Practical Internet Marketing For Small Business: 25 Ideas That Work Part 3
Carrying on the series we are up to number 15 plus the forgotten number 5 oops! Below are a number of small business marketing ideas and small business marketing tips that will work for any business.
11. It’s About Your Customers Not You
An easy mistake that many business owners make is that they “think” they know what their customers want. A classic example of this is creating a new product offering with out testing the commercial viability.
In others words checking out what other people are selling. If it is similar that is actually a good thing. At least you know there is a market for it. If you, Google the word or look in the paper what do you find? If there are adverts and lots of pages on Google you could be onto a winner. If not, maybe your idea needs more research.
12. Active and Constant Market Research.
Your customers will tell you want they want if you ask them. This does not need to be fancy. You can send a quick email or use a free survey tool. A great one that we use is survey monkey. It is intuitive to use and for free you can survey up to 100 of your clients. You can find it hear. http://www.Surveymonkey.com
Find Out What Your Customers Want
13. Constantly Review What You Are Doing
This is something we learnt the hard way in our own business. If something is not working you can find out much quicker than you think. Some people call it failing fast. Now this is actually a positive thing! If you just review each week in detail.
Look at the different things you put your time and effort into and what the result was.
This will help you refine you service offerings and where you and your business are in flow. You might find out that one particular activity actually creates more revenue than you originally thought. This could be making a low cost offer to your database of clients, or running a free taster event.
14. Respond to Emails.
This depends on the size of your business and what support you have in place. No matter what, if people contact you make sure someone in your office contacts them. I will never forget the impact it had on me when an internet guy I bought something from actually responded. If fact at the time he even had his skype details visible.
I was totally impressed. Interesting that he has now gone onto be a millionaire in his field. He is called James Schramko by the way and he is a mentor of mine.
15. Look out for Trends
Trend based marketing is applicable to any product or service. You just might need to tweak things a little. Whether you are a Solicitor, Accountant or kitchen designer, focus on where the growth is. Can you adapt or add to your services to make it more relevant.
For instance many areas are now governed by legislation. Perhaps you can help your customers by creating a guide that talks them through what they need to do… This adds value and raises your profile. You might even be able to add a service around it as well.
Missing number 5!!
Ooops just realised we missed something off our first communication. Let us go back to time management. Every bodies favorite subject…not! In honesty you cannot manage time. Though you can manage activities and energy.
Time Management or Activity Management
Looking at activities. How often do we take far too long to complete something? Our perfection streak comes in. If you want to leverage what your business achieves you will have to let perfection go. The odd bit or formatting on a document, waiting till you get every last piece of data before you make a decision etc etc. I am sure you will be able to relate to this one.
Ask yourself the question. Is this good enough? Will spending another hour on this return more to the bottom line?
To You and Your Success,
Best Wishes
Denise and Sharon
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