Table of Contents

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

What You’re Not to Read 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part I: Getting Your Marketing Bearings 3

Part II: Laying the Foundation for Marketing Success 4

Part III: Marketing in a Screen-Connected World 4

Part IV: Getting the Word Out with Ads,

Mailers, Promotions, and Publicity 4

Part V: Winning and Keeping Customers 5

Part VI: The Part of Tens 5

Icons Used in This Book 5

Where to Go from Here 6

Part I: Getting Your Marketing Bearings 7

Chapter 1: Framing the Marketing Process 9

Seeing the Big Picture 10

Following the marketing wheel of fortune 10

Understanding the relationship between marketing and sales 12

Jump-Starting Your Marketing Program 13

Marketing a start-up business 13

Growing your business 14

Scaling your marketing to meet your goal 14

How Small Business Marketing Is Different 15

Dollar differences 15

Staffing differences 15

Creative differences 16

Strategic differences 16

The small business marketing advantage 16

Making Marketing Your Key to Success 17

Chapter 2: All about Customers 19

Anatomy of a Customer 20

Collecting customer information 20

Geographics: Locating your market areas 24

Demographics: Collecting customer data 25

Psychographics: Customer buying behaviors 27

Determining Which Customers Buy What 29

Viewing your sales by market segment 29

Matching customers with distribution channels 31

Catering to screen-connected customers 33

Forms 34

Chapter 3: Seeing Your Product through Your Customers’ Eyes 35

Getting to Know Your Product 35

When service is your product 36

Your product is what Google says it is 38

Illogical, Irrational, and Real Reasons People Buy What You Sell 38

Buying Decisions: Rarely about Price, Always about Value 39

Calculating the value formula 40

Riding the price/value teeter-totter 41

Evaluating your pricing 42

Raising prices 43

Presenting prices 43

The Care and Feeding of a Product Line 44

Enhancing the appeal of existing products 45

Raising a healthy product 46

Developing new products 47

Managing your product offerings 49

Forms 51

Chapter 4: Sizing Up Competitors and Staking Out Market Share 53

Playing the Competitive Field 53

Speaking the language of competition 54

Knowing what you’re up against 55

Understanding how to compete 56

Winning Your Share of the Market 56

Defining your direct competition 56

Moving up the competitive ladder 58

Calculating Your Market Share 59

Sizing up your target market 59

Doing the math 59

Increasing Your Market Share 61

Forms 62

Chapter 5: Setting Your Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Budgets 63

