February 2010 – Online Insights: Viewpoint

Marketing a Small Business Today

Here’s how I created my first small business: Two years out of law school I was fired by the boss from hell. (Her reason? I didn’t “write well enough.” Unbeknownst to her, I was about to have my first book published, and if you think I wasn’t petty enough to autograph a copy and send it to her, you’d be wrong.)

Anyway, I made a profit the first month and never looked back. My business grew because I marketed the heck out of it using all tools available to me at the time: newspaper classified ads, networking at chamber events, seminars, cable TV ads, newspaper display ads and direct mail.

Modern Marketing For a Modern World
But here’s the deal: Today there are far more effective–and economical–ways to get the same, or better, results. While my strategy would be the same (advertise and market a lot, and then do it some more), I’d replace my “archaic” tools with these:

Craigslist instead of classified ads: The growth of Craigslist is evidence of how powerful a classified ad can be, and most Craigslist ads are free. That’s hard to beat.

Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook instead of the chamber mixer: Networking the old-fashioned way was a bit of a drag–making small talk with people who may or may not be interested in what you do or sell. Yawn.

Social networking is a revolutionary improvement because, while you are still networking, it is faster, broader, more direct, and you can meet and influence a far greater number of people. Rubber chicken lunches be gone!

Podcasts instead of radio ads: I still love radio advertising in the right circumstance, but being able to create and broadcast your own original content is a great advantage.

YouTube videos and webinars instead of seminars: The value of being in front of the public is that you get to be known as the expert–the one pontificating, entertaining and informing others. With online video and webinars, you can craft that image easier, cheaper and more professionally. That you don’t have to rent a conference room at the Holiday Inn is a nice bonus.

Pay per click and pay per impression instead of cable TV and newspaper ads: If immediate sales are your goal, then a Google pay-per-click campaign can make more sense than a TV campaign. You only pay for qualified leads–people who like your ad enough to click on it–and as such you will spend far less because you won’t be paying to reach thousands of eyeballs who will never be buying from you. If branding is your goal, than a pay-per-impression campaign can yield fantastic results for much less money than TV, too.

E-mail instead of direct mail: Traditionally, direct mail has been considered successful if it creates around a four-percent response rate. But you have to buy lists, pay for postage and packaging, etc. E-mail marketing, on the other hand, costs almost nothing and usually yields better results.

As they say, everything old is new again…fortunately for us.

Steve Strauss is American Express OPEN Forum small business expert and author of the best-selling Small Business Bible. He can be reached at sstrauss@mrallbiz.com.