Most small business owners fail when it comes to their small business merchandising plans. They've got first-class technical skills in their line of work, but that just doesn't translate to having effective merchandising skills.
As a result, profitableness of many small businesses has been declining over the years. Ever increasing competition is making it more challenging in many ways. For those businesses that aren't losing money, most are not producing the profit they could be if they knew how to market themselves properly.
These business owners normally just copy what they see other businesses doing, or they follow the advice of some media gross sales individual. The problem is they copy the wrong types of businesses, and the media gross sales people typically only know as much about effective merchandising as the business owner does.
MARKETING HUB PROFESSIONAL
Without the right rather merchandising system in place, the winner of any business is by pure chance. To help remedy this situation, below are seven matters a small business can do to increase profits patc disbursement less on merchandising.
1. Use the power of free stuff
Everyone likes acquiring free stuff and you can use that to your advantage. If your business lends itself to giving away free samples of your product, do that. It helps get people hooked on it. Business profits have boomed on this merchandising model.
As Chris Anderson author of the book titled, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" says, "You can make make money giving matters away."Â In his book he dialogue about how businesses are giving away products and services they accustomed charge for, and in return, a percentage of their clients are buying somematter else. As a result, they are making more money than ever.
When you give somematter away, you often activate a universal law called the "Law of Reciprocity." It says that when people get somematter free, they feel indebted to do somematter for you. Obviously it doesn't work every time, but it does work enough of the time.
But there is other way to give away free stuff that can greatly benefit your business. When you roll in the hay right you get somematter very valuable in return: client contact info...which leads us to the next tip.
2. Start capturing client contact info and use it
One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is not tapping their current client base. They let clients visit their business (online or offline) daylong without ever trying to capture their contact info so they can continue to market products or services to them.
You likely know how high-ticket it can be to get a new client. But you can market to your current clients for little or no cost. Capturing and using client contact info can mean the difference between a profitable business and one that barely gets by.
Your business has more client value in it than a client can possibly digest in a short visit so if you aren't continually merchandising to your clients, you are throwing money away!
You can make client contact capture easier simply by using the power of free from tip number one. Simply start a monthly drawing to give away somematter free and print some registration slips visitors can fill out. Also have people register online on your website.
Tell clients they only have to register once for all drawings and you will contact them monthly via email to let them know who won. Of course you will always admit an offer for a product or service!
What do you give away? Anymatter with a perceived value makes a great free item. Free items do not have to be high-ticket. Buy somematter on sale at WalMart or at eBay and offer it. You can also offer free cognition reports that help people solve their problems. People are always looking ways to solve problems they are having.
Of course, once you capture this information you have to do somematter with it. If you're too busy to take on any more work, then the next tip will help you out.
3. Use automatic tools to keep in touch with clients
Once you have a client list, I recommend you send a minimum of 25 "contents" a year to it. A content could be an email, direct mail piece, fax, or phone call.
If you don't use an automatic tool to do the work for you, you'll likely be too busy to get the job done. When you automate, your contents go out regardless of how busy you get (the more contents that go out, the busier you'll get).
One tool you can use is an email autoresponder, which is a web-based system that sends out emails when individual signs up. It sends out emails at intervals you set up. You can also set it up to send an email on a specific day, such as a holiday.
The great matter about an autoresponder tool is that you enter your contents in the autoresponder one time, then it automatically sends emails to your list. You can also broadcast contents any time you want.
Using this tool, keeping in touch with your clients is easy and it will help keep the competition from crawling in and stealing your clients because they've forgotten about you and the services you provide.
4. Stop merchandising like you're a big business.
Marketing a small business like it's a big business is somematter near every small business owner does. They just copy the merchandising they see being done at large companies with big brands. This rather merchandising is called "brand identity," "brand building," or "image" merchandising.
This is a HUGE waste of advertising money for a small business. You simply don't have the resources you need to support a winnerful branding campaign.
Brand advertising typically has no "call to action," (they don't ask you to do anymatter). They just give you features of the product or service, or they entertain you without asking you to do anymatter.
