Marketing dollars are precious, especially when you’re a small business.  As a small business you want to use your limited marketing budget to get the maximum amount of returns on it.  Growing the cusomer base is the name of the game.  To achieve the best results follow these top 10 marketing tips.

1.  Don”T Advertise Like Big Businesses:

Big businesses have large advertising budgets that they use to create brand recognition that leads to future sales.  They advertise in some of the more expensive mediums such as television, magazines,  billboards, product placement, sponsorships (such as Nascar, sports teams, etc.), newspapers.  As a small businesses you have a very small advertising budget.  You have to focus on making immediate sales.  You have to focus on the most likely pool of customers, lure them to your business and make the sale without exceeding your budget.  Focus on “no-cost” and “low-cost” advertising mediums.  They include word-of-mouth, Social Media, Direct mailing, etc. 

2.  Engage In Collaborative Marketing:

As a small business with very small advertising budget you can stretch the reach of those dollars by engaging in collaborative marketing.  Collaborative marketing is where you team up with out businesses small or large and share in the cost of advertising your business.  Learn more about Collaborative marketing. 

3.  Use Existing Customers:

Use existing customers to gain new customers.  Your existing customers already know and trust your.  They like products and service you provide, hence the reason they keep coming back.  So, why not use them to help gain new customers.  You can do this by offering existing customers incentives (such as discounts, free products, etc.) for bringing a new customer. 

4.  Tell Your Own Story:

When you market your business you should tell your own story.  People are attracted by personal stories.  You can observe this on an online e-commerce site such as etsy.com.  On Etsy.com people sells products that they make themselves.  They market their products through their personal story.  As a result their businesses have experienced rapid growth.  They grew their customer base with people all around the world. 

5.  Know Your Target Audience:

There is no point in spending scarce marketing dollars on people who are not likely to buy your products or services.  Avoid this mistake by knowing who your target audience is.  Ask yourself, who are the most likely people to buy my products or services?.  To get to the answer to this question you have to look at features such as age, gender, profession, ethnicity, income level, resident location, marital status, parenthood, educational level, etc.  It is easy to know what your target audience is if you know what your products or services do and who can benefit most from them.

6.  Differentiate Your Business:

When you advertise you have to make your business stand out.  Being different is what gets you noticed.  Find out how other busniesses in your industry are presenting themselves in their marketing campaign.  If people are already getting the same service somewhere else they will need a good reason to change and get it from somewhere else.  Figure out a way to differentiate your business from their’s by articulating any of the following: a better price; a better product; a better service delivery; better hours; faster service; complimentary services; a better location; etc. 

7.  Make An Emotional Appeal:

When you tell the story of your business (or products and services) you have to make an emotional appeal to your potential customers.  People want to know that you care about them.  When you appeal to them on an emotional level they’re likely to believe that you’re catering to their needs.  Instead of saying that buying this car will enable you to get from point A to point B, say this buying this car will enable you to go visit with friends and family whenever you want to.  You have to figure out what the emotional appeal is for the product or service that you’re providing and come up with the right emotional appeal.

8.  Market on A Budget:

Don’t start your marketing campaign without a budget.  Identify the amount of money you can afford to spend every month then determine what is the best way to spend that money to achieve the maximum outcome.  Having a budget prevents you from being lured into marketing schemes that puts you in debt.

9.  Manage Your Online Reputation:

Your online reputation can kill your business.  Managing your online reputation is now a critical part of marketing your business.  The Intenet has made it much easier for customers and competitors to create a negative image of your business.  Bad reviews travels fast.  You have to counter this by being vigilant about what is being written and said about you on the Internet.  You have to dedicated resources to doing this by doing it yourself, hiring a new employee to do it for you or outsourcing the task to businesses that provide this service. 

10. Measure Marketing Results:

There is no point in engaging in a marketing campaign if you’re not measuring the results.  You have to know how effective the marketing method is so that you can determine whether or not you should keep using it or use another method.  If a method is working, you want to keep using it and if it is not, you want to switch to something else.  If you’re using social media such a Facebook or Twitter you can see how many Likes or Followers you’re getting.  You can use the google analytics to see website traffic and measure the increase in traffic when you use a marketing method to attract people to your website.   Likewise, you see how many people are walking into your storefront during a marketing campaign to attract people to your store.