Marketing for Small Business

If you are running a small business, or thinking of starting up a small business, then you need to have some understanding of basic marketing principles.

Marketing is core to growing and developing a successful business over time..It has been defined as ...... "Identifying and understanding your customers and their needs - so that you can get the right product or service to them, at the right price, at the right time and in the right place - so that you make a profit"

Marketing involves identifying the opportunity gaps in the marketplace. Quality market research enables you to identify whether customers have a particular need or expectation that in some way is not being completely met by existing suppliers. It involves a careful assessment of these suppliers and identifying whether there is a way in which you might be able to differentiate yourself from them  in order to compete effectively.

• Marketing and communication

Decisions about how best to communicate with your selected target market and how to most effectively sell and promote your product or service to your customers are also key components of any marketing plan.

For those of you producing a product, the design of your packaging are marketing related decisions. The design of your website and your brochures, the type of language used, and ensuring that the colours and the overall look will have appeal to your target market - is all a component of marketing.

Running a focus group with a small sample of your customers, or asking them to complete a simple questionnaire can be a further way that your small business can learn more about their needs, interests and expectations. Marketing is all about listening to your customer and being responsive to their feedback.

You might think that your business sells a product or service, but the marketing perspective is that you are selling a solution to a customer problem. The more effective you can be at listening to your customer, then the more likely you will offer a solution that will work for them ........ and consequently they will not only return to you in the future but also will likely recommend you to other people.

• A consistent focus on your customer

In a nutshell, the marketing function is to ensure that the customer and their needs are the focal point throughout your business ....... And the systems, procedures and any organisational structure you might subsequently develop to support the efficient delivery of your product or service, retains a customer orientation to them as well. This is where sometimes larger businesses can become disconnected from their customers, because of the bureaucracy that is created.

Your advantage as a small business is the close and intimate relationship that you can develop with your customers - and hence be quicker to respond when you recognise that their needs may be changing.

• Marketing 101 - The fundamentals

This is a great short video that describes some of the simple but essential concepts of marketing for small business

• Internet marketing for small business

The speaker in this short clip presents a compelling casr for getting your small business online and utilising social media as part of your internet marketing strategy

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Search engine optimisation (SEO) needs to form part of any internet marketing plan for your small business and for some more information on this, visit our page What is SEO

• Three quick marketing tips for small business

Marketing Tip 1.  Set up joint promotions with other local small businesses
Contact 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 strategy has been shown to deliver improved sales for a relatively low cost.

Marketing Tip 2.  Leverage your existing customers
Your existing customers have come to know you and trust you. Research has proven that it's easier to get more business from them than to get any business from somebody who has never bought from you. So why not take advantage of this by creating some special deals just for your existing customers... and announce new products and services to them before you announce them to the general market

Marketing Tip 3.  Convert your customers into sales people for your business.

Develop a reward that you can offer to  your current customers to tell their neighbors, work associates and friends about the value of your products or services. An endorsement from them is likely to be much more effective than any amount of advertising that you might do- and it will be much more cost-effective

• Small Business Australia - Blog

If you have marketing advice or experience that you would like to share with other small business owners, then please visit our blog Small Business Management Australia. Your contributions would be welcomed

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