Increase Your Business Profit

Small Business Marketing Plan

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Small Business

Marketing Plan -

Increase Your

Business Profit

Without Breaking

Your Marketing

Budget


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Most small business owners fail when it comes to

their small business marketing plans. They've got

excellent technical skills in their line of work, but

that just doesn't translate to having effective

marketing skills.

As a result, profitability of many small businesses

has been declining over the years. Ever increasing

competition is making it more challenging in many

ways. For those businesses that aren't losing money,

most are not producing the profit they could be if

they knew how to market themselves properly.

The importance of strategically marketing your business cannot

be overstated. Find out how you can create value for your

clients, improve your brand, retain existing customers, attract

new customers and ultimately increase the profitability of your

business. Click here

http://www.business-plan.co.za/


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These business owners usually just copy what they

see other businesses doing, or they follow the

advice of some media sales person. The problem is

they copy the wrong types of businesses, and the

media sales people typically only know as much

about effective marketing as the business owner

does.

Without the right kind of marketing system in place,

the success of any business is by pure chance. To

help remedy this situation, below are seven things a

small business can do to increase profits while

spending less on marketing.

1. Use the power of free stuff

Everyone likes getting free stuff and you can use

that to your advantage. If your business lends itself


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to giving away free samples of your product, do

that. It helps get people hooked on it. Business

profits have boomed on this marketing model.

As Chris Anderson author of the book titled, "Free:

The Future of a Radical Price" says, "You can make

make money giving things away." In his book

he talks about how businesses are giving away

products and services they used to charge for, and

in return, a percentage of their customers are

buying something else. As a result, they are making

more money than ever.

When you give something away, you often activate

a universal law called the "Law of Reciprocity." It

says that when people get something free, they feel

obligated to do something for you. Obviously it


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doesn't work every time, but it does work enough of

the time.

But there is another way to give away free stuff that

can greatly benefit your business. When you do it

right you get something very valuable in return:

customer contact info...which leads us to the next

tip.


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2. Start capturing customer contact info and use it

One of the biggest mistakes small business owners

make is not tapping their current customer base.

They let customers visit their business (online or

offline) all day long without ever trying to capture

their contact info so they can continue to market

products or services to them.

You likely know how expensive it can be to get a

new customer. But you can market to your current

customers for little or no cost. Capturing and using

customer contact info can mean the difference

between a profitable business and one that barely

gets by.


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Your business has more customer value in it than a

customer can possibly digest in a short visit so if you

aren't continually marketing to your customers, you

are throwing money away!

You can make customer contact capture easier

simply by using the power of free from tip number

one. Simply start a monthly drawing to give away

something free and print some registration slips

visitors can fill out. Also have people register online

on your website.

Tell customers they only have to register once for all

drawings and you will contact them monthly via

email to let them know who won. Of course you will

always include an offer for a product or service!


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What do you give away? Anything with a perceived

value makes a great free item. Free items do not

have to be expensive. Buy something on sale at

WalMart or at eBay and offer it. You can also offer

free informational reports that help people solve

their problems. People are always looking for ways

to solve problems they are having.

Of course, once you capture this information you

have to do something with it. If you're too busy to

take on any more work, then the next tip will help

you out.

3. Use automated tools to keep in touch with

customers

Once you have a customer list, I recommend you

send a minimum of 25 "messages" a year to it. A


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message could be an email, direct mail piece, fax, or

phone call.

If you don't use an automated tool to do the work

for you, you'll likely be too busy to get the job done.

When you automate, your messages go out

regardless of how busy you get (the more messages

that go out, the busier you'll get).

One tool you can use is an email autoresponder,

which is a web-based system that sends out emails

when someone signs up. It sends out emails at

intervals you set up. You can also set it up to send

an email on a specific day, such as a holiday.

The great thing about an autoresponder tool is that

you enter your messages in the autoresponder one

time, then it automatically sends emails to your list.


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You can also broadcast messages any time you

want.

Using this tool, keeping in touch with your

customers is easy and it will help keep the

competition from creeping in and stealing your

customers because they've forgotten about you and

the services you provide.

4. Stop marketing like you're a big business.

Marketing a small business like it's a big business is

something almost every small business owner does.

They just copy the marketing they see being done at

large companies with big brands. This kind of

marketing is called "brand identity," "brand

building," or "image" marketing.


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This is a HUGE waste of advertising money for a

small business. You simply don't have the resources

you need to support a successful branding

campaign.

Brand advertising typically has no "call to action,"

(they don't ask you to do anything). They just give

you features of the product or service, or they

entertain you without asking you to do anything.

