How an action-oriented approach can help with marketing your small business

Posted: Jul 27, 2011
Author: WordJack Media

First, I'll just clear up that when I say "marketing", I'm not just talking about the promotional, advertising agency connotations of marketing that may spring to mind. I'm talking about the less-sexy components of marketing: product development, pricing and distribution.

I got inspired after reading this article quoting Douglas Merrill - ex CIO of Google. The headline says it all really, "Build first, plan later".

So that's all good and well for Google (with their limitless budgets), but how can this approach help with marketing my business?

Be in a constant state of test marketing

Never be afraid to try a new idea or offer a new service or price to a customer. If it means getting you a customer you would not otherwise have got, then it's worth a go! The main message here is to not overthink the situation, but rather go into it with an open mind and hoping to learn something.

If a potential customer says "if I refer 3 of my friends to you, will you give me 10% off", don't worry about whether you are prepared to launch a fully-loaded loyalty and referral program. If it makes sense on the face of it, give it a go. And then look back and evaluate the result. If it was a success, try offering it again or in a more pro-active way!

And the important part is to not be discouraged if it doesn't work. There are marketing examples all over the place about test-marketing PRODUCTS that fail (anyone remember McDonalds offering pizza?), but rarely does an PROGRAM of test-marketing fail. The "build first, plan later" article refers to some of Google's exited products, which are not regretted when you look at their products that succeed!

Think of it as more field-goal attempts usually leading to a higher score!

Reaching new customers leads to growing your revenue

I know, that sounded really obvious, but I'm not just talking about expanding your market to the next city or some other strategy to grow your geographic reach. Think about how you can change WHAT you offer, WHERE you offer it, and the PRICE you offer it for. One change to any one of those factors can lead you to a new customer group. A quick example of each:

New price

This can also mean a change to the pricing structure, and a good example is my local football team. The old structure for a season ticket was $230 for 11 games for the season, which was payable at the commencement of the season at the end of fall. I was never inspired to hand over the whole amount at once and always put it off. They recently launched an option where you signup for a monthly charge to your credit card of $22 for all 12 months of the year, which entitles you to seats at the same 11 games. They have reached their highest ever membership this year, and now reaching a new group of customers who did not want to pay the full $230 upfront.

New location

I worked in an office that was located above an indoor food court with about 30 fast-food options for all the office workers to go for lunch. The sandwich shop was not the most successful, competing with chinese food on one side and bagels on the other. But one day they started offering a lunch cart service, where at 11:30am, one of the ladies did a walkthrough on each floor of the office selling "lunches! lunches anyone?". All the guys who knew they would have to work through lunch or not make it outside would buy a sanwich and drink from her. Then she was back at the shop for the usual customers to come in at 12:30pm

New product

I live close to an Artisan Bakery who are famous in my area for their sourdough bread. People drive for miles to line up and buy the bread, as well as the things they make from it (toast in the morning, sandwiches at lunch). About 6 months ago, their main baker decided that since the baking was done by about 8am, and the kitchen would be empty after that, he would try offering a bread baking class. He wrote it on the chalkboard menu and started with a saturday morning class of 4 people. He ran another since the participants were really pleased with their experience, and it snowballed from there! He now runs an 8am and 10am class each saturday, with 8 people in each. They are always fully-subscribed for months in advance and there is no negative impact on bread-sales either!

So what's common to all of these? Expanding your audience through price, location and products can start with a really small marketing experiment, and not a heap of planning. Build first, plan later!

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