Marketing for Small Business
Marketing Mantra
Marketing is generally views as the activities a business conduct to promote the buying or selling of its product or services. In other words it is a process by which business sends out the message to the customers or prospective customers about the availability, price, and usage of the product for their information so that customer can be aware of the availability of the product in the market, its usability and the target customer can make buying or selling decision.
On high level, I look at marketing as two faced phenomenon, short term marketing and brand creation. Short term marketing can be done via fancy ads and paid promotions that will create you market for a short run that can make you money and bring you clients. And brand creation gives your sustainability and growth. Both have equal values.
Let’s think about short term marketing strategies, will short term marketing sustain your business? Will it bring your business the clients you expected? Will it satisfy your urge to place yourself to the higher ladder of entrepreneurship? These are the questions that one should ask oneself.
Short term marketing will bring customer to your door, but brand creation or sustainable marketing create your own place in the market for long term.
You do not have to go far to big brands like Google, Nike, Cadbury, or Microsoft to learn it but if you just look more deeply into the local restaurants, local stores, local plumber, and handyman or auto-shop, you will know what branding is
You generally book appointment with the company having a good website, nice blogs and good offering for the first time when you are looking for product or service.
From second time where will you go?
Will you go to the same place and order again? Will you recommend your family and friends to go there, and will you hold a party in the restaurant again after your first visit? If you go back to the same place again, they have created a brand. If you are still shopping again for the same service, they still have to work on creating value to their product. You will not go back to them only because they have attractive website, or they are ranked number one on Google search. Especially in service business like accounting, tax, consulting or even for marketing you want to look for customer whose value coincides with yours otherwise it will be very hard to produced desired results for the clients, and that will create frustration in you.
I can certainly say that you have gone back to a plumber who worked for you successfully and understood your need. Who will you choose? You will choose with a decent website, good people and above all where you find value for the price you paid.
People generally want to stand in line where there is a big line. Because people are confidence on the service they will receive looking at the crowd.
There were two restaurants in our town serving same type of food for last 8 years. One is always jam pack all the time, from lunch to dinner, weekdays to weekends. Other one nearby was most of the time empty. I was curious to know what the reasons are, so we as a family go there alternatively to find out the differences.
Was it a price? – No
Was it a menu? – No
Was it location? – No
Food was about the same taste, price is same, both the locations were good, cleanliness and amenities are same. However, I observed couple of things, they were subtle but worth mentioning. The crowed one is always having lights on and even no one is there, all the tables are decorated as if it is waiting for you. When you get in, people greet you and show respect, they are ready to modify the menu according to the customer and happy to swap the food for free if you are not happy with what you are served. I asked the manager, “if you swap the food like this would not everyone asked for replacement?”, he said, “no, when people know they can do it, they will not, they are happy with what they have, and when we do it happily, they pay for both, and sometime they give a bigger tips than generally they give. They are regular customers and support local business”. They have no ads and no fancy website, they run locally and doing good business.
On the other hand, the second restaurant was dark when you get it, they will turn on the lights of your table once you are about to sit, it gives feeling as they are not expecting you at all, and you feel little odd in the dark. They greet you but they did not have a happy smile as they are not happy at their work. And In a small town, greeting is very important for the people. When you talk about the food, the owner/manager start giving explanation on why is this food should be like this. Waiters are very slow and they do not understand what the customer actually asking for. I asked the manager “Why is this restaurant always dark?” he replied “it is waste of energy to keep lights on when there is no one”. His answers made me think that he is not expecting anyone until they arrive there. This one has very good website and you can even order online and there are bill boards and ads running.
Second one closed after 8 years of business, and first one is thriving much for being only one in the business now. This is just an example of how small and subtle things can have a big psychological impact on customer. Every human being likes to be valued and feel respected and welcomed when they arrive somewhere. So, bringing clients for the first time will be easy, but wining them for long run is the main challenge.
How do you win them?
We generally mix advertising as replacement for marketing. Advertising is one aspect of marketing. Marketing has a boarder spectrum than advertising. You have good customer service, you have good product, you sponsor local events, you donate to the charity, you help local school, you hire interns, you provide employment to local people, you buy locally, you sell local products. These are all marketing without doing any advertisement at all.
