How to Successfully Market a Small Business

1. Stay in constant contact with all of your existing customers. Do this by email, direct mail, and phone calls. If you want loyal customers, you must build a relationship with them, and that means staying in contact with them at least once a month, month after month, forever. The top reason why your customers will leave you is that another company is taking the time and spending the money to communicate with your clients more than you are.

2. If you are going to advertise in print, radio, or TV, you must do it consistently, month after month. One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make is they run one advertisement one time or they send out one direct mail campaign and then stop thinking that doing that one-off marketing tactic will bring them a truckload of clients. That no longer works. People see and receive so much advertising that the one time marketing tactic is no longer effective. To get your message seen through the deluge of advertising, you must market to the same people over and over and over.

A prospective customer may need to see your advertisement 7-12 times or more over the time period of several months or even years before they will buy from you. Therefore, for your advertising to work, you must do it month after month, forever. You always want your company's name and the benefits you offer to be in the minds of your target market. For example, Wal-Mart is the biggest company in the world. They have a tremendous brand and everybody knows who they are. But do they stop advertising? Of course not! One of the main reasons for their success is they never stop advertising. They know that out of sight means out of mind.

3. Instead of trying to market to the world, select a niche market and market to that same group of prospective customers every month. You will have far more marketing success if you market to a small group of highly targeted prospects many times than you will have marketing to a large group of people (or businesses) one time. It is marketing repetition that builds trust and brand loyalty. So, only market to a group of people (or businesses) that you can afford to market to every single month.

Here are 3 bonus tips that will help you build your business:

1. Write down the goals you want to accomplish. The number one way to make your business grow and thrive is to write down measurable goals (i.e., I WILL generate $7.5 million in sales by December 31, 2010). Don't keep your goals in your head. Write your goals down in a place where you will see them every day such as your office white board. You want your goals to eat at you like a scratch you want to itch. Achieving your goals should be your company's primary focus.

2. Create better marketing materials. Understand that marketing is a war of words, and the company with the best words wins. If you are not working with a professional marketing copywriter to create all of your marketing and advertising materials, you are most likely losing the marketing battle with your competitors. Rarely does the best product win in business. It is almost always the product with the best marketing that wins. Therefore, for you to win in business, your focus must always be on having more powerful marketing words than your competition. Win the marketing game and success is yours.

3. Do not give up and lose hope! You are going to have ups and downs and you need to weather the storm. A big part of business success comes from how well you handle the bad days. Keep focused and stay positive that you WILL achieve your businesses goals no matter what.