This transcript is Brian Tracy’s short instructional video offering low-cost marketing tactics for small and startup businesses. He presents a roughly ten-item set of guerrilla and e-marketing strategies—crafting a clear marketing message and 8-second elevator pitch, cross-marketing with local businesses, sponsoring local events, networking and asking for referrals, customer-retention tactics (email/text coupons), giving free talks, and using social media automation—to get noticed without large budgets. The advice emphasizes focusing on customer benefits ("what's in it for me?") and taking immediate action.
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Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and today I want to give you some simple marketing tactics that you can use to get your small business noticed. Small business owners usually compete with other local businesses as well as nationally known chains or service organizations. Many small business owners are reluctant to spend much money on marketing as there are equally pressing needs for payroll, stock, rent and other needed cash outlays. And also they can see an immediate return from certain expenditures. And marketing is almost like cigarette smoke. You cannot see the return even though it is substantial. It wasn't too long ago that businesses with small marketing budgets engaged in a marketing strategy called guerrilla marketing. The purpose of this type of marketing is to get noticed without spending much money. Today, many of the techniques used in guerrilla marketing are still very effective, though social media helps small businesses have an even greater reach. Emarketing is the cutting edge of guerrilla marketing today. It's a new form of guerrilla marketing and works hand in hand with the old way of guerrilla marketing. It can be done for little expense. So what can you do to promote your small or startup company at low cost? This post deals with some of the more traditional forms of guerrilla marketing as well as some high tech guerrilla marketing techniques that you can use and that many of your competition don't even know about. Following are tips to help you market your business without depleting your bank account. First, develop a powerful marketing message and a hook to get potential customers attention. Good topics to include on your website or in a brochure about your company. Include a statement of a problem and how your company solves it. The methodology your company uses to achieve results. What makes your company stand apart, your uniqueness and testimonials or case studies. Make sure your marketing message does a great job describing your product or services. Key benefits Second, summarize your message into an 8 second elevator pitch. This is because most adults have an attention span of under 10 seconds. Third, local businesses can band together for cross marketing efforts by asking non competitive local businesses to join the group. Flyers and coupons can be placed by cash registers in cooperating businesses. Mention them on your website and in your social media and they can do the same for you. This is a cheap and effective local marketing. Next, staying local. You can sponsor a local event. It could be a 5k walk for a charity. Sponsoring a little league team or providing goods or services for a charitable beneficiary are just some of the ways that you can get in front of your customers. Fifth, networking. Networking is a terrific way to find businesses to cross market with or simply keep you in mind for a referral to others. The Rotary and Lions Clubs are the old way to do this, and network after work is another way that entrepreneurs can network today. Used together, you can quickly build your own network of people who will market for you and for whom you can market as well. Sixth, be humble, but ask for referrals if your product or service is received well by a customer. Don't be shy about asking for a referral. Most people are happy to help, but usually only if asked. So go ahead and ask for a referral. Say something like oh, by the way, do you know anyone else who could benefit from our services? As simple as that. And people will say, well, as a matter of fact, yes I do. Another thing you can do is what is called the suggestive close is when you ask for a referral, take out your pen and a piece of paper and get ready to write like you absolutely expect a name and phone number and people say oh yes and they will give you the first name that comes to their mind, which will be a friend of theirs who they know and who knows and likes them. Just a little trick that I've used over the years. Next, Build relationships. Keeping a customer is way less expensive than trying to get new ones. This makes it key for you to keep your name in front of your customers. This can be done through email marketing. When a customer is at your store or website, ask for their email address. Just be sure that you disclose your privacy practices and allow for an easy opt out. Be sure that information you send is current, engaging and informative and the information that you send should tie in to your product and your service and how it benefits the customer and how it can benefit the customer in even more ways in the future. So it's always focused at benefits for your customer. 8 Email or text coupons are an excellent way to build traffic. The terms for the redemption of a coupon should be clear. If the coupon is for a free or discounted product or service, make sure to disclose any other fees for redemption like a an enrollment fee or registration fee. The goal of couponing is to get someone to try your goods or services for the first time. Savvy business owners also offer coupons to existing customers by giving them a discount on their next visit to their store, office or site. Another way to promote is give a speech or seminar free to your community on a subject that is helpful to the people in the audience in growing their business. If your store sells only natural fiber products, you could give a speech or a seminar about how these products have a smaller greenhouse footprint than synthetics. They wear longer and are more comfortable as well. Tie it to fashion and you have fashionistas and environmentalists interested in what you have to say. Finally, be sure that you frequently update your social media platforms. Join Facebook and Twitter if you want to showcase your products. Pinterest is another social media site that uses images more than text. Automate your social media postings using a service like Buffer or Hootsuite. Buffer is free for under 5 social media sites. Regardless of how many posts you schedule at any given time. These 10 marketing tips for Small Business will help you to build your brand, engage customers, create brand awareness, and help to keep your brand in the forefront of your consumers minds. And always remember this. Everything that you do using these techniques must answer the question what's in it for me? What's in it for me? It must always solve a problem, answer a question, help the customer achieve a goal, but it must always answer the question what's in it for me? Whenever you are answering that question for your potential customer, they will pay very close attention to you and listen and very often take action. Your suggestion so before we wrap up, I'd like to leave you with a thought to share with your friends and followers. Keep raising the bar on yourself. How can you better serve your customers today? Now I'd love to hear from you. So my question to you today is which of these tactics will help your business the most? The fastest? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you. Thanks for watching. And remember, if you want to change your future, take action. And take action now. If you enjoy this video and feel it was valuable in teaching you about business and marketing success, subscribe to my channel like this video and share this video with your friends. Don't forget to click the button on the screen for a free gift. Thanks again for watching.