Quality is the pivot of marketing. When customer finds the product as they thought as it should be, or sometime exceed their expectation, you won them.
You need social media and other marketing methods to bring in customers in this e-world, but what holds them is the value that they receive from you. People will ready to pay price for the value they derive from you. They pay price for the benefit or use they derive from your product. If you are buying shoes, they are buying a smooth run or walk or even a marathon they are about to run, if they are buying food they are buying taste and buying satisfaction to their hunger and also health and longevity in some cases.
Last month I had a car fix, I dropped off my car and came back, within an hour I got a call from the mechanics that car has been fixed, when I asked him the bill, he gave me a quarter of what I thought I would be, I was surprised, and asked him if he actually knew, and checked everything. He said it was a small fix and fixed within ten minutes. That was good, but I was about to drive about thousands of miles in next 7 days, I was not worried about the price but worried about his service, I was wondering if he actually look at my car or just fix what he thought it was. Morning, I took it to other mechanics, and he said everything was ok. This an example of trust, he did it in ten minutes, but he did not check other aspects, that created a doubt, if something else was broken, and what if I am left with broken car in the middle of the highway, in the dark night. The person could not gain my confidence. Since, he just looked at one aspect of my broken car, but he was unable to check on my pain of having a broken car before my long journey.
What is important is to go beyond mere technical aspect of your service, and if it is a product going beyond the product and focusing on usage and utilities and above all on the satisfaction the clients get after buying and using the product.
Focusing on Branding does not mean to focus on business name or fancy logo, even though this can be catchy to attract customers in first look, branding is actually a continuous process of associating your product and service with your name and logo.
Most of the small business is struggling to find customers in the beginning years of business, and try various different acrobats and spend a fortune to bring customer in. However, the first happy customer is the starting point. They will spread the words. The first ten to twenty customers are very hard to find, but once you have them; you have made your brand at least for a small group of people. You do not need millions in the beginning, it start with a small group of people, and you have a very specific product for a specific target customers, then your customer base will even smaller before it grows. And marketing gurus always say, targeting a specific group is even cutting or excluding more customers, but it will pay off in long run.
Finding your target customer or niche is very important, once you know what you are good at and what you want to offer, there it starts your journey. There are restaurants that serves only pizzas, and people go there because they know they serve pizza, and since they are doing pizza only, it is easy to find what you are looking for and people know they must be good at what they are doing since they are doing this for a time being and focused on one niche.
People will be happy to pay and appreciate you for understanding their pain, values and concern. A business is people, it cannot run without them, and the personal touch will definitely work out.
This may not work perfectly with those mass products like lighters, match sticks, pop corns at cinema, and popsicles at the park and so on, but even there, the seller with a big smile and with good customer service will wins the race. These vendors are children friendly, they know how to entertain the children, they are focused on the happy smile of a child, and the child will catch it, and go for them. A dancing and singing seller will sell more than a seller standing in corner with sad face. The performance of vendor attracts the child not because he is acting that way, but because he was able to put smile and happiness on child’s face, that is what every child and parents want. If a vendor thinks about the happiness of a child, he will sell more than any other vendor that will reflect in his act.
One best way is to be you; each individual is different, so do their thought process. If one does something their own way without copying anyone, there will be no competitor at least for a period of time. If it has unique quality, there no similar product or service to compare with, and you can price as you like and offer your service in your own way. It is not about what you offer but it is about the mind of the customer what they perceive. You need to look through the prospective of the customers. Marketing is all about perception of your business, product and value from the perspective of the customers.
Marketing is not just about selling but also about retaining the market. Marketing starts from forming a strategy and keeps on implementing them. It is about understanding pain of the buyers and giving them lifetime value.
In simple words, best marketing means to offer the best products and services with a good intention to provide value to the customer. It is an art of selling the usage and satisfaction than just selling the product. Customer will be willing to pay premium for the intrinsic value they derive by visiting the store or buying the product. Even a small group is sufficient to create a value in the beginning, satisfied customer creates a bigger market very soon, and this will make the world even better place.
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