Leveraging Marketing Tools For Small Business (Dallas, TX)

A small business has to take advantage of every opportunity and angle that comes along. Small business usually means small marketing budget and while the internet has leveled the playing field, on some levels, for all players the fact remains that big business has fatter wallets and can afford to do more things on that playing field than the small business owner. So what’s an entrepreneur to do?

Leverage is the answer. Certain tools are capable of moving more work for the same dollar than others and we absolutely must identify those tools and use them to their fullest. Lacking not only the fatter budgets of their larger cousins, small business is quite often short on man-power which makes the task of consistent marketing exponentially more difficult.

What marketing tools are available to the small business owners and what are the characteristics we’re looking for? The tools we utilize must possess the following:

• They must provide a minimum level of leverage, supplying a reach far greater than a one-on-one ratio.
• They must be affordable to the SMB budget.
• They must be tools that a SMB business owner can quickly master or readily find available.
• They must be easily maintained.

Here’s a list of tools that fit the requirements:

1.Email Marketing
There are several forms of email marketing to consider.

• One-off. One at a time emails utilized in a prospecting effort. Convenient but definitely no leverage here.
• Email Blasts-Hundreds or thousands of emails with identical messages sent out together. Usually contains little or no personalization, has a bad reputation as spam, and has adequate but minimal tracking capabilities.
• Database Marketing-utilizing a search-able database which may include a prospects’ or client’s purchase histories, personal information, and other relevant data which may be filtered to develop targeted lists for emailing.
• Drip-Marketing-automated, personalized one-off email. While this is typically a one-off email distribution (where’s the leverage?) the leverage comes into play from the automated aspect. Automated tasks don’t require human capital which can be applied to other as yet un-automated tasks. That’s leverage.

2.Direct Mail
More expensive than email marketing but definitely leverages the affordable dollars spent in printing. Touch a thousand, two-thousand or more people every month with your message. Qualifies as a leverage tool.

3.Website
A properly designed and constructed website stands ready to answer the call of thousands of people searching for your products and services each and every day. The key to making this an effective leverage tool is “properly designed and constructed”. A bad website has no more leveraging capability than a poorly designed brochure stored in your office closet.

4.Webinars
Internet sales at it’s most glorious, this is the way to spread your live message to hundreds of interested participants . Utilizing one of many commercially available webinar services or a webinar facilitation service, a webinar can be utilized to broadcast your value proposition simultaneously to hundreds of participants, all of whom have chosen to be there. Crow-bar type leverage for a couple hundred bucks.

Using leveraged marketing tools to stretch your budget and free up time for other tasks is just smart business. Call us today and let’s put the power of leverage to use for your company.

Phillip Crum
214-213-7445
http://www.MarketingMeasure.com

Phillip Crum is the Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasure and is committed to the idea of helping small business owners do a better job of finding their next customer or client. He and his two sons also own a Sir Speedy Printing franchise and employ those additional capabilities in the overall marketing services menu of offerings. Phillip can be reached at 214-213-7445, or pcrum@MarketingMeasure.com