Where Are You Going, Anyway? 64

The “vision” thing 64

Your statement of purpose 65

Success stories 65

Defining Goals and Objectives Simply 66

Setting goals and objectives 67

Planning strategies 68

Putting goals, objectives, and strategies into action 68

Following the fail-safe planning sequence 70

Budgeting to Reach Your Goals 70

Realistic talk about small business marketing budgets 71

How much should you be spending? 71

Forms 74

Part II: Laying the Foundation for Marketing Success 75

Chapter 6: Taking Stock of Your Business Image 77

Making First Impressions 77

Encountering your business through online searches 79

Arriving at your website 80

Managing e-mail impressions 81

Arriving by telephone 82

Approaching your business in person 84

Auditing the Impressions Your Business Makes 87

Surveying your marketing materials and communications 88

Creating an impression inventory 89

Improving the impressions you’re making 90

Forms 90

Chapter 7: Forging Your Brand 91

What Brands Are and Do 91

Unlocking the power and value of a brand 92

Tipping the balance online 93

Building a Powerful Brand 93

Being consistent to power your brand 95

Taking six brand-management steps 95

Your Market Position: The Birthplace of Your Brand 97

Seeing how positioning happens 97

Determining your positioning strategy 98

Conveying Your Position and Brand through Taglines 99

Balancing Personal and Business Brands 101

Maintaining and Protecting Your Brand 102

Staying consistent with your brand message and creative strategy 102

Controlling your brand presentation 104

Forms 106

Chapter 8: Creating Marketing Communications That Work 107

Starting with Good Objectives 108

Defining what you want to accomplish 108

Putting creative directions in writing 109

Developing Effective Marketing Communications 114

Steering the creative process toward a “big idea” 115

Brainstorming 116

Following simple advertising rules 117

Making Media Selections 118

Selecting from the media menu 118

Deciding which media vehicles to use and when 119

The Making of a Mass Media Schedule 121

Balancing reach and frequency 121

Timing your ads 123

Evaluating Your Efforts 123

Forms 124

Chapter 9: Hiring Help When You Need It 125

Reaching Out to Marketing Pros 125

When to bring in marketing experts 126

Who to call for help 126

What kind of expertise to hire 127

Choosing and Working with an Agency 128

Requesting agency proposals 129

Interviewing agencies 130

Preparing the client-agency agreement 131

Understanding agency fees 132

Working with your agency 133

Hiring Help for Website Creation 134

Looking for help 134

Getting clear about your needs 135

Interviewing website designers 136

Finalizing your choice 137

Handing off the content 138

Forms 138

Part III: Marketing in a Screen-Connected World 139

Chapter 10: Establishing an Online Presence 141

Pulling People to Your Business Online 141

Setting Your Goals for Online Visibility 143

Claiming Your Online Identity 143

Registering for a domain name 144

Reserving your social media user name 145

Establishing Your Online Home Base 146

Website basics 147

Contact sites 147

Brochure sites 148

Support sites 148

Lead-generating sites 148

Mobile websites 148

E-commerce sites 150

Building Your Site 151

Cracking the site-building code 151

Incorporating attributes of a good site 152

Optimizing your site for search engines 154

Evaluating the strength of your site 155

Promoting your site 156

Advertising Online 157

Banner ads 157

Pay per click (PPC) ads 157

Forms 158

Chapter 11: Getting Interactive with Social Media 159

Benefiting from Social Media Activity 160

Getting Started in Four Necessary Steps 160

1. Define your objectives 160

2. Choose the name you’ll use across all social media networks 161

3. Develop your social media introduction 162

4. Set up an online home base 163

Diving into Social Media 163

Facebook 164

Twitter 166

LinkedIn 168

Google+ 169

Pinterest 169

Location-based and check-in sites 170

Rating and review sites 171

Announcing Your Social Media Debut 173

Keeping Your Social Media Efforts Active and Engaging 174

Sharing content 174

Becoming a content conduit 175

Getting conversational 176

Keeping an Eye on How You’re Doing 176

Monitoring your social media mentions 176

Measuring your social media effectiveness 177

Forms 178

Chapter 12: Packaging Your Message for

Blogs and Other Online Channels 179

Joining the 200-Million Blog Contingent 180

Who blogs? 180

Why blog? 180

Launching a Blog 181

Getting started 182

Committing to a blog 183

Crafting your blog-post approach 185

Using blog posts as the backbone of your online content-distribution strategy 187

