Marketing Your Small Business: TGIF!

By Kim Deppe
It is Friday, and a good time to look back over the week and cherish your accomplishments, figure out where you could have improved, and then set your sights on the week to come. How many of us really do that, though? Do you do it once a month, or once a quarter? How about once a year?

It might seem an odd way to "do marketing" but reflection and thinking are an important part of your marketing efforts. We have fancier marketing jargon for the process - we call it research, analysis and planning - but the truth is that small business owners can just stop and do some thinking and accomplish the same thing. And it does not have to be a long, involved process. In fact, a few minutes each week can help you stay ahead of your marketing and stay on track with your plan.

Here are a few things to think about:

1. Did you get new customers this week (month, quarter)? If so, where did they come from and how did they find you? You may have some people to thank for making referrals. You may need to look at your advertising budget and put more money into things that are working, less money into things that are not working. If you did not get more customers, try to think about why that happened. Look at everything from your sign out front to the design of your website. If you have a store front, make sure your hours are a match to your customers. I cannot tell you how many small businesses I see that close up shop just as all their customers are getting home from work and could do a little shopping or run their errands.

2. How many people visited your website and how does that compare with last week/month/quarter? If you don't have Google Analytics or some other website tracking method, I encourage you to take care of that right away. Google Analytics is free and it will give you great information about traffic to your website. If your traffic is dropping off, consider some pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and make sure your content is fresh, interesting and relevant to your customers. Your website is often the first time a customer encounters your business - make sure it really represents your business well.

3. Did sales improve? If you have e-commerce on your website you can analyze sales quickly and see what products are selling and which are struggling. Use that information to guide you in future promotions and product choices. If you only sell from a physical location, look for trends in traffic flow to the store, days and time of day when things sell, etc.

4. Ask yourself what you did well and what you need to improve upon. This is especially tough for businesses like mine that are a one-person show because it means we have to analyze our own behavior. But an honest appraisal can help you spot little issues before they become big problems. It is also a great way to acknowledge what you did well - when you are your own boss, you need to give yourself a pat on the back once in a while, too!

5. What needs to happen next week/month/quarter? Think about the changes you want to make in your marketing efforts - blog more often, tweet more, start a new PPC campaign, etc. Write them down somewhere and put some deadlines on them. You don't have to have a fancy marketing plan but if you want some guidance on creating a basic plan, there is a free download on my website that will help you. Look for the big red button that says "Free Download."

Happy Friday!

Kim Deppe is President of Deppe Communications, an outsource marketing firm located in the Jacksonville, FL area. Deppe Communications provides marketing consulting, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, public relations and advertising services to small and medium size businesses across the U.S. With over 25 years corporate executive marketing experience, Kim Deppe brings a unique combination of strategic marketing experience and online marketing know-how to her clients. For more information, visit www.DeppeCommunications.com, call 904.524.0170 or E-mail Kim@DeppeCommunications.com.

Last Things First

Recently, the world lost Steven Covey, a remarkable writer who is famous for authoring "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." I remember picking it up on audiotape and listening to it during my commute time. I marveled at the simplicity and common sense messages he packaged so neatly. He really had a way of getting to the nuggets of truth inside human behavior and teasing out simple strategies for making us more effective people.

Among those habits was "Start with the End in Mind." I like this one the best because, as a marketing strategist, it is a mantra I have always promoted with my employers and, today, my clients. Whenever someone comes to me and says "I need a brochure" or "I need a marketing plan," my first question is always "what is your goal?"

By starting with the end in mind, we can save ourselves a lot of time chasing down rabbit trails that will take us nowhere. If I know that I want to increase my sales of widget A by 10% in the next 90 days, then I have a nice, specific target to go after. It refines my thinking. It keeps me on task.

Whether you are creating a new website or a business card, try starting with the end in mind. You will get a better result just by thinking through what you hope to accomplish. Because another favorite saying of mine is "if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."

How to write a Marketing Plan

A lot of businesses are wary of the “Marketing Plan.” Too often, they envision it as a big binder stuffed full of useless data collected to impress people. In this vision, there is a complicated chart filled with dates, names of responsible people, milestones and gibberish about CPM, gross ratings points and Nielsen ratings. They dismiss the need for a plan because they have a few sitting on the shelf collecting a thick cover of dust.

So I developed a more streamlined version - one that takes up just 2 or 3 pages and is made up of bullet points. No charts, no spreadsheets, no executive summary. For me, and for my clients, it is a far more useful and workable document that quickly outlines where we are going and what we are going to do to get there. 

Here is a brief rundown of what goes in to the average marketing plan:

Background summary - this is a one paragraph description of why we are doing this. It includes a brief history of the situation and why the plan is being created.

Goals - it is imperative to list out what you are hoping to achieve. Be specific, create those SMART goals that will keep you accountable.

Target Audiences - who is it that you are trying to get to take action? Are there internal audiences, too? Think about vendors and any stakeholder that should be considered.

Key Messages - what are the 2 or 3 things that you want your audiences to know and remember.

Strategies - in a broad way, how are you going to approach this and reach your goals. Are you going to create a series of events, or create a website or develop a multimedia campaign? Think 30,000 foot level here. Make sure your strategies link directly to your goals and that you have at least one strategy for each goal.

Tactics - what specific things are you going to do to achieve your goals. Here is where most people start, unfortunately - but this is where things like print ad campaigns, podcasts and brochures belong. Make sure you have developed at least one tactic for each strategy, although typically you will have several. This is the task list and it really isn’t possible to create it until you’ve done the other things first.

Budget - how much are you planning to spend? How do you want to apportion that among the strategies.

Measurement and Evaluation - how, specifically, will you track results? How will you keep you and your team accountable for results? Will you do a survey, count noses at a special event, track media coverage?

That’s it. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to think through it if it is your own business. But if you need some help, just contact me and I would be happy to work with you to create your business marketing plan. E-mail me at Kim@DeppeCommunications.com.