Over the past decade, more and more people are being laid off, downsized or tired of their corporate jobs and starting the journey as small business owners. Unfortunately, most new small business owners don’t consider their marketing plans or strategies. There are many marketing concepts for small business marketing to consider and plan for, but here is our list of the top 10 marketing concepts for small business marketing.
Marketing Concept #1: Consistency
Consistency is the number one marketing concept for small business marketing only because it is left out of marketing concepts for many businesses. I have worked with a long list of clients, large and small, who are extremely inconsistent in all areas of their marketing. Consistency helps reduce marketing cost and increases brand effectiveness.
Marketing Concept #2: Planning
Once small business owners decide to be consistent with their marketing, planning is the next important concept to engage. Planning is the most vital part of marketing for a small business or any level of marketing, and many owners, marketing managers, and even CMOs plan poorly. Take time to plan your marketing strategy, budget, and other concepts presented here to ensure success.
Marketing Concept #3: Strategy
Strategy immediately follows planning because your strategy is the foundation for the rest of your marketing activities. In the planning process, you need to develop your strategy: who you will target, how you will target them, and how you will keep them as customers.
Marketing Concept #4: Target Market
The target market is also another key concept for small business marketing. Defining exactly who you are targeting allows small business owners to target specific customers and reduce marketing waste. A well-defined target market will make any other marketing concept much easier to successfully implement.
Marketing Concept #5: Budget
Although it appears in number 5, the budget is important throughout the process. Creating a marketing budget is often the most difficult and imprecise part of small business marketing. Most small business owners lack much marketing experience, so their budgets often end up skewed. The most important part of this marketing concept is actually setting a marketing budget. From there, you can worry about how to distribute your available funds.
Marketing Concept #6: Marketing Mix
The marketing mix is generally defined as product, price, place, and promotion. As a small business owner, you need to decide specifically about your products (or services), the appropriate price, where and how you will distribute your products, and how you will let everyone know about you and your products.
Marketing Concept #7: Website
In today’s market, a business of any size must have a website. I hate when I see companies that have a one page website with outdated information. Customers, whether they are businesses or consumers, will search the web more than 60% of the time before making any purchasing decisions. This marketing concept contains a lot of additional components, but you should at least develop a small web presence of some kind and keep it up to date.
Marketing Concept #8: Brand
Many small business owners also neglect this concept. Small business marketing should focus on this marketing concept as much as large corporations do. The brand consists of the images, the logo, the design scheme, the design, the makeup and the image of your products and even your company. Branding is how your customers perceive (please put a lot of emphasis on that word!) your products and your company. Be sure to pay close attention to the type of brand you’re building at every step of your planning and implementation.
Marketing Concept #9: Promotion and Advertising
Promotion and advertising is a very complex marketing concept, but it must be considered for any type of business and its products and services. Once you engage the 8 marketing concepts above, you finally need to tell your target market about you and your products. Proper promotion and advertising will result in effective brand recognition and ultimately increased sales.
Marketing Concept #10: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The concept of customer relationship management has become a huge industry in the world of marketing. There are many types of software and services on offer to help businesses of any size manage their customer relationship management. Since there is so much available, usually for a large sum of money, small business owners often see this concept as something they aren’t big enough for or don’t have enough money to implement. Don’t be fooled by the huge industry that has evolved from this concept. Maintaining proper customer relationship management is essential to creating loyal and repeat customers.
This list of marketing concepts must be examined, researched, planned and implemented, especially by small businesses, to be successful. Also, your marketing doesn’t stop here. Every business is unique and will have additional components that need to be considered, but this list will jumpstart any marketing plan.