Marketing for small businesses - Part one

When you are starting up in business and worrying about how to make the payments for your overheads marketing can seem a world away from reality but it is something we all do every day in business.

Selling yourself and your products or services to customers is marketing; networking is marketing; chatting on the phone about your business to friends is marketing and lastly and most importantly listening to your customers is marketing. Unless you know what your customers think about you it is impossible to improve your product or service in a constructive way.

Good customer service and great impressions of your products and services are at the centre of good marketing.

So how do you start out?

1. Think about how you currently market your business. You need to know what you already do which is marketing and also consider your financial health, current clients, potential clients, competition, referral sources, staff and time. When you know all these things you can think about what you are doing well and what needs to change in order to make things better. A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is very helpful here.

2. Consider your long term goals - what do you really want from your business? How much money do you want to make, how many hours a week do you want to work, what types of clients do you want and how large do you want your business to be? You may also consider whether or not you want more staff or if you want a national or a local reach.

3. Create a plan for each of your goals and more importantly a call to action. What are you actually going to do to achieve the business you envisage?

4. Consider your marketing tools - what do you do already to market yourself and what could you do? Can you conduct a survey of customers for example using something like Survey Monkey which is free and easy to use? Should you concentrate on emails, social media, leaflets or face to face networking? Can you utilise your local press or write articles for the paper or a magazine? There are a myriad of things you can do to increase both customer satisfaction and to extend your customer base which are neither costly nor involve outside help.

5. Dont forget that marketing is the means to building the business you want but not the end. Ultimately you want to build a sustainable business or grow a business to sell on. Do not spend time, money  and energy on something if it does not progress you towards your goals and dont be sucked into doing the same thing everyone else is. Dont be afraid to be unique and to be yourself after all your business is about you.

So before you consider which tools you are going to use and how to get ahead with your business do some of the hard thinking yourself and answer some of the questions here.

National Customer Service week

In National Customer Service week I think it a great idea to concentrate on what we mean by Customer service as a business and perhaps see if there is any disconnect between that and what customers see as great customer service.

Customer service is the ability to provide and supply a customers needs and wants before, during and after a purchase. 

I think it important that a business does not see customer service as simply being at point of sale but a longitudinal process which is part of a the relationship between customer and business.

One customer has said that is is not about supplying needs and wants but about exceeding them and the pressure on companies to go the extra mile and delight people rather than simply satisfying them is increasing.

So let's re frame our definition to include these expectations as:

Customer service is the consistent ability to exceed the needs of customers before, during and after a purchase. 


This definition raises the bar but is still focussing on the relationship of the organisation to the customer and doesn't really concentrate on things from a customers point of view. Ultimately it is the customer who is at the centre of a successful business and getting things right is crucial to success. the best companies get under their customers skin and really understand what it is they want and need.

Let's take Apple for example and the advent of the new iphone4s. I dont know about you but I am really excited by this and as soon as I saw the adverts and the talking phone answering texts without the use actually using anything other than voice I wanted one. I add to this the fabulous follow up Apple gives it customers in the form of its shops with the staff mixing freely with customers and the genius bar where all questions can be answered. Apple has devoted and fanatic customers and every detail even the packaging is designed to add to the customer experience.

So let's re frame the definition again as:

The customer defines excellence in customer service by the way in which an organisation exceeds and meets their needs. 


It is up to organisations to check in with their customers and ask the question am I exceeding your needs, do we meet your standards and how much further can we go for you?

As an example Zappos an online shoe company in the States takes customer service to great lengths even going so far as to have a secret shopper ring the customer service desk and ask for directions to the nearest pizza place and for that operator to search and get them.

Where there are small businesses trying to corner a local market word of mouth is important  and so customer experience and satisfaction should be the number one priority.