Marketing seems like a mystery to most small business owners. It feels overwhelming & complicated & because of that, most just say “I don’t know how to market my business.” First, Marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers & maintain a relationship with them. We do it all the time. The most basic bit of marketing is when you meet someone new & they ask what you do. Telling them you own a small business that specializes in making widgets for dog houses is marketing your business. You can follow up with a business card, if they seem interested. Yes, business cards are still relevant in the digital age & a sound investment. Marketing includes follow-up contact (email, phone call, letters) to check on how the widget is working, surveys on their satisfaction, reminders that its time to replace the widget, etc. Remember it’s not just about acquiring customers, but also maintaining them. Customer service can be a key component to effective customer maintenance.
Your marketing could end with simply letting people around you know what you do & continuing to make your current customers happy. Even in the age of social media & online marketing, 80% of new business comes from word-of-mouth referrals. However, for many reasons, you may find that this isn’t enough & you need to branch out.
Another way to look at marketing is that it is putting the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time. That’s where we start the process of finding your target customer. Not everyone is your target customer. YOU are not Wal-Mart. So what does this mean? If you are making widgets for doghouses, that means that your target market is narrowed down to dog owners who have a doghouse. Let’s break that down a little further. Most doghouses are for medium to large dogs so that further narrows our market. Also, doghouses need a place to be like a backyard. So we are now looking at dog owners with medium to large dogs who own or rent a home with a yard. Next, if your widget is a specialty piece that costs $200, we can assume that the doghouse it goes on is a lot more expensive than the accessory you make. Meaning that our home owner with a medium to large dog also has the disposable income to purchase a doghouse that is $1000. Now you’ve narrowed your market & started to create a customer profile. We also factor in age & gender as well as other demographic information to really hone in on that target market.
Once we have a profile, we can figure out the place(s) to find that customer. Do you sell your widget online & advertise via social media? Only if your customer’s eyes are there. Or do you sell at pet stores & veterinarian offices? What it comes down to is where are your customers? That’s where you need to concentrate your marketing efforts. Sometimes that is online with a website, sometimes it’s on social media & sometimes it’s in a physical place like a store or pop-up shop. You don’t need to be everywhere, but you do need to be where your customers are. How do you find out? Ask. If you are already in business & have existing customers, ask them how they found you.
This should help alleviate some of the overwhelmed feeling that comes when people say things like, “Why aren’t you on Facebook?” Or Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. If you know your target customer, you can say, “Because my customers aren’t on social media.” Now sometimes there are benefits to using marketing tools like social media for reasons other than getting & maintaining business. But that’s a conversation for another time. Suffice to say marketing is a lot easier than you think & it doesn’t have to be a mystery!
If your small business needs Kim’s help, feel free to email her or set up an appointment on the Idaho SBDC website.