Small Business Marketing: The Secret Revealed!

Posted by Ben Jones on May 8, 2008

Clate Mask wrote an incredible article over at Small Business Trends earlier this week and I thought that a few points he made would be very helpful to our audience here at Ben Means Business. Clate used the example of the “on again, off again” couple (I know a few who still can’t let go of each other.lol) to show how most small business owners approach marketing. The meaning of this metaphor is that when sales are down we feel that we must go out and do things to increase them; and when sales are up, we don’t market at all. Then this cycle just continues over and over again. Sound familiar?………..Yup, it did to me too!

The Lesson for Small Business Marketers

I loved the authors overall point of this article and there were a lot of points in it that really hit home with me (its a shame b/c its a pretty short article. lol); but there was one point that I think really said a lot about marketing and I wanted to share it with you as food for thought. This point was listed as one of three small business marketing truths and it read as follows:

“You are a marketer of information about the problems your product or service solves. You’re not a marketer of product x or service y. “

This statement was so important because it let’s us know that not only are some of us not consistent enough with our marketing, most of us are marketing the wrong thing. This caused some intense thought and what I realized is that all of the most successful products or services solve a popular problem. The first thing that you think of when you picture those products is the problem that they solve or need that they address. We buy most of these products because we want them and not necessarily because need them. So the fact that we still think of them as a solution is due to excellent marketing.

How this applies to your Business

Sometimes we attempt to sell our product or service on the strength of it’s price or individuality because we are trying to seperate ourselves from the pack and that’s fine. However, we must not forget to address the problem. The truth of the matter is that people spend money on things that address their needs(or at least claim to). For instance, even if you have the cheapest toothpaste, but you don’t market the fact that it cleans well, no one will buy it. Most people will write it off as a “cheap knock-off” and then go buy some Crest or Colgate.

So the point here is that no matter what advantages you identify for your product(price, health benefit, etc..), your primary marketing goal should be to show your customers that your product or service addresses their needs. Once you get their attention, you can reel them in with your other strengths.

Small Business Marketing Secret: Keep the main thing the main thing.

What valuable information can you draw from Clate’s statement? Anything you want to add to my point? Leave me a comment…Let’s discuss it

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