Many small businesses struggle with various aspects of marketing, e.g. determining their target market niche, deciding which marketing activities to pursue, etc. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough specific advice about how to work through these obstacles — inexpensively.
The heart of the business plan is arguably the marketing plan, since you have to figure out how to sell your products and/or services to make money in order to stay in business. In turn, the heart of the marketing plan is market research, i.e. how does the small business determine the changing needs of their target market on an ongoing basis — inexpensively. This is critical because the small business owner typically needs to address how to stretch their budget dollars as far as possible while they are figuring these things out.
My mission is to demonstrate how, using no-cost or low-cost methods, the traditional marketing path can be quickly tweaked to the unique needs of each small business owner.
This looks great Cheryl, looking forward to reading more from you!
Corporations Aren’t the Only Ones in Need of Marketing Expertise
As a communications professional who was schooled in marketing, I can attest to a greater need for small business marketing dialogue. I find institutions of higher education focus so much on corporate-type marketing that they neglect to realize that small businesses make up a significant portion of the national economy, and should therefore merit greater focus.
Additionally, so many small businesses equate marketing and advertising as the same thing. In actuality, advertising is an extension of marketing, which as Cheryl points out, is driven by research. The insights gained from marketing research help ensure the small business is communicating to the right people, at the right time, in a compelling fashion. Unfortunately for many such companies, they simply assume that they are taking the right course of action, when they may be wasting significant dollars.
Because the Web is emerging as a significant marketing resource, Web logs such as this can be highly valuable.
p.s.For other small business readers, Cheryl is a fellow “classmate” of mine in Shonnie Lavender’s “Simple, Successful Blogging Program.” I STRONGLY RECOMMEND this telecourse, if you’re interested in learning how to plan, develop, and market a Web log.
Having a number of small business clients, I am going to be interested in these no/low cost marketing methods that I can share with them. I’ll be back!
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title Why Another Small Business Marketing Blog?. Thanks for informative article
Cheryl,
Your descriptions of the 3 segments / niches you worked at Xerox and the method you used is so helpful for understanding how the marketing strategies need to align with the defined niches.
No and low cost marketing methods speak to the small business owner but need to be aligned with or make sense to their markets.