Small Business Marketing Materials

I almost died this morning.

At least I felt like I was going to die.  My heart was racing.  My face was bright red.  I was dying of thirst.  I have to reluctantly admit that taking the Advanced PowerStep class after a 4-month hiatus from the gym was not a wise idea. 

How did I get so out of shape?  What make me think I could just jump right back into it?

(sigh)

My story is sadly typical.  And it doesn’t just happen with the gym.

The same thing happens in business.  All of a sudden (it seems) you realize – My pipeline has dried up.  No fresh leads are coming in.  What happened?  I better get MOVING!  So you put forth a BURST of activity, but if you are out of (marketing) shape, you could damage your business instead of helping it.   You might do the wrong things, and instead of generating leads, you are just blowing your marketing budget. 

Ooops. 

Big oops.

If you find yourself in this spot, I want you to start taking action, but start slowly.  Test what you are doing before you blow it out onto a larger scale.  Make sure it works!  For every product, every service, and every campaign, you need to ask these simple questions:

• Who am I targeting?
• What problem am I solving?
• What makes my solution better or different than everyone else’s?
• What is the next action I want them to take?

Once you have crafted your messaging, test out subject lines and offers using email marketing, Google Adwords or a simple business letter that goes out to a small group of people.   Once you have validated that your marketing message is on target, that’s when you can start expanding your campaign.

Think big. But start small.  Make sense?  I’m taking that advice myself.  After I take two Advil.

How would you make Americans care about African girls?

What if YOU were charged with ending poverty in Africa?

Tough job, right?  The task seems daunting, overwhelming, and frankly impossible.  Many Americans take the stance that Africa’s plight is just “not our problem.”  Even if we did care, what could we do?  We’re a continent away…and besides we have our own problems, our own bills to pay.  If YOU were in charge, how would you go about changing that belief?

Watch  The Girl Effect . 

The Girl Effect is trying to eradicate poverty in Africa, one girl at a time.

(Go visit The Girl Effect website now before reading the rest of this post – I swear it wraps into a marketing message!)

Take note of how The Girl Effect is going about accomplishing their mission.  They used video.  Told a story.  They made the message personal.  Made it simple.  Made it easy to digest.  Touched people’s emotions.  Asked their audience to take just a small step.  Even the opening page of their website makes you make a decision, invites to you get involved.

Now go back and start thinking about your own business.  I work with clients every day who are selling incredibly complex products and services.  They’re faced with the same challenges in getting people’s attention. They’re faced with the same challenges of  boiling complex concepts down in to simple messages. 

So many don’t. 

And when complex solution providers fail to make their messages personal, simple, emotional and compelling, their products and services don’t sell — at least not as fast as they would like, driving up the cost of sale. 

Use the The Girl Effect website / video as a reminder to make your marketing messages personal.  Make them simple.  Easy to digest.  Touch people’s emotions.  Tell a story.  That’ll put you on the right track.

And if that doesn’t do the trick, see if you can get Oprah, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie to endorse you. 

While getting people to “buy stuff” is at the heart of most marketing efforts, I believe that most small businesses and all professional service firms would benefit from thinking of marketing a little bit differently.

But before I explain, I want you to do this little exercise:

1. Think of the last product or service you bought that made you really mad.
2. What was it that made you so upset?

For me, it was a car I rented.  I asked if I could keep the car for an extra day at the same rate and the gal at the desk said “SURE!” but when I got my bill, the extra day was double the price.  Customer service’s response?  “Sorry ma’am.  The price is right there in your contract.”  Why was I so upset?  Because they didn’t properly set my expectations.  Sure, I should have read the contract, but I trusted their representative to give me the right answer.

In the scenario I just described, the car rental company did make the sale.  They did keep my money.  But am I happy?  No. Will I be more wary of that company next time? Absolutely! So did they do an effective job of marketing to me?  I say NO!  I have lots of choices in car rental companies, and I’ll just take my business elsewhere.

So back to my original point, rather than just thinking of marketing as just a means to a sale, I’d like for you to think about marketing as a way of setting expectations.  Many times it means having to lower expectations.

Yes, marketing may mean LOWERING expectations.

If you want happy customers, you need customers who understand your limitations.  Too often, sales people feel so pressured to make a sale that they’ll do so at nearly any cost – but for small businesses, and especially in consulting type of organizations, this short-term sales mentality hurts your overall profitability.

How do you know if marketing is not properly setting expectations?

There are five clear warning flags that indicate that your marketing message and the reality you are delivering to clients is out of sync.  You can either fix your marketing or fix your delivery – but ignoring the problems will not make them go away.  It’ll just make it worse.

If only the warning signs were this obvious!

The 5 Warning Signs Are:

1. You’re seeing more returns and complaints.
2. Customer satisfaction ratings are dropping.
3. Referral sources and repeat business is drying up.
4. Your delivery team is getting  “burnt out” on impossible demands.
5. Company morale is down the tubes.

If you see yourself with any of these 5 problems, there’s no time like the present to get started on the solution.  I can’t fix delivery.  I can’t make you a better consultant, accountant, dentist or lawyer.  Maybe you can’t either.  But you can fix how you represent yourself.  This is why I am so passionate about authentic marketing, truly representing your strengths, and finding your ideal client who sees that what you do best fits with what they need most.

Every marketing strategy needs to begin there, by knowing – Who’s your ideal client? What makes you different?

Any tips to share?  How do you set expectations up front  – and still make sale – so that you get raving fans?  I’d love to hear your ideas on this.

Businesses are constantly trying to balance marketing hype with reality.  Of course, you want your marketing materials to grab your prospect’s attention, but you also want to set some expectations — because after all, you have to deliver on your promise, right?!  

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Head on over to HP’s Small Business Marketing Guide to see the article I wrote on creating incredible, credible marketing materials.   I gave readers seven practical tips for creating do-it-yourself marketing materials.  Enjoy!