Brand advertising is usually benefit free. The viewer

has to determine if there is a benefit to them. It

may contain a list of features and the user will have

to assign their own benefit to each feature. It is

usually focused on the product or provider of the

product instead if the customer.


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A successful marketing campaign for a small

business is created around direct response

marketing techniques.

5. Use old fashioned direct response techniques in

new ways

The kind of marketing plan that works for a small

business is direct response marketing. It doesn't

require a huge marketing budget to use effectively.

It can be used for all types of products and services.

And the good news is that you don't even have to

hire an advertising agency to do it since it doesn't

require creativity. All you have to do is learn the

basic structure of direct response marketing and you

can easily increase the sales your business makes.


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Direct response sales copy always asks the reader or

viewer to take some sort of action i.e. "Call in the

next 5 minutes, and we'll include a free set of Ginzu

steak knives!".

It may ask for the sale directly if a full "sales

presentation" was done (one-step advertising), or it

may ask them to request more information (two-

step advertising). It will at a minimum, ask the

reader to take some form of "traceable" action so

you know if it is working or not.

There should always be a headline for written

advertisements! Never put your company logo at the

top of a direct response advertisement. That's brand

advertising.


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Whenever you create an advertisement in any form

always look at them from the customer point of

view. Look it and ask "Who gives a crap?" about

everything in it. Do you think the customer cares

about your logo. No! They care about what you can

do for them. Put in benefits and not features. Let

the customer know what's in it for them. A

successful direct response ad for a small business

includes several things:


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An offer to buy something

Sufficient information for the consumer to make a

decision to act now (or directions on how to get

more info)

An explicit "call to action" sooner rather than later

A clear way to respond such as a telephone number

or web page

A means of tracking the response.

Direct response advertising is not just used for mail

campaigns. You use it in all forms of media: print,

web, mail, and broadcast. Take a look at all the

advertising you are currently doing no matter where

it is and start making the change now.


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6. Use the Internet to advertise for free

Even though websites as we know them have

existed since around the early 90s, only 49%* of

small businesses currently have a website *9/08,

Barlow Research. It's surprising how many

businesses do not understand how powerful this

marketing tool is. If you don't have a website, get

one because there is no better source of free

advertising!

The Internet has hundreds of "Web 2.0" websites

where you post "content" for free. The content can

be text, videos, or audios you create and it can lead


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people to your business. Plus, it helps establish you

as an expert in your field.

EzineArticles.com is one such place you can post

content. There was no charge to post this article. All

I had to do is write it, post it, and then you found it.

You can put links in the "author resource" section, to

drive traffic to a page on your website. The articles

you post in EzineArticles can rank extremely well in

Google search results with a little help from you.

You also want to get your business listed in places

like Google Local if you do local business. Once

again this is absolutely free.


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Once you learn how to do use the Internet for

promotion you'll have a head start on the future of

advertising and you get customers for free!

7. Outsource routine marketing tasks so you can

work on the growing your business

One of the biggest problems small business owners

have is that they get so consumed by working IN

their business, they don't have time to work ON

their business. So no growth can occur.

When it comes to marketing yourself on the

Internet, there are ways to use "virtual assistants"

to do most of the work for you. A virtual assistant is


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someone you hire on a full or part-time basis who

does the work for you.

But a virtual assistant is not a direct employee so

you don't provide benefits or have the normal

hassles of an employee. They are usually located

somewhere in the world that has low-cost wages so

they are very affordable. That's the beauty of the

Internet and the communication it provides.

Virtual assistants aren't just confined to small

business marketing plan tasks though. They can do

almost anything for you: reservations, schedule

appointments, answer phones, customer service,

send flowers, buy a present for your spouse, find

someone to fix your car, website development,


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accounting, software development, writing,

graphics, or anything you need.

There are lots of resources on the Internet that can

help you find a virtual assistant.

Create Your Small Business Marketing Plan Now!

Use these seven marketing tips to start building your

small business marketing plan right now. If you

procrastinate, your busy life will get in the way of

business growth. Even if you only take a little of the

advice you've been given, you'll find it can have a

big impact on the profitability of your business.


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The importance of strategically marketing your business cannot

be overstated. Find out how you can create value for your

clients, improve your brand, retain existing customers, attract

new customers and ultimately increase the profitability of your

business. Click here

http://www.business-plan.co.za/


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Tim Bruxvoort is an ecommerce entrepreneur who operates a full-time ecommerce business

called http://www.IntercomsOnline.com. He also is a partner in a small business marketing plans

consulting business that helps small business owners improve their marketing.

For more information go to http://www.fastbusinessprofits.com.

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_Bruxvoort

Self Improvement

Increase Your Business Profit