hate to be sold.
- Offer a “Platinum Edition”: While a cheaper version will broaden the number of customers who can afford your product, not all customers are looking for a cheap price. Many are willing to pay a higher price to get a premium product or service. You can boost your average size sale and your total revenue by offering a more comprehensive product or service, or by combining several products or services in a special rolled-up premium package offered for a higher price.
- Research Your Competitors: It’s impossible to effectively sell or market your services unless you have researched your competitors. You need to know what offers, guarantees, prices or fees you are selling against, in order to make your offering the most attractive to potential clients.
- Try Some Outside-the-Box Marketing Methods: Look for some unconventional marketing methods that your competitors might be overlooking. You may uncover some profitable ways to generate sales and avoid competition.
- Email & Text Marketing: If you’re not already using it, you’re behind the curve. The reality is that email marketing is extremely cost-effective and perhaps the single most powerful marketing tool available to small businesses, seconded closely by text marketing. This is because it provides predictable results and costs little or nothing to use. Here’s a fun fact: Text messages have a 95% open rate.
- Downsize Your Ads: Reduce the size of your ads so you can run more for the same price. You may even be surprised to find that some of your short ads generate a better response than their longer versions.
- Internet Marketing: Most small businesses are unaware that they could receive stacks of high-quality enquiries, leads, phone calls and sales from interested prospective clients; if only they had a professionally designed website that has been search engine optimized by a proven SEO expert. Make the words that comprise the information on your website work for you with keyword optimization, too. It all adds up.
- Don’t Mistake Movement for Progress: People sometimes think that the harder they work, the more successful they will be; as if kids who spread their vegetables all over their plates with make them disappear! Make a conscious effort to work smarter, not harder, and you will be amazed at your own increase in productivity.