Adding video to blog posts 188

Cross-Promoting Off-line and Online Content 189

Turning news into content 190

Giving long life to presentations 190

Forms 191

Part IV: Getting the Word Out with Ads, Mailers, Promotions, and Publicity 193

Chapter 13: Creating and Placing Print and Outdoor Ads 195

Writing and Designing Your Ads 196

Packing power into headlines 196

Writing convincing copy 198

Making design decisions 199

Translating ad production terminology 201

Making Sense of Print Media Rates 202

Placing Newspaper Ads 203

Scheduling your placements 204

Using small-budget, small-size ads 204

Requesting your ad placement 205

Finding value in the classified section 206

Placing Magazine Ads 206

Selecting magazines 207

Scheduling placements 207

Considering Yellow Pages, Directories, and Their Digital Alternatives 209

Creating and placing print directory ads 210

Getting found in online directories 211

Using Billboards and Out-of-Home Ads 211

Chapter 14: Broadcasting Your Message on Radio, TV, and Online 213

A Guide to Buying Airtime 214

Knowing some station and ad-buying terminology 214

Achieving broadcast reach, frequency, and rating points 216

Bartering for airtime 218

Broadcast Ad Guidelines 219

Establishing your own broadcast identity 219

Writing your ad 219

Turning your script over to the producers 220

Producing Radio Ads 221

Producing TV Ads 222

Hiring professionals 223

Airing preproduced manufacturer ads 223

Considering Infomercials 224

Logging In to Webinars 225

Forms 226

Chapter 15: Snail-Mailing and E-Mailing Your Customers Directly 227

Using One-to-One Marketing 228

Direct Sales: Do-It-Yourself Distribution 228

Marketing with Direct Mailers 230

Setting up for success with direct mail 230

Deciding between e-mail and “going postal” 231

Making your offer 232

Personalizing your mailer 233

Putting Surface Direct Mail to Work 234

Developing a great list 234

Creating your mailer 237

Sending your mailers 237

Following up 239

Keeping your list current 240

Knowing the difference between direct mail and junk mail 241

E-mail Marketing 241

Keeping your e-mail legal and welcome 242

Rating your e-mail marketing 242

Sending e-mail that gets read and gets results 243

Forms 244

Chapter 16: Brochures, Promotions, Trade Shows, and More 245

Publishing Brochures 245

Differentiating types of brochures 246

Copywriting 248

Designing and printing brochures 249

Getting brochures into the marketplace 251

Making the Most of Newsletters 252

Planning your newsletters 252

Packing newsletters with useful content 253

Producing and circulating e-newsletters 254

Finding Marketing Opportunities throughout Your Business 257

Turning your packages into ad vehicles 257

Building business with gift certificates 257

Getting good use out of business cards 258

Making the most of advertising specialties 259

Choosing and Using Trade Shows 260

Building Sales through Promotions 261

Forms 263

Chapter 17: Public Relations and Publicity 265

The Relationship between Public Relations and Publicity 265

Taking a wide-angle view of public relations 266

Focusing on publicity 267

Becoming a News Source 267

Creating a media kit and online media center 267

Establishing and maintaining an all-important list of media contacts 268

Getting real with publicity expectations 270

Spreading Your News 271

Preparing news releases 272

Managing media interviews 278

Staging news conferences — or not 279

Crisis Communications: Dealing with Bad News 280

Forms 280

Part V: Winning and Keeping Customers 281

Chapter 18: Making Impressions through Networking and Presentations 283

Building a Far-Reaching Network 283

Making Introductions 285

Introducing yourself 285

Introducing your business 286

Polishing Your Presentation 288

Stepping up to the microphone 288

Presenting your proposal or product 289

Forms 293

Chapter 19: Making the Sale 295

Turning Prospects into Customers 295

Navigating the Sale Process 298

Selling redefined 299

Getting off to a good start 300

Negotiating mutually agreeable solutions 302

Watching for buying signals 304

Asking for the order 305

Making buying easy 305

Chapter 20: Enhancing Customer

Service and Developing Loyalty 307

What Customers Want 307

The Fundamentals of Customer Service 308

Mastering the service cycle 308

Evaluating and improving service levels 309

Cultivating “best customers” 310

Creating a customer service environment 312

Dealing with Concerns and Complaints 313

Understanding why customers don’t complain 313

Encouraging complaints 313

Reading customer clues to dissatisfaction 314

Turning complaints into loyalty springboards 314

Making Loyal Customers for Life 315

Valuing your customers 316

Benchmarking satisfaction levels and cultivating loyalty 317

Closing the quality gap 320

Building loyalty through service 320

Launching loyalty programs 321

Forms 322

Part VI: The Part of Tens 323

Chapter 21: Ten Questions to Answer before Choosing a Business Name 325

What Kind of Name Do You Want? 325

Is the Name You Want Available? 326

Is It Easy to Spell? 326

Is It Easy to Say? 327

Is It Original in Your Market Area? 327

Is It Unconventional? 327

Does It Work in Markets Far and Wide? 327

Is It Memorable? 328

Can You Live and Grow with This Name? 328

Are You Ready to Commit to the Name? 328

Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Attract People to Your Business Online 329

Commit to Becoming Findable Online 329

Set a Goal for Your Online Activity 330

Decide on Your Online Identity 330

Establish Your Online Introduction 331

Stake an Online Home Base 331

Build an Online Media Center 332

Get Active Across Social Media 332

Develop a Content-Sharing Program 333

Monitor Your Online Reputation 333

Get and Stay Active Online 334

Chapter 23: Ten Steps to a Great Marketing Plan 335

Step 1: State Your Business Purpose 336

Step 2: Analyze Your Market Situation 336

Step 3: Set Goals and Objectives 336

Step 4: Define Your Market 337

Step 5: Advance Your Position, Brand, and Creative Strategy 337

Step 6: Set Your Marketing Strategies 338

Step 7: Outline Your Tactics 338

Step 8: Establish Your Budget 339

Step 9: Blueprint Your Action Plan 340

Step 10: Think Long Term 340

One Final Step: Use Your Plan 340

Appendix: About the Downloadable Content 341

Index 347