What to do when Marketing Your Small Business isn’t fun anymore!
Nov 30, 2009 Advertising
The overwhelming majority of small business owners that I’ve interviewed struggle with marketing and making it fun.
It’s true. Marketing can be challenging, labour-some, and not the least rewarding. It’s not unlike any other activity you take up. It requires a little bit of effort, the right know-how, and lots of practice. Of course having someone to guide you and fall back on for support, like a coach or mentor, helps big time.
The biggest take-away from all the clients I’ve worked with across Canada, the US, and Europe, has been that whatever it is you’re doing for your business, has to be fun.
Make Marketing Fun
Here are some great tips on how to make marketing fun.
* Keep Score – Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are important and they’re fun to keep and to beat. For example, the number of phone calls, appointments, proposals, clients, etc.
* Marketing Calendar – Make marketing fun and real. Stop talking about what you’re going to do and put it into action. Schedule all your marketing tactics for the year, ahead of time, monitor them and motivate staff with all the marketing buzz about to be unleashed.
* Sales Board – Lets keep score of your world records and statistics leading up to your new Sales Records. You need a 4 month planner that just like the Marketing Calendar is visible to you. Keep track of # of leads, appointments, and sales at a minimum and determine what other stats would be fun to track.
* Attend Marketing Seminars – Learn more about marketing and seek out a coach and mentor that can put your marketing on steroids. Visit www.MarketingWorkshops.ca for a list of upcoming Marketing Events.
* Rewards – All your efforts need to be rewarded, the more success, the bigger the reward. The more fun marketing becomes and the more results you get!
* Prizes and Competition – Who doesn’t like to win a prize? You’ll find yourself and your staff working harder to win a prize for most amount of referrals. Not convinced? Try it!
* Referral Program – Introduce a family and friends discount for your staff. Kick it up a notch and offer a commission to your staff for bringing in new business. Post the results in the lunch room and watch the staff get excited about who is going to win that trip to Hawaii for the all-time best sales quarter. The best part is you get to write it off and you qualify as well!
* Set Goals – Without goals, any road will take you there. Many small business owners lack the other, more important set of goals. Marketing Goals. For example, promotions, newsletters, campaigns, for this week/month/quarter. It’s alot more fun then it sounds, so roll up your sleeves and get planning.
* Consider taking on a mentor or coach -Simply put, experience is key. I took up golf one year and I learned more in 30 minutes with a golf instructor than hours wacking balls into the rough. In hindsight I spent more money trying to figure it out on my own. It’s fun getting an expert help out and brainstorm with.
* Results – Keeping track of results and conversions will make you realize where to concentrate your efforts and what really works. I’ve developed entire systems around tracking conversions that did more than just keep stats. Tracking conversions is highly motivational and gives you the insight you need to increase leads, convert more sales, and get more results. Smarter, better, faster.
* Promotions – The right promotion makes marketing your business easy. Sales becomes alot more fun when it doesn’t feel like sales. Marketing does just that and promotions make it all come together almost effortlessly.
What do you do when no matter what you do marketing still isn’t fun?
You’ve either not implemented all of the above or there are key elements missing. Marketing isn’t easy and you don’t have to do it all on your own. Get smart, get savvy, get results… Get yourself a coach that will bring you to the next level. Attend my Marketing Webinar at http://www.MarketingWorkshops.ca and I’ll show you how to put your marketing efforts on steroids and make them fun. I guarantee it!
Want to find out more about Marketing Your Small Business, then visit Gregor Anton’s site on how to Put Your Marketing On Steroids .
categories: Marketing,Small Business,Advertising,Sales,Sales and Marketing,Small Business Marketing,Business Consulting,Self Employed
Tags: Advertising, business consulting, marketing, Sales, sales and marketing, self employed, small business, small business marketing
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