What's missing from your marketing?

I was recently speaking at a networking event in Dallas, TX when a small business owner approached me and asked, "what's missing from my marketing". This person owns a boutique women's clothing store that is not getting enough customer traffic into the store. I asked her what does she do in terms of marketing and promotions at the store. She responded with, a weekly coupon mailer, weekly newspaper ad and yellow pages listing.

My response:

If you are implementing marketing strategies on a monthly bases and not getting your expected results, it's time to do two things. First, start measuring the amount of customers your are getting from each activity to determine if you are getting a return on your investment. Do this by counting the number of coupons that customers bring in each month. It's hard to tell how many customers you are getting from your yellow page or newspaper ad unless you have a special phone number or coupon code.

Evaluate the number of households, location and other demographic information of your coupon mailer program. Be sure that the right type of customer is receiving the coupon. For example, if you sell clothing at a high price point, consider sending the coupons to households with women in high income brackets. In the weekly advertisement, add a statement to mention the ad and get a discount. What this does is provides an incentive for the viewer to come into your store and shop. It's also a way to track how well the program is doing. Evaluate your ad size and its location within the paper. Talk with your sales representative and let them know of your concerns about your ad with them. It is most likely, they will assist you in developing a more effective campaign.

The second thing you want to do is consider where your store is located. Are you in a strip mall, free standing building or a kiosks inside of a facility? What kind of customer traffic comes to that location? Are other retailers experiencing low traffic as well? Take an hour or so and evaluate your store's location. Evaluate the following areas:

• The stores next to you - being next to a store with steady customer traffic is best.
• General area traffic - if the overall traffic of your location is slow you might want to consider moving.
• Accessibility - can customers easily get to your store? is there adequate parking?
• General appearance of the area - your store might be in good shape but the shopping mall, parking lot, or surrounding buildings might not.

After re-evaluating these four areas, determine whether moving to a new location would help boost the sales and traffic you need. If all else fails, hire a marketing consultant to develop a marketing strategy to help you grow.

http://www.themarketinglady.com/

Promoting a Service

I was recently consulting someone who launched a new concierges business where she will run errands for busy executives and business professionals. She is working on her website and marketing collateral, and wanted to know what else she should do to promote her services.

Here's my response.
You are headed in the right direction by establishing a web presence and printed marketing collateral. Promoting a product means getting customers to buy an organization’s product and, in most cases, to remain a loyal long-term customer. To communicate effectively, you need to understand the elements of the promotion mix which include advertising; used to build up a long-term image or get quick sales. Just starting out you may not have the budget right away to do a lot of advertising, but the greatest benefit of using advertising is the ability to reach a larger audience and repetition. Sales Promotion could be apart of your promotion mix. Use this to get a quicker buyer response or to boost sales during slow periods. Sales promotions are attention getters, incentive to buy, and an invitation to take action.

Public Relations is another way to promote your concierges service by using press kits, speeches, charity events, sponsorships, media, events, community relations. With PR you can build your credibility and get free media coverage. In your line of business you will be doing a lot of personal selling. This involves doing sales presentations, offering sales incentives, attending trade shows. You will use personal selling to establish long term relationships that lead to long-term customers. Start with establishing your objectives. Is it to increase sales, create an image, or create awareness? Once you have an idea of your objectives, and then evaluate the different promotional tools and chose the optimum mix of promotional methods. The final step would be to integrate it into your overall marketing communication program.

Post your marketing questions to The Marketing Lady.

My Favorite Marketing Resources

Here is a list of some of my favorite marketing resources. Feel free to submit your favorite marketing resource.

MarketingProfs.com
American Marketing Association
Marketing Sherpa
Sponsorship.com
Marketing Terms
Clickz.com
Market Leap
Search Engine for Marketers

Marketing on a Tight Budget

Lack of funds to do marketing is a common one with small business owners. Marketing is a much needed expense, but when your funds are low it is difficult to find ways to promote your business. When I first started The Marketing Lady, I was on a really tight budget as well. I had to find creative ways to maximize my dollars. The most successful way for me has been Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing. I budget an amount each month that I am willing to spend and each time someone searches Yahoo and Google with key terms related to my field, money is subtracted from my account with each click. While you may not have the budget for monthly radio, T.V. or print ads, there are several low cost to no cost ways you can promote your services.

Flyers and brochures are affordable and can be used as a direct mail piece, placed in your information packet, or used during a tradeshow. Creating a news release and sending it to the media when you have some news worthy information is a great way to get free publicity. Be careful though. The media only wants releases that have a clever angle or a hot topic. Networking is your opportunity to qualify prospective customers, build relationships, and promote what you have to offer; best of all it is Free!

An online directory is like the phone book, but online. It contains categories of topics with listings of products and services. Most directories are free and you can include a website link for an additional fee. An e-newsletter promoting your services is a very effective way to reach your target market as well as potential clients. You can choose to send the newsletter weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, but be sure to include any special offers or discounts that are available. Always get permission to send an email newsletter to a customer.

Well you have it. Several low to no cost ways you can promote your business. So if your budget is low or you’re just getting starting, consider some of these marketing tactics to get some exposure for your business.

The Marketing Lady welcomes all marketing related questions and comments. You can email your questions to tmarketinglady@yahoo.com. Your response will be posted here on this blog, so check back regularly to read your answer. Due to spam problems, The Marketing Lady recommends that you type Marketing Question in the subject line and begin your letter using the salutation Dear Marketing Lady. The Marketing Lady is a small business marketing coach and consultant. Her website is www.themarketinglady.com.