The word Competitor means “the same”. If you sell fried chicken…the only place you have to think about is the other fried chicken places in town.
If you sell vacuum cleaners….the guy selling stereo equipment isn’t your competitor.
If you sell ice cream cones, the local grocery store isn’t a competitor. Why? They sell ice cream in a box (or tub)..you sell it in a cone.
The closer you are to being identical to your “competition” the greater they affect your business. You begin splitting the business the moment you become the same. Selling the same things, to the same market, in the same way…..Competitors.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
You are unique.. Nobody has your personality. Nobody can relate to customers better than a knowledable likable retailer or small business owner.
Your small business or local retail store can be unique.
Your advertising and marketing can be unique. You can market and advertise from a completely new perspective. You can show your offers in a light the customer hasn’t seen before.
Your offer can be unique. You can advertise offers that the local buyers just can’t find anywhere else.
The buying experience in your local retail store or small business can be unique.
What’s the difference between a $7.95 steak dinner at Ponderosa Steakhouse and a $60 steak dinner at a fine restaurant? Is the meat 10 times better? No. The atmosphere, service, music, dinnerware, silverware, attention paid…are all different. Ponderosa and the fine restaurant don’t compete.
You have a personality…that means your retail store or small business has a personality. That personality doesn’t have to be the same as the small business retailer down the street. You can be more upbeat, more attentive to your customer, smarter.
Your local small business or retail store can be cleaner, better arranged, more comfortable for your customer, better lighting, with better music,….than anyone else..
Your advertising can sell higher end products, with better “bundles” to give better offers. You can advertise better services, more services, extended warranties, easier customer service, faster repairs, than anyone else.
Your “customer experience” can be better. You can answer questions, ask about specific needs, make recommendations…..better than anyone else.
You can be better at almost anything than the guy down the street. Almost any situation can be turned into a marketing advantage.
Had a flood? You had an extended “Flood Sale” didn’t you? If the new models are coming out soon, you can have a liquidation sale. There is nearly always a reason for an advertised promotion.
You are unique in every way…you are different in every way… your store can be better in almost any way you choose. Your service can be legendary. The customer’s buying experience can be so wonderful that you become the topic of conversation for the next few days. You can be so good to your customers that they wouldn’t even consider buying anywhere else. You have it withing your power to make the customer addicted to the experience of buying from you.
Local small businesses are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Why? Because they aren’t giving the customers enough solid reasons to buy from them. They buyer’s obligation isn’t to buy from you. It’s your obligation to make the buyer want to buy from you, and nobody else.
You have no competition.
All businesses (be they traditional, fashionable or digital) can benefit from local enterprise advertising and marketing online. Local enterprise marketing can also be typically referred to as native SEO. Local advertising and marketing is so called as a result of you are trying to focus on your native space the place most if not your entire customers come from.. It is taken into account as one of the best means to look companies or individuals within your locality who are already trying to find your product or services.
Local business advertising makes use of very comparable strategies of any form of internet marketing. The solely difference is that it includes a geographical part to its advertising strategies. This serves as the easiest way to be sure that what you are promoting is ready to drive greater traffic and leads from customers and purchasers which can be throughout the area wherein you are working your business. It is a type of enterprise technique wherein you slender down the focus of your internet advertising campaign. By targeting your local market you might be likely to produce significantly better results. So, how will you do that in your online business? The remainder of this text will answer this question and more.
Following are 4 of the most effective methods for the web advertising and marketing your corporation regionally:
BUSINESS WEBSITE. This can be your finest sales asset. Is your website a good sales growth instrument? It should be! Don’t overlook that your website can be generating leads for you even when you’re closed. A web site is thought to be a really effective method to increase up your gross sales and advertising campaign. As website can produce such an excellent return on funding, it’s value creating a superb one which will be found by your target market. Your web site must be found by your prospects and provides them enough motive to need to be a customer of yours.
GOOGLE MAPS (AKA “PLACES”): Using this may bring very fast results to your business. The better part about Google Places is that it is easy and economical to use. It’s best characteristic is that it is highly focused to your local prospects. Google places is probably a very fast path to the top of google.
Business Directory Listings – This is also a vital factor within the success of any local business marketing campaign. There are numerous native business directory listings which can be available. They are often categorised by business and location. Most directories will give a backlink to your website. Both your web site and Google locations rankings may be enhanced by having quite a few enterprise directory listings.
ADDING BACKLINKS TO YOUR SITE: Backlinks enhance your web site rankings so it makes sense to be building them regularly. Although backlinking does produce higher rankings, it’s usually too time consuming for enterprise homeowners to place into practice. But if you’ll learn the tips to profitable link building, you will positively enjoy the expertise within the long run. Backlinks can boost your place and bring wonderful results. In fact, it’s thought-about as the best, least expensive and assured way to construct your native presence in your area. Score upon scores of ideas are to be discovered online if you happen to wish to do this yourself. It is value studying the principles if you’ll construct backlinks as you may do extra harm than good in case you do not comply with the rules.
No matter what type of business you own, you are constantly trying to find the best ways to get your name out there and promote your product. In today’s competitive marketing world, unless you can drop a million dollars on a 30 second commercial, you need to be more creative and devise your own cheaper methods of product promotion. Guerilla Marketing is just one of the newer unconventional tactics used in marketing today. Most sources define Guerrilla marketing as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing tactics are rare and unconventional by targeting consumers in the most unexpected locations and circumstances.
The main objective in any type of marketing plan is to get your product and name in front of as many potential customers as possible. In the past the thought process was to spend the majority of your marketing budget on television and radio commercials, print, or billboard advertisement. However nowadays in a world that fast forwards through commercials or constantly checks caller ID to avoid telemarketers, tactics such as guerilla marketing need to be implemented in any successful marketing plan. Here are just some examples of guerilla marketing tactics that may useful to any business looking to gain attention without breaking their budget:
1. Planting Your Business Card: People love to browse through magazines so why not stick your business card in any magazine that is related to your customer base. In other words, my company sells car parts, therefore putting my business card in any type of car magazine assures me that anyone who opens that magazine and sees my card fall out is a potential customer. Besides book or magazine stores, planting your business card in unique spots such as restaurant menus, bus windows, park benches, or anywhere your card can attract someone who is seated for a long period of time is a great place to start.
2. Tissue Pack Marketing: purchasing small tissue packets with your logo or product on them is a fool proof way to have people hold on to or keep your information because it is useful to them. Every time they pull out another tissue they are reminded of your product, not too mention every time they give a tissue to someone else it creates a buzz and spreads the word.
3. Utilizing Magnets: Even the most satisfied customer will forget who you are unless you can somehow constantly remind them of your service. Therefore giving away business card size magnets with every order will allow a satisfied customer to stick your information on their fridge or desk as a reminder to use you again. It is very minimal in cost, but also very effective! While you’re at it to take guerilla marketing even further keep a stack of magnets with you at all times and stick them on any metallic areas that would draw a good customer base……nothing illegal of course!
4. T-shirt Marketing: Get a T-shirt made with your website’s logo or website on it. Give away these t-shirts to deserving customers, not only will you have a happy thankful customer, but now you just created your own walking billboard.
5. Bumper Stickers: Stickers are always great because they can go anywhere, not just on your car. Bathroom stalls, benches, signs, street poles, etc… Get creative with where you place them. Areas where people will be situated for long amounts of time are a great place to start!
6. Blanketing the Web: Marketing is all about reaching and contacting as many people as possible, therefore joining any and all social networking sites can get you in front of thousands of people in a very short time. Sites such as Facebook,MySpace, or any social blogs are key networking sites where the snowball effect can result in your customer audience expanding on a daily basis. The key to social networking is constant contact as well as constant content. Stay in touch with your customers, and never stop adding content.
There is no limit to the unconventional tactics of guerilla marketing, and almost any idea is worth looking into. People love creativity when being pitched a product, and the marketing ideas that seem to create the most buzz are not from old school conventional marketing but out of the box pitch techniques. It is a fast pace world where people no longer find the time to sit through commercials or look through newspaper ads. You need to use new and creative tactics without breaking your marketing bank in order to turn your small business into a large player!
Promoting yourself and marketing your small business to the world need not have to burn a hole in your pocket. There are few low-cost marketing tips for home business, which I have learned from my mentors, when I first started out on my own. Initially you don’t have the budget to advertise. You are still struggling to make ends meet with a few uncertain clients.
You see, seven out of ten of us dream of being our own boss, but only one in seven actually are.Those who have tried to start their home business, merely two out of five make past the first four years.Simply because they fear of not enough business to keep them going or they actually don’t have enough business to even pay the bills.
This a sad fact of being on your own. It is very frustrating, I know. So instead of busily selling products or providing services, you are desperately looking for business. Waiting for the phone to ring or email to arrive.
You see many of these self-employed individuals are good at what they do and they really desired to be successful home entrepreneurs, but sadly, they can’t get business regularly or fast enough to keep their dream job afloat.
The excitement and exhilaration of working from home now seems to dissipate away as the harsh reality sets in. Simply, because they don’t have a marketing plan.
What most of them overlook is marketing. Probably because most of them don’t even think their work-from-home as a business.
The essential element for a successful business is having enough customers to pay for your service or buy your product as long as you are in business.Customers are the one who put in or out of business.
So, how do you get continuous stream of customers then? You got to let them know who you are and what you can do or what are you selling. It means you got to do marketing.
Here are three effective low-cost marketing tips for home business:
1. Word-of-mouth (Viral marketing)
2. Direct marketing
3. Public relation
Word-of-mouth or viral marketing. It simply means getting referrals from satisfied customers who goes around to spread the good word for you. Without any doubt, word-of-mouth marketing is the best and most reliable way to build your home based business. This is one of the cheapest and most effective marketing tips. When I first started out as freelancing, I relied heavily on viral marketing to get my business going. Once the confidence and trustworthiness of your service or product are established, you will be laughing your way to the bank, so to speak.
Direct marketing. It is one proven method to get customers when you just starting out your home-based business. It could be samplings, special promotions or discounts to get people to try out your service or product. And if you can truly prove yourself, these new found customers will be back for more and they may even help you to expand your business though word-of-mouth or viral marketing, as I’ve just mentioned earlier.
Public relation.Since you are just a new kid in the business block, you don’t have the reputation and exposure which can readily draw business to you. What I mean is, you got to put yourself in the public limelight. Expose and market yourself as the expert, authority or leader in your field or you are having a great product to offer. Get yourself and your business featured in the local or national media like radio, television, newspapers, magazines or even events. It can be being interviewed in a talk shows, written up in articles, give talks at trade shows or seminars, write your own articles, ebooks, books, etc.
Marketing is an on-going process. For effectiveness, employ all three low-cost marketing tips for home business in concert with one another. Take you time and build it up. Slowly and surely, your home based business is going to be a success.
Sometimes building a business in a small town is more difficult because of the limited customer base, competition and the lack of interest in your goods and services. Before starting a business in a small town, make sure you are filling a need. If the town already has more than one barber, chances are your shop will not turn a profit. If the product you are selling is unfamiliar or costs too much money, your business may not succeed.
Finding a product may be your biggest challenge but once you find one, marketing it will be the next step.
After deciding on a business, you will need to find retail space. This can be on the main street, your home or it can be on a street that is off the main road. The further you are from the center of town, the more advertising your need so people will know where you are located. Building a website is one way to solve this problem. Even though your business caters primarily to those in the town, others may want to visit your shop to see what you have. Including directions on your website will help people find your location. Billboards, signs and listings in the local newspaper are also ways to help customers find you.
Advertising within the town usually includes handing out business cards, creating a logo and a sign that is placed in front of your business and advertising in the newspaper. In small towns, word of mouth advertising is still the most powerful tool you have. If you offer quality customer service, people will tell others in the community. Using the internet is another tool you have especially if you can ship items to various locations. Market in every way you have available in order to create brand loyalty.
Once you have established your business, you will need to care for it as it grows. This means taking inventory to see what you need to reorder, making sure customers are happy with the layout of the store, the products and the customer service. You may need to hire employees to help you take care of the business. In small towns, you may be limited in how much you can earn. This may be due to the income level of residents the need for your products and the cost of shopping in your store.
You may need to adjust your prices in order to sell more merchandise. Market analysis can help you make the necessary adjustments. Running a business in a small town may be more difficult than going to a more populated area. But if you can sell items online in addition to opening a storefront, your potential for profit is increased.