Business Promotions And Marketing Ideas For Offline Small Business

Business promotions and marketing ideas sometimes may elude you, as a small business owner, because you are busy running and operating your business. This hub provides seven business promotions and marketing ideas that should help. They are especially appropriate for offline small business owners.

Small Business Promotions and Marketing Ideas - News Releases

Writing and publishing news releases is the first of these effective business promotions and marketing ideas that you can use to market your business.

Writing a news release is the easy part. Getting it published is more difficult and requires making the news release newsworthy. The trick is to write a release with real news value instead of one that just brags about your business.

Media representatives consider brag releases as disguised advertising. They are in the business of selling advertising, not giving it away. So to get a news release used, you have to provide information that is useful to media audiences.

One way to do this is to provide a local angle or different slant to a major news story. This requires monitoring news and tying your business and products to major news stories.

A publishable news release can also relate to special holidays that relate to your business. You can use your business expertise to comment on the holiday or provide insights to its significance.

Another good way to get news releases published is to announce a coming event that will interest many of the media’s audiences. That doesn’t mean an upcoming sale. Again that’s advertising.

Other ways that you can produce newsworthy news releases is to:

• Provide information to aid people to do something better.
• Provide information that is odd and amusing.
• Provide research that will interest people.

When you keep the following thoughts in mind, you can get your news releases published:

• The media are in business of providing information that their audiences want.
• Income for media derive from advertising so media can’t give it away.
• Media representatives are always looking for stories that will interest their audiences.
• Media audiences aren’t interested in your business unless the information relates to them and their lives.

Small Business Promotions and Marketing Ideas - Special Events

Special events provide the second of the seven business promotions and marketing ideas that you can use to market your business.

Special events are newsworthy and provide opportunities for you to get news coverage as well as opportunities to attract potential customers.

You can sponsor a special event alone or cooperate with non-profit organizations or other business owners. Working with others is best, especially if you are inexperienced at conducting special events.

If you work with a non-profit on an event to help others, the event is newsworthy. With your participation or your business’s sponsorship of the event, you can get media a mention in news stories about the event. You may also get your photograph with the nonprofit representatives. