Marketing Concept
for Small Businesses
When it comes to developing a marketing concept in small business marketing, most small business owners do not have a clear idea of what they want to achieve through marketing. They ended up spending a ton of money to roll out the marketing concept, and yet do not generate the return they desire.
There are three marketing misconceptions that often occur when it comes to marketing small businesses.
Monkey See Monkey Do
Arising from the lack of good marketing advice, small businesses often look at what their competitors are doing, and simply do more of the same thing!
If the competitor is giving out flyers, they will give out more flyers. If the competitor advertises in newspapers, they will advertise more in newspapers.
But doing what everyone else is doing,
isn't going to get you very far ahead of your competitors!
And all this while, they will have no idea what is the return on investment for that competitor. Everyone just assumed that it works, and more often than not, the truth may just very well be the opposite.
To really get ahead, you need to get creative and leverage on alternative marketing channels such as social media marketing, that your competitors may not be utilizing.
Branding VS Marketing
While Fortune 500 companies can put up 30-sec TV commercials to do branding, with no website addresses to visit or phone numbers to call, it would be suicidal for small businesses to do so.
Instead of just branding, small businesses should instead focus on
Marketing-Driven Branding. Because marketing can be tested, measured and improved on. Marketing can deliver an immediate return on investment.
Even Darth Vader agrees that Marketing-Driven Branding is the way to go...Check out this hilarious video about viral marketing below!
Drill Bits VS Holes
Have it ever occurred to you that, of the millions of people who bought a drill bit this year, none of them actually wanted a drill bit?
They wanted a HOLE!
The drill bit is just a means to an end. What people want is the benefit (a hole), not the product (the drill bit). If there is something else that does the same job, they'll probably consider buying that something else too!
My point here is, most small business are marketing their product's features and price. This can be ineffective because...
People are NOT looking for your product,
They are looking for a Solution to their Problems!
So, what you should do is, instead of describing the product features, describe the benefits the product can give to the customer. In other words,
Stop Marketing the Product,
Start Marketing its Benefits!
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