Harness the power of marketing and watch your business grow Having your own business isn't the same as having customers, and one is useless without the other. Whether your business is a resale store or a high-tech consulting firm, a law office or a home cleaning service, in today's competitive environment, strategic marketing is essential. If you want your small business to grow, you need a marketing strategy that works. But how do you get people to notice your business without spending a fortune? Packed with savvy tips for low-cost, high-impact campaigns, this friendly guide is your road map to launching a great marketing campaign and taking advantage of the newest technologies and avenues for outreach. Using social media as a marketing tool Communicating with customers Financing a marketing campaign The companion CD includes tools and templates to give you a jump-start on putting your new skills to work If you're looking to give your small business' marketing plan an edge over the competition, Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies has you covered. CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of the e-book file, but are available for download after purchase.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 About This Book 2 What You’re Not to Read 2 Foolish Assumptions 3 How This Book Is Organized 3 Part I: Getting Your Marketing Bearings 3 Part II: Laying the Foundation for Marketing Success 4 Part III: Marketing in a Screen-Connected World 4 Part IV: Getting the Word Out with Ads, Mailers, Promotions, and Publicity 4 Part V: Winning and Keeping Customers 5 Part VI: The Part of Tens 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Where to Go from Here 6 Part I: Getting Your Marketing Bearings 7 Chapter 1: Framing the Marketing Process 9 Seeing the Big Picture 10 Following the marketing wheel of fortune 10 Understanding the relationship between marketing and sales 12 Jump-Starting Your Marketing Program 13 Marketing a start-up business 13 Growing your business 14 Scaling your marketing to meet your goal 14 How Small Business Marketing Is Different 15 Dollar differences 15 Staffing differences 15 Creative differences 16 Strategic differences 16 The small business marketing advantage 16 Making Marketing Your Key to Success 17 Chapter 2: All about Customers 19 Anatomy of a Customer 20 Collecting customer information 20 Geographics: Locating your market areas 24 Demographics: Collecting customer data 25 Psychographics: Customer buying behaviors 27 Determining Which Customers Buy What 29 Viewing your sales by market segment 29 Matching customers with distribution channels 31 Catering to screen-connected customers 33 Forms 34 Chapter 3: Seeing Your Product through Your Customers’ Eyes 35 Getting to Know Your Product 35 When service is your product 36 Your product is what Google says it is 38 Illogical, Irrational, and Real Reasons People Buy What You Sell 38 Buying Decisions: Rarely about Price, Always about Value 39 Calculating the value formula 40 Riding the price/value teeter-totter 41 Evaluating your pricing 42 Raising prices 43 Presenting prices 43 The Care and Feeding of a Product Line 44 Enhancing the appeal of existing products 45 Raising a healthy product 46 Developing new products 47 Managing your product offerings 49 Forms 51 Chapter 4: Sizing Up Competitors and Staking Out Market Share 53 Playing the Competitive Field 53 Speaking the language of competition 54 Knowing what you’re up against 55 Understanding how to compete 56 Winning Your Share of the Market 56 Defining your direct competition 56 Moving up the competitive ladder 58 Calculating Your Market Share 59 Sizing up your target market 59 Doing the math 59 Increasing Your Market Share 61 Forms 62 Chapter 5: Setting Your Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Budgets 63 Where Are You Going, Anyway? 64 The “vision” thing 64 Your statement of purpose 65 Success stories 65 Defining Goals and Objectives Simply 66 Setting goals and objectives 67 Planning strategies 68 Putting goals, objectives, and strategies into action 68 Following the fail-safe planning sequence 70 Budgeting to Reach Your Goals 70 Realistic talk about small business marketing budgets 71 How much should you be spending? 71 Forms 74 Part II: Laying the Foundation for Marketing Success 75 Chapter 6: Taking Stock of Your Business Image 77 Making First Impressions 77 Encountering your business through online searches 79 Arriving at your website 80 Managing e-mail impressions 81 Arriving by telephone 82 Approaching your business in person 84 Auditing the Impressions Your Business Makes 87 Surveying your marketing materials and communications 88 Creating an impression inventory 89 Improving the impressions you’re making 90 Forms 90 Chapter 7: Forging Your Brand 91 What Brands Are and Do 91 Unlocking the power and value of a brand 92 Tipping the balance online 93 Building a Powerful Brand 93 Being consistent to power your brand 95 Taking six brand-management steps 95 Your Market Position: The Birthplace of Your Brand 97 Seeing how positioning happens 97 Determining your positioning strategy 98 Conveying Your Position and Brand through Taglines 99 Balancing Personal and Business Brands 101 Maintaining and Protecting Your Brand 102 Staying consistent with your brand message and creative strategy 102 Controlling your brand presentation 104 Forms 106 Chapter 8: Creating Marketing Communications That Work 107 Starting with Good Objectives 108 Defining what you want to accomplish 108 Putting creative directions in writing 109 Developing Effective Marketing Communications 114 Steering the creative process toward a “big idea” 115 Brainstorming 116 Following simple advertising rules 117 Making Media Selections 118 Selecting from the media menu 118 Deciding which media vehicles to use and when 119 The Making of a Mass Media Schedule 121 Balancing reach and frequency 121 Timing your ads 123 Evaluating Your Efforts 123 Forms 124 Chapter 9: Hiring Help When You Need It 125 Reaching Out to Marketing Pros 125 When to bring in marketing experts 126 Who to call for help 126 What kind of expertise to hire 127 Choosing and Working with an Agency 128 Requesting agency proposals 129 Interviewing agencies 130 Preparing the client-agency agreement 131 Understanding agency fees 132 Working with your agency 133 Hiring Help for Website Creation 134 Looking for help 134 Getting clear about your needs 135 Interviewing website designers 136 Finalizing your choice 137 Handing off the content 138 Forms 138 Part III: Marketing in a Screen-Connected World 139 Chapter 10: Establishing an Online Presence 141 Pulling People to Your Business Online 141 Setting Your Goals for Online Visibility 143 Claiming Your Online Identity 143 Registering for a domain name 144 Reserving your social media user name 145 Establishing Your Online Home Base 146 Website basics 147 Contact sites 147 Brochure sites 148 Support sites 148 Lead-generating sites 148 Mobile websites 148 E-commerce sites 150 Building Your Site 151 Cracking the site-building code 151 Incorporating attributes of a good site 152 Optimizing your site for search engines 154 Evaluating the strength of your site 155 Promoting your site 156 Advertising Online 157 Banner ads 157 Pay per click (PPC) ads 157 Forms 158 Chapter 11: Getting Interactive with Social Media 159 Benefiting from Social Media Activity 160 Getting Started in Four Necessary Steps 160 1. Define your objectives 160 2. Choose the name you’ll use across all social media networks 161 3. Develop your social media introduction 162 4. Set up an online home base 163 Diving into Social Media 163 Facebook 164 Twitter 166 LinkedIn 168 Google+ 169 Pinterest 169 Location-based and check-in sites 170 Rating and review sites 171 Announcing Your Social Media Debut 173 Keeping Your Social Media Efforts Active and Engaging 174 Sharing content 174 Becoming a content conduit 175 Getting conversational 176 Keeping an Eye on How You’re Doing 176 Monitoring your social media mentions 176 Measuring your social media effectiveness 177 Forms 178 Chapter 12: Packaging Your Message for Blogs and Other Online Channels 179 Joining the 200-Million Blog Contingent 180 Who blogs? 180 Why blog? 180 Launching a Blog 181 Getting started 182 Committing to a blog 183 Crafting your blog-post approach 185 Using blog posts as the backbone of your online content-distribution strategy 187 Adding video to blog posts 188 Cross-Promoting Off-line and Online Content 189 Turning news into content 190 Giving long life to presentations 190 Forms 191 Part IV: Getting the Word Out with Ads, Mailers, Promotions, and Publicity 193 Chapter 13: Creating and Placing Print and Outdoor Ads 195 Writing and Designing Your Ads 196 Packing power into headlines 196 Writing convincing copy 198 Making design decisions 199 Translating ad production terminology 201 Making Sense of Print Media Rates 202 Placing Newspaper Ads 203 Scheduling your placements 204 Using small-budget, small-size ads 204 Requesting your ad placement 205 Finding value in the classified section 206 Placing Magazine Ads 206 Selecting magazines 207 Scheduling placements 207 Considering Yellow Pages, Directories, and Their Digital Alternatives 209 Creating and placing print directory ads 210 Getting found in online directories 211 Using Billboards and Out-of-Home Ads 211 Chapter 14: Broadcasting Your Message on Radio, TV, and Online 213 A Guide to Buying Airtime 214 Knowing some station and ad-buying terminology 214 Achieving broadcast reach, frequency, and rating points 216 Bartering for airtime 218 Broadcast Ad Guidelines 219 Establishing your own broadcast identity 219 Writing your ad 219 Turning your script over to the producers 220 Producing Radio Ads 221 Producing TV Ads 222 Hiring professionals 223 Airing preproduced manufacturer ads 223 Considering Infomercials 224 Logging In to Webinars 225 Forms 226 Chapter 15: Snail-Mailing and E-Mailing Your Customers Directly 227 Using One-to-One Marketing 228 Direct Sales: Do-It-Yourself Distribution 228 Marketing with Direct Mailers 230 Setting up for success with direct mail 230 Deciding between e-mail and “going postal” 231 Making your offer 232 Personalizing your mailer 233 Putting Surface Direct Mail to Work 234 Developing a great list 234 Creating your mailer 237 Sending your mailers 237 Following up 239 Keeping your list current 240 Knowing the difference between direct mail and junk mail 241 E-mail Marketing 241 Keeping your e-mail legal and welcome 242 Rating your e-mail marketing 242 Sending e-mail that gets read and gets results 243 Forms 244 Chapter 16: Brochures, Promotions, Trade Shows, and More 245 Publishing Brochures 245 Differentiating types of brochures 246 Copywriting 248 Designing and printing brochures 249 Getting brochures into the marketplace 251 Making the Most of Newsletters 252 Planning your newsletters 252 Packing newsletters with useful content 253 Producing and circulating e-newsletters 254 Finding Marketing Opportunities throughout Your Business 257 Turning your packages into ad vehicles 257 Building business with gift certificates 257 Getting good use out of business cards 258 Making the most of advertising specialties 259 Choosing and Using Trade Shows 260 Building Sales through Promotions 261 Forms 263 Chapter 17: Public Relations and Publicity 265 The Relationship between Public Relations and Publicity 265 Taking a wide-angle view of public relations 266 Focusing on publicity 267 Becoming a News Source 267 Creating a media kit and online media center 267 Establishing and maintaining an all-important list of media contacts 268 Getting real with publicity expectations 270 Spreading Your News 271 Preparing news releases 272 Managing media interviews 278 Staging news conferences — or not 279 Crisis Communications: Dealing with Bad News 280 Forms 280 Part V: Winning and Keeping Customers 281 Chapter 18: Making Impressions through Networking and Presentations 283 Building a Far-Reaching Network 283 Making Introductions 285 Introducing yourself 285 Introducing your business 286 Polishing Your Presentation 288 Stepping up to the microphone 288 Presenting your proposal or product 289 Forms 293 Chapter 19: Making the Sale 295 Turning Prospects into Customers 295 Navigating the Sale Process 298 Selling redefined 299 Getting off to a good start 300 Negotiating mutually agreeable solutions 302 Watching for buying signals 304 Asking for the order 305 Making buying easy 305 Chapter 20: Enhancing Customer Service and Developing Loyalty 307 What Customers Want 307 The Fundamentals of Customer Service 308 Mastering the service cycle 308 Evaluating and improving service levels 309 Cultivating “best customers” 310 Creating a customer service environment 312 Dealing with Concerns and Complaints 313 Understanding why customers don’t complain 313 Encouraging complaints 313 Reading customer clues to dissatisfaction 314 Turning complaints into loyalty springboards 314 Making Loyal Customers for Life 315 Valuing your customers 316 Benchmarking satisfaction levels and cultivating loyalty 317 Closing the quality gap 320 Building loyalty through service 320 Launching loyalty programs 321 Forms 322 Part VI: The Part of Tens 323 Chapter 21: Ten Questions to Answer before Choosing a Business Name 325 What Kind of Name Do You Want? 325 Is the Name You Want Available? 326 Is It Easy to Spell? 326 Is It Easy to Say? 327 Is It Original in Your Market Area? 327 Is It Unconventional? 327 Does It Work in Markets Far and Wide? 327 Is It Memorable? 328 Can You Live and Grow with This Name? 328 Are You Ready to Commit to the Name? 328 Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Attract People to Your Business Online 329 Commit to Becoming Findable Online 329 Set a Goal for Your Online Activity 330 Decide on Your Online Identity 330 Establish Your Online Introduction 331 Stake an Online Home Base 331 Build an Online Media Center 332 Get Active Across Social Media 332 Develop a Content-Sharing Program 333 Monitor Your Online Reputation 333 Get and Stay Active Online 334 Chapter 23: Ten Steps to a Great Marketing Plan 335 Step 1: State Your Business Purpose 336 Step 2: Analyze Your Market Situation 336 Step 3: Set Goals and Objectives 336 Step 4: Define Your Market 337 Step 5: Advance Your Position, Brand, and Creative Strategy 337 Step 6: Set Your Marketing Strategies 338 Step 7: Outline Your Tactics 338 Step 8: Establish Your Budget 339 Step 9: Blueprint Your Action Plan 340 Step 10: Think Long Term 340 One Final Step: Use Your Plan 340 Appendix: About the Downloadable Content 341 Index 347