PLANNING YOUR MARKETING BUDGET AHEAD CAN GIVE YOUR BUSINESS A COMPETITIVE EDGE

According to Microsoft Small Business center, #4 of the list of 7 Biggest Mistakes Of Business Startups is that they are “Clueless about marketing”, either thinking that marketing is an unnecessary expense, or confusing marketing with sales.  Of course you want sales immediately, but the reality is that there is a process to sales that can take some time - the lesson being to make sure you get your message to target consumers before trying to close sales.  

With a well communicated marketing message, you’ll close a higher volume of sales and most of your customers will be coming to you, already having made the decision to buy from you.  It’s your marketing/communication information that gives them reasons to buy from you before they need to make the decision and financial commitment of purchase.

Like every business decision that carries a financial commitment, planning your marketing activities is critical to being satisfied with the results of your investment.  

Even when some of your marketing efforts are not as successful as you had hoped, clear planning lets you approach each activitiy as a TEST.  Know at the start that you’ll measure various factors of success with each campaign and determine through trial & error the best investment in marketing for your business.

So the first question I get most often is “How much money should I invest in marketing, each year?”.  It depends.  It’s different for every business, business owner and market.  For each year of operation, you’ll want to determine a percentage of total business revenue you’ll invest in marketing activities. 

Depending on how ambitious and aggressive you are, a small business owner might want to invest 5%-15% of annual revenue on marketing activities, according to Andrew Patricio (co-founder of BizLaunch), at last week’s FREE Staples seminar “How To Brand, Promote & Advertise Your Business”.  View Upcoming Seminar Schedule Here.

You’ll also want to consider factors that indicate a larger marketing budget may be needed:

• You are Launching a New Business, Product or Service Division: you’ll want to announce and generate awareness of your business as soon as you’re ready to accept customers.
• You have a lot of competition: You need to Develop Your Brand (your new customers used to be your competition’s customers); you’ll want to communicate to potential customers why they want to buy from you, instead.
• You have NO competition: people have been getting along just fine without your product/service in the past; you want to Develop the Market, answering their question “why do I need this now?”  Once you answer that question, they can only purchase it from your business.

THE BIG IDEA w/DONNY DEUTSCH REVIEWS ADAPTING SMALL BUSINESSES

Whether you’re considering what type of small business to start or are already up & running, you can prepare for success in our new business reality - a future where people buy less quantity (why pay extra money for excess product/service?) and are being more selective about what they buy.

This is a great argument for sustainability in business.  The ultimate Need in our lives is energy, so energy efficiency products/services and energy savings are the cherry on top of the cake.  If your products/services are a “Need” in life or serve a niche within your market, then people will continue to buy from you what they Need.  

What do people Need?  Affordable basics: food, clothing & shelter.  Healthcare.  Education.  Transportation.  Even in these categories, the businesses that will succeed will be the ones that SAVE PEOPLE MONEY purchasing the products & services they need.

Still, people Need to have fun too.  What kind of fun will they be buying?

Any company that allows consumers to be frugal and enjoy their lives: home entertainment, self-education, sustainability.  The businesses that offer consumers lower costs on needs & wants and make saving money and ‘cocooning’ more enjoyable include:  WINNERS, Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, microwave popcorn, video/game rental stores, video game software, used books online, eBay, barter companies and every socially & environmentally responsible business out there. 

With the potential for low-demand (reduced-cost) ad space to become more available, I hope to see some companies clearly increasing their advertising activities; to build market share and help people change their lifestyles to save money.    

The businesses that help their customers save money and transition from excessive consumption to taking pride in being in control of your money (instead of being out of control and in debt), have a great opportunity to develop a positive long-term relationship with customers now, even in tough economic times.

SERVE A WHOLE NEW SEGMENT IN YOUR INDUSTRY

Finding a previously untapped segment, or carving out a niche offering in your industry is one way to revitalize your enthusiasm and generate more client activity for business; these market-development activities benefit everyone in your field which can position you as a leader in your field and give you the opportunity to develop a strong network of strategic alliances in business.

How do you do it?  Take what you know, what you’ve been active with forever, look for the huge entrepreneurial “A-ha!” (the niche target market that no one else is serving), and slowly start shifting your activities to focus on serving that specialty.  Why not?

According to PowerHomeBiz.com, the strategies for focusing your niche are:

1. Aim for a specific target and allocate resources just for that target - I love this first point the most: cover only a small, but profitable base of customers; you cannot be everything to every one
2. Talk to potential customers one at a time
3. Do some market research to verify your findings
4. Find out the kind of product characteristics that your customers value.

According to Microsoft Small Business Center, being clueless about marketing, or believing sales and marketing are interchangeable, is the 4th most common mistake startups make:

Treehugger is giving a great promotional boost to the 2nd annual Reverse Trick or Treat program conceived by Global Exchange, that works to reduce forced child labor that happens in many international cocoa farms.  

This is a great example of unique marketing that benefits everyone involved through a promotion tied to seasonal peak (Halloween & candy/chocolate sales), and a sampling program. 

“A pleasant surprise will greet nearly a quarter million people distributing candy at their door, when youth reverse the Halloween tradition to hand adults a sample of Fair Trade chocolate.

Thousands of groups of Trick-or-Treaters in the United States and Canada will unite to help transform the international cocoa industry to:

• END poverty in cocoa farming communities
• END forced/abusive child labor in the cocoa fields
• PROMOTE Fair Trade
• PROTECT the environment

The program is available in both Canada and USA., until October 15th.