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Micro-Size Your Marketing to Reach Bigger Goals

If you’re like most of our small business Marketing clients, one of your goals for 2012 is to increase sales. And if you’re like a lot of the prospects we’ve been talking to lately, there’s a good chance you’re concocting some lavish marketing campaigns in order to reach that goal.

If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed at the thought, the good news is that you don’t have to get fancy and extravagant with your marketing and advertising materials in order for them to be effective. In fact, some of the most successful marketing is often a bit “dull”.  So, rather than trying to get overly lavish, just keep these few tips in mind:

Focus On Only One Point

Many small business owners try to get more bang for their buck from their marketing campaigns, so they try to cram in as much as possible. They try to sell multiple items in one campaign, or speak to several different audiences in the same Message.

But your marketing campaign will be more effective – and actually easier to create – if you focus on only one point at a time. That doesn’t mean you’re limited to selling only one product or service to each customer.  In fact, after the first sale, you should definitely start marketing the next product or service to your new customer. Just do it one product at a time.

Present your Message in Alternative Places

You don’t have to get extravagant and blanket the entire universe with your message in order to reach the limited few who might be interested. Instead, go to where the limited few are.

Sure, if you place your billboard on the side of a bus, it’s going to get seen by a lot of people. But how many of those people are going to care about what you have to offer? And do you really want to spend the money reaching those people who don’t care?

Instead of macro, start thinking about micro-messaging. Break your target audience into small segments and present your message to these micro-populations instead.  Do you have a client segment that are avid knitters? Start posting in the Knitting and Needle Work community forum. If you notice a segment of your clients all go to the same church, place an ad in the church bulletin. By creating many smaller segments, you can still reach a large number of prospects, but you’ll be doing it on a micro-scale – and spending micro-money. Adding up the expense to micro-advertise in multiple places will still be less expensive than one big bulletin board on the city bus. And it will be more effective because it will allow you to create a more targeted message.

And speaking of targeted message, that brings us to our third point…

Make the Conversation a 2-Way Street

When creating extravagant marketing campaigns, most businesses spend the majority of time and budget trying to get the presentation right. The photographer is high-end, the lighting has to be perfect, the copywriter is top-notch and on and on. They get so wrapped up in presenting their own voice, they forget about the customer’s voice.

But today it’s so easy to create an open dialogue between yourself and your prospects, and it doesn’t have to be lavish or expensive. Social media allows for two-way interaction before, during and after the sale. Your website can include a Q&A forum. Webinars and on-line presentations are even available now to fit within an entrepreneur’s  budget. These channels are all relatively easy and inexpensive, and they speed up the “know, like, and trust” timeframe.

So when you start thinking about your 2012 sales goals, don’t get overwhelmed thinking about the over-the-top marketing campaigns you’ll need to create. Instead, scale back your message, micro-size your segments, and develop an open dialogue, and you’ll be amazed at the results you get within a much smaller budget.

Photo by Independent We Stand



This post first appeared on Small Business Marketing Consultant, please read the originial post: here

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Micro-Size Your Marketing to Reach Bigger Goals

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