Tips for Effectively Marketing Your Business to New Customers

Quick story: Yesterday, I was clearing snow from my front walkway when a professional-looking truck stopped in front of my house. As the driver got out of the truck and ambled up my walkway, I turned off my snow blower and took off my headphones. The lettering on the truck door said something about steaks, but I couldn't imagine what he could possibly want, and my first guess was that he was lost and was going to ask directions.

To make a long story short, he was apparently an owner of a local meat store (a few towns away) that offered a delivery service. He was very well spoken, enthusiastic, and friendly. After chatting about the weather for a couple minutes, he proceeded to pitch me about earning my delivery business and that he was offering insanely low prices (my words), today, on steaks and other meats. He invited me to look at some meat he had for sale in his truck. I politely declined, and said I needed to finish clearing the snow from my property.

How to Avoid 'Dropping the Ball' When Marketing Your Business

Even though there was an extremely small chance that I would ever buy steaks, poultry, or fish from the back of someone's truck, I thought he made some interesting marketing blunders that might stand in the way of acquiring other customers.


First: What did he do right?

1. He was friendly, enthusiastic, and well spoken.
2. He didn't go directly into his sales pitch, but engaged me in some relevant small talk about the weather, which, in this case, involved the first major snowfall of the season.
3. His overall sales pitch was fairly good, emphasizing low prices, quality, convenient delivery service, and that he happened to be in the neighborhood making a delivery and wanted to let me know about their introductory offer. 

How was his marketing approach flawed?

1. He annoyed me. The fact that I had to turn off my snow blower, take off my earphones, and stop what I was doing did not put me in a receptive state of mind to hear his sales presentation. Not only that, but it was cold and wet outside, and I just wanted to finish my work and go inside and drink a hot cup of coffee. I think his enthusiasm for his product line clouded his judgement about when he should or should not approach a prospective customer.
2. He left no marketing materials or contact information. I'm guessing that he either forgot or didn't know that marketing your business is a process and often requires that potential customers be exposed to your business in more than one way and more than one time. I was surprised that he didn't leave me a marketing flyer, brochure, door hanger, marketing information, or even a business card. Some professional-looking coupons with appetizing photographs of steak, lobster, or barbequed chicken would have given me some 'food for thought', too. That way, he could have sold 'the sizzle instead of the steak' and gotten some more mileage out of his pricing strategy. He said nothing about 'visit our website', 'get on our mailing list for more discounts', or anything that might have gotten me interested or caused me to follow up at my convenience.

A good marketing strategy would be to immediately follow up on our conversation by mailing me a marketing letter, postcard, packet of discount coupons, or other cost-effective marketing tools. Following up in a non-intrusive way would begin to show me that this business is not a fly-by-night operation and that this individual is conscientious, business like, and really believes in his products and services.

Except for the fact that he interrupted what I was doing, he did make a somewhat favorable first impression on me. However, there were still a lot of sales barriers in place, including the fact that I didn't know this guy and had never heard of his business before. Not only that, but the chances of me ever buying meat out of the back of someone's truck are extremely remote! I do appreciate that he provided me with some relevant content for my blog on the topic of effectively marketing your business, though.

Expanding Your List of Marketing Objectives Can Help Win More Clients

An interesting survey to conduct—either formally or informally—would be to ask small business owners to identify or list their marketing objectives. Sounds like a simple enough question, but I'm gonna make an educated guess that at least half of the small business community has not given serious or any thought to that question.

In my opinion, a well-thought out response to that question would be more detailed than just saying, "My marketing objective is to get more clients." Everybody wants that, but that answer describes the end result, not necessarily the steps that lead to generating more business. Since sales and marketing is a process, then marketing objectives should focus on first reaching some of the lower rungs on the ladder. Here is a list of some important marketing objectives that may be overlooked or intentionally skipped by business owners failing to look at the big picture:

1. Getting the phone to ring more often
2. Capturing more email addresses and other contact information
3. Generating more customer referrals
4. Establishing more of a recognizable brand
5. Increasing online visibility
6. Increasing off-line visibility
7. Cultivating a reputation as a subject-matter expert
8. Developing an integrated marketing strategy
9. Generating more traffic at your website or physical location
10. Creating 'top of mind awareness' among your target audience
11. Cultivating relationships with customers, potential customers, and/or customer referral sources
12. Interacting more often with prospects on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forums, or through an email newsletter that you publish
13. Scheduling sales appointments with qualified prospects
14. Generating leads and contacting qualified leads more than once 

Knowing what your marketing objectives are and thinking of ways to expand that list of objectives can clarify your business goals and help you identify and make the most of opportunities. Increased clarity can bring many useful marketing ideas to the surface and help keep your small business marketing strategies moving in the right direction.

Marketing is the Spark that Ignites Business Success

Marketing is a fascinating subject to me because it is the catalyst that can transform virtually any business, commodity, or idea into a huge success. The potential of what marketing can accomplish is only limited by the creativity and motivation of the entrepreneurial mind.

The vastness of today's marketing landscape can be both a blessing and a curse. It overflows with opportunity, yet with all those choices and marketing tools, many people don't know where to begin. If they do begin, they might tend to bounce around from one marketing strategy to another, without really giving any one method a fair chance to work.

Think about it, the choices can be overwhelming. Here's a short list of the marketing options that are available:

1. Website marketing
2. Social marketing
3. Email marketing
4. SEO marketing
5. Article marketing
6. Blog marketing
7. Twitter marketing
8. Video marketing
9. Local marketing
10. Integrated marketing
11. Brand marketing
12. Viral marketing
13. Relationship marketing
14. Buzz marketing
15. Loyalty marketing
16. Direct response marketing
17. Referral marketing
18. Event marketing
19. Postcard marketing
20. Direct mail marketing
21. Doorhanger marketing

And that list doesn't even take into account other vitally important branches of marketing, such as direct sales, good old-fashioned advertising, and public relations. The fact of the matter is this: Unless you narrow down the list, create some sort of plan—at least a simple marketing plan—and apply a continuous effort to the handful of marketing strategies you've chosen, then everything you do will be diluted and ineffective.

With that in mind, I'm launching my "Marketing Strategies and Ideas" blog and I'm going to see how well I can follow my own advice! I invite you to follow my marketing ramblings in coming weeks, and perhaps contribute some substantive ideas if they occur to you.

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