These days it is impossible to succeed in small business without spending significant amount of money on marketing and advertising. However, many small business owners feel that no matter how much money they spend on advertising they can’t seem to boost the sales they had hoped for.
We saw this happen to our business too when we used to own them. We would send out advertising inserts in the newspaper and direct mails only to see the sales go up by $300 – $400 in the following week. This doesn’t even cover the money spent on placing an advertisement.
After looking at this very carefully and talking to fellow small business owners we realized that the root of the problem was that we were just one amongst the hundreds of other small businesses who were vying for consumers’ attention.
To be successful in this advertising game you have to stand out from the crowd. You have to be unique, may be even idiosyncratic, to get attention of the consumer and bring them to your business. Below we have laid out several approaches that have been tried by several small business owners with great success. These approaches have generated huge jump in sales and brought in number of new customers.
Crazy Discount Day – Every business gives out discount these days; so what is it that you can do to grab customer’s attention? One of our business colleagues used to have crazy discount day every few months where he would offer large pizza for only 3 dollars compared to 10 or more dollars for the regular price charged by everyone. This used to bring in boatload of new customers. Even thought this was not profitable; he would look at it as a marketing cost to generate new customers. Obviously, you don’t want to do this very often; but if done once every3 months it can generate excitement in the customers.
Groupon.com – If you don’t know about this latest twist in online buying you are not paying attention to what’s going on in the online world. This group buying web site offers a huge discount to the customers from one business per day. The discount is valid only if large number of customers sign up for it. The benefit of using this for your business is that it brings in a huge number of new customers; although you pay a significant of part of your revenue to Groupon. If you can hold onto many of these customers as regular ones you can reap large benefit from this. Be warned that in the first few days of distributing this deal you will see more than 500% jump in customers so be prepared to handle them.
Loyalty Cards – You may have seen this being used at number of places. It is particularly popular with services businesses such as haircut salons; whereby you purchase their service certain number of times and the next one is free. Although this does not generate large spike in new customers it does build loyalty amongst your existing customers.
Day of the Week Deals – This is similar to Crazy Discount Day promotion mentioned earlier. The difference is instead of having the discount on just one day you rotate it throughout the week on an ongoing basis. The discount has to be substantial to bring in large number of customers – both new and existing. Usually, you can make up for the discount when customers by additional items besides the one that is on large discount.
What other marketing techniques have you tried that has generated large success? Let us know in the comments below.
We saw this happen to our business too when we used to own them. We would send out advertising inserts in the newspaper and direct mails only to see the sales go up by $300 – $400 in the following week. This doesn’t even cover the money spent on placing an advertisement.
After looking at this very carefully and talking to fellow small business owners we realized that the root of the problem was that we were just one amongst the hundreds of other small businesses who were vying for consumers’ attention.
To be successful in this advertising game you have to stand out from the crowd. You have to be unique, may be even idiosyncratic, to get attention of the consumer and bring them to your business. Below we have laid out several approaches that have been tried by several small business owners with great success. These approaches have generated huge jump in sales and brought in number of new customers.
Crazy Discount Day – Every business gives out discount these days; so what is it that you can do to grab customer’s attention? One of our business colleagues used to have crazy discount day every few months where he would offer large pizza for only 3 dollars compared to 10 or more dollars for the regular price charged by everyone. This used to bring in boatload of new customers. Even thought this was not profitable; he would look at it as a marketing cost to generate new customers. Obviously, you don’t want to do this very often; but if done once every3 months it can generate excitement in the customers.
Groupon.com – If you don’t know about this latest twist in online buying you are not paying attention to what’s going on in the online world. This group buying web site offers a huge discount to the customers from one business per day. The discount is valid only if large number of customers sign up for it. The benefit of using this for your business is that it brings in a huge number of new customers; although you pay a significant of part of your revenue to Groupon. If you can hold onto many of these customers as regular ones you can reap large benefit from this. Be warned that in the first few days of distributing this deal you will see more than 500% jump in customers so be prepared to handle them.
Loyalty Cards – You may have seen this being used at number of places. It is particularly popular with services businesses such as haircut salons; whereby you purchase their service certain number of times and the next one is free. Although this does not generate large spike in new customers it does build loyalty amongst your existing customers.
Day of the Week Deals – This is similar to Crazy Discount Day promotion mentioned earlier. The difference is instead of having the discount on just one day you rotate it throughout the week on an ongoing basis. The discount has to be substantial to bring in large number of customers – both new and existing. Usually, you can make up for the discount when customers by additional items besides the one that is on large discount.
What other marketing techniques have you tried that has generated large success? Let us know in the comments below.
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