Smart Marketing Tips

Keep Your Market Informed:
Email flyers, newsletters, company updates, and press releases to your own email list of customers and contacts on a regular basis.
Expand Your Market:
Take advantage of membership lists. You can usually obtain a mailing list from your local Chamber of Commerce and other associations that you belong to.
Offer Subscriptions:
Allow online visitors to sign-up on your website to receive regular promotions, newsletters, and other updates by email.
Be Courteous:
Make sure to give your customers an opportunity to "opt-out" of the mailings to retain their trust. Honor their requests. Keep them in a separate list for follow-up and give them a call or mail them a letter occassionally to that you appreciate their past business.

Start With Your Best Customer:
If you have a really good customer/client, ask for a referral, but make it a "hard" referral...
Get A "Hard" Referral:
Ask that client to really think hard about who might be in the market for the products/services you offer.
Ask For A Personal Introduction:
Set up a meeting where you, your client, and the potential client can meet for coffee—you pick up the tab.

Getting The Word Out:
Register your local business on search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
Stand-Out From the Crowd:
You will come up on local searches (the ones with the balloons on the map.)
Cover All Your Bases:
Make sure you register for every city you do business in.

Give Them Something To Go On:
Whether or not you have a website, you may need a landing page. Landing pages allow potential online visitors to quickly see who you are, what you have to offer, and how they can contact you.

Send Thank You Notes:
Mail thank-you notes or email your customers to say "Thanks."
Pick Up The Phone:
Give your customers a call a week or so after you have done business together. Show them that you are interested in them and that you care about your quality of service.
Get Feedback:
Ask your customers how your product or service worked for them, and get valuable feedback.
Take Constructive Criticism:
Use the feedback you receive from your customers to help improve future business practices.
Get It In Writing:
If your customers are satisfied with your product or service, ask them to write a short testimonial and send it to you by email.

Value Should Outweigh The Cost:
In a recession, people are cautious about spending money. If they see the value in your products and services versus your competition, they will be more inclined to buy from you.
Research The Competition:
Learn about what the competition is doing and how your products and services differ from theirs.
Dare To Be Different:
Strive to promote whatever makes your products and services unique and value-packed.

If It Worked Once, It Will Work Again:
If you ran a marketing campaign in the past that was particularly successful, update it and do it again.
Learn From Your Mistakes:
If past marketing attempts were unsuccessful, learn from them. Determine why they may have failed. Investigate if there is a way to tweak the campaign to make it work.
Learn From Others:
Pay attention to succcessful or memorable advertising campaigns from the past...either by your competitiors or other reputatble companies. A similar tactic might work for your company as well.

It's All Good:
Use testimonials from your customers in your advertising, website, newsletters, etc.
Building Relationships:
Testimonials help cement the value relationship you have with your customers.
Influence Future Customers:
They will part with their money easier if they know other people have nice things to say about you and your company.

Don't Let It Haunt You:
Nothing is worse than having customer complaints hanging over your head. Handle complaints quickly and fairly so that you have no regrets.
Customer Service Is Key:
How you handle customer complaints says a lot about your company and your level of customer service. Be polite and respectful of your cutomer's feelings, even if you have to make some concessions.
Confidence in the Long-Term:
Even if the outcome isn't what the customer is expecting, as long as you are fair, you can be confident that they may come back again or give referrals.
Peace of Mind:
Even after a bad experience, if you handle the situation responsibly you can feel good about the situation and the steps you took to rectify it.

Teach What You Know:
Teach a course at a local facility. Demonstrate your product to relevant groups of people.
Sponsor Other Professionals:
Sponsor speakers in a related field so that you can gain share of mind and eventual market share.
Become Active In The Community:
Join a networking group and your local Chamber of Commerce. Take advantage of the events that are offered. You will meet other professionals who can help grow your business, open yourself up to more referrals, and meet new customers.

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