Brand advertising is normally benefit free. The witness has to determine if there is a benefit to them. It may contain a list of features and the user will have to assign their own benefit to each feature. It is normally focused on the product or provider of the product instead if the client.
A winnerful merchandising campaign for a small business is created around direct response merchandising techniques.
5. Use old designed direct response techniques in new ways
The rather merchandising plan that works for a small business is direct response merchandising. It doesn't require a huge merchandising budget to use effectively. It can be used for all types of products and services.
And the good news is that you don't even have to hire an ad agency to roll in the hay since it doesn't require creativity. All you have to do is learn the basic structure of direct response merchandising and you can easily increase the gross sales your business makes.
Direct response gross sales copy always asks the reader or witness to take some rather action i.e. "Call in the next 5 minutes, and we'll admit a free set of Ginzu steak knives!".
It may invite the sale directly if a full "gross sales presentation" was done (one-step advertising), or it may ask them to request more information (two-step advertising). It will at a minimum, ask the reader to take some form of "traceable" action so you know if it is working or not.
There should always be a headline for written advertisings! Never put your company logo at the top of a direct response advertising. That's brand advertising.
Whenever you create an advertising in any form always look at them from the client point of view. Look it and ask "Who gives a crap?" about everymatter in it. Do you think the client cares about your logo. No! They care about what you can do for them. Put in benefits and not features. Let the client know what's in it for them. A winnerful direct response ad for a small business admits several matters:
- An offer to buy somematter
- Sufficient information for the consumer to make a decision to act now (or directions on how to get more info)
- An explicit "call to action" sooner rather than later
- A clear way to respond such as a number or web page
- A means of tracking the response.
Direct response advertising is not just used for mail campaigns. You use it altogether forms of media: print, web, mail, and broadcast. Take a look in the to the worst degree the advertising you are presently doing disregarding where it is and start making the change now.
6. Use the Internet to advertise for free
Even though websites as we know them have existed since around the early 90s, only 49%* of small businesses presently have a website *9/08, Barlow Research. It's astonishing how many businesses do not understand how powerful this merchandising tool is. If you don't have a website, get one because there is no better source of free advertising!
The Internet has hundreds of "Web 2.0" websites where you post "content" for free. The content can be text, videos, or audios you create and it can lead people to your business. Plus, it helps establish you as an expert in your field.
EzineArticles.com is one such place you can post content. There was no charge to post this article. All I had to do is write it, post it, then you found it.
You can put golf links in the "author resource" section, to drive dealings to a page on your website. The articles you post in EzineArticles can rank extremely well in Google search results with a little help from you.
You also want to get your business listed in places like Google Local if you do local business. Once once once more this is dead free.
Once you learn how to do use the Internet for promotion you'll have a start on the future of advertising and you get clients for free!
7. Outsource routine merchandising tasks so you can work on the growing your business
One of the biggest problems small business owners have is that they get so exhausted by working IN their business, they don't have time to work ON their business. So no growth can occur.
When it comes to merchandising yourself on the Internet, there are ways to use "virtual assistants" to do most of the work for you. A virtual assistant is individual you hire on a full or part-time basis who does the work for you.
But a virtual assistant is not a direct employee so you don't provide benefits or have the normal hassles of an employee. They are normally settled someplace in the world that has low-cost payoff so they are very affordable. That's the beauty of the Internet and the communication it provides.
Virtual assistants aren't just confined to small business merchandising plan tasks though. They can do near anymatter for you: reservations, agenda appointments, answer phones, client service, send flowers, buy a present for your spouse, find individual to fix your car, website development, accounting, package development, writing, graphics, or anymatter you need.
There are lots of resources on the Internet that can help you find a virtual assistant.
Create Your Small Business Marketing Plan Now!
Use these seven merchandising tips to start building your small business merchandising plan right now. If you procrastinate, your busy life will get in the way of business growth. Even if you only take a little of the advice you've been given, you'll find it can have a big impact on the profitableness of your business.
