How does a small business owner get the attention of the consumer? What type of business strategy or business marketing should a small business owner use? In this article I'm going to offer a few small business advertising tips that can help a small business owner get the word out to the consumer about the product or service the business offers.
Money is always tight, small business advertising budgets are... small. One of the great inexpensive small business ideas is to make flyers. It should be an attention grabber with a great offer. A good friend of mine did a "Get To Know Us Special" flyer with a 25% special on all products and a 50% special on some products. His wife did the graphics and they were able to print 3 flyers on one sheet of paper using their own computer. Along with one of his workers, they placed the flyers on all cars in their surrounding area and the response was terrific. Many of those initial customers are still their customers today.
Business cards are a great way to advertise. The important thing about business cards is to be sure they are quality business cards or they will be thrown away. And that is wasted dollars. Be sure the business name, address, phone number, hours of operation, email and website address are on the card. If you have a logo start branding your business and be sure it's on the card. Hand your business card out to everyone. In fact hand out two, so the customer can pass it on to someone else.
Provide great customer service. Existing customers are the revenue base for any small business and are the best advertisers of your business. If they like you they will talk about you to their friends. In fact, ask your customers what they like or dislike about your business. How can you be of further service. A simple survey will also help get informtion on how to keep your existing customer base. It's a great way to get some honest feedback and don't forget to say "Thank You!"
You can thank them further by making a mailing list of your existing customers, highlighting their preferences and thank them again by sending them discount coupons. Use this mailing list to give those existing customers a "heads up" on any new products or services, before you release those products or services to the general public. Great customer service leads to customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and most important customer retention.
Cross promotion with other small businesses is a good inexpensive advertising and marketing strategy. It can help get your business name out to customers, therefore increasing your revenue base. Here are just a few simple inexpensive ways to do this: 1. You can give each other's flyers out by simply dropping these flyers in the customer's shopping bags. 2. Hang signs or posters of each other's business highlighting certain products and 3. You can do a joint ad in a local magazine or paper.
A small business owner should always ask the customer, how they heard about their business. By simply asking "How did you hear about us?" will give you tremendous feedback as to what types of advertising has been effective for you.
These are just a few of the very inexpensive ways for small businesses to advertise. There are of course many other ways for small businesses advertising but I'll leave that open for the next discussion. However, by knowing what your target market is and keeping a constant watch on what your competitors are doing or not doing will help give you an edge.
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