Get some tips on enhancing your small business marketing plan. Take a look at online and traditional marketing tools.

1. Marketing
and
Your Small Business

2. Marketing isn’t just:
Sales.
Filling the funnel.
New ideas or “new and improved.
Pricing.
Social media.
Knowing your target audience.
Advertising.
Networking.
Customer service.
Making money.

3. Marketing is:
Everything you do!!

4. Pieces of the Marketing Puzzle
• Know the landscape
• Be found
• Get the customer to take action
• Support
• Form relationships
• Measure what works
• Other marketing basics
– Marketing p’s

5. Know the Landscape
Industry
Competition
Customer
You
Your
Niche

6. The Competition
3 Basic Types
1. Direct
2. Similar
3. Anyone selling something

7. Be Found
• It’s not “build it and they will come”
• Being found is being visible
• “Finding you” is not the same as “Being
found” – What prompts me to even
look??
• A mix of traditional and online marketing
• It starts with you
Resource: Social media – Power of Business - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwISjlIK_UI

8. Be Found
• For many, this is “marketing”
• Not just online or traditional media.
– It is probably a mixture of both.
– Where is your audience?
• It begins with you
Resource: Social media – Power of Business -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwISjlIK_UI

9. Be Found
• Traditional
–Promotions
• Events, give-aways
–Publicity
• TV, radio, print,
flyers
–PR
• Free, be the
“expert, columnist
• Online - It starts
with a website

10. Be Found – It Begins with You
• An online presence
• Networking
• Elevator speech – UNL Connie Reimers Hild -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftdUloCoJqo
• Business card
– Don’t leave ½ blank
• Your Brand

11. Be Found – Your Brand
• Brand = Who you are and what you represent
• Brand is built over time
• Building a Brand -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZLWDeG8leg

12. "You can't build a reputation on
what you're going to do." -- Henry
Ford

13. Be Found
On average, must hear or see your
business:
–3 to 5 times before I remember you exist
–7 to 10 times before I take action

14. Be Found - Be Visual
• 1 picture = 1000 words
• Videos
• Visual merchandising – off-line and on-line
• Infographics

15. Get the Customer Taking Action
• It takes:
• 3 to 5 times till I remember you exist
• 7 to 10 times before I take action
• Need a call-to-action
Free ______
Buy
Purchase
Shop
Test
Visit
Find
Order
Review
Download

16. Support
• Begins before they walk out of the door
• After purchase support
• Warranty/Guarantee
• Refunds
• Tips and ideas how to use
• Product updates
• Staying in touch
• Delivery/pick-up/disposal/wrapping

17. Support
"If you make a sale, you can make a living.
If you make an investment of time and
good service in a customer, you can make a
fortune." -- Jim Rohn

18. Support - Keeping Your Customers
• Why
1. Expense
• $20-$50 to gain a new customer
• $1-$3 to retain an existing customer
2. Ability to learn more about them and sell to
them again
"Do your own market research; ask your
last ten customers exactly why they bought
from you." -- Brian Tracy

19. Support – Service Statistics
• Before the Internet
– A dissatisfied customer will tell up to 10 people.
Approximately 13% will tell up to 20 people.
– Happy customers will tell between 3 and 5 people
• Today
– Complain using online review sites & social media in
general
– Some 4 - 10% of customers complain
• For every complaint there are 3 other dissatisfied customers
– 95% of dissatisfied customers will continue doing
business with you if you act quickly and solve the issue
• They can be your biggest fan

20. Support – Making It Right
• Don’t argue
• Listen carefully
• Apologize
• Thank the customer
• Show empathy
• Make restitution
• Do what you promise
• Follow up
• Give them something
"Always do right! This will
gratify some people and
astonish the rest.”– Mark
Twain

21. Form Relationships
• Your best customers are your current
customers.
– They know you. Give them a reason to return.
– Make them your ambassadors - #1 tool
• Nurture them - Keep in contact – Loyalty programs
• Ask questions
• Listen – Follow up when you use their
ideas/suggestions
• Suggest they do a review
I
love
XYZ.
com

22. #1 Tool
Word
of
mouth

23. Other Marketing Elements
• Price – Profit is not a four letter word
– “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” –
Warren Buffet
– Remember the credit card slogan, “Memories –
Priceless”
• Place – It depends, however, you do need
some type of online presence
• Packaging
• Production

24. Measure What Works
• The ultimate
• Test – Message, Correct audience, Desired
action, Was it heard?
• ROI – Return on investment – “Get the biggest
bang for the buck”
– And don’t get confused – Faster/More ≠ Better
– http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/05/speedometer-confusion.html
Closed (CC) Becky McCray, on Flickr

25. Glenn Muske, NDSU — glenn.muske@ndsu.edu
Connie Hancock, UNL Extension —
chancock@unl.edu
For resources: powerofbusiness.net
For questions, contact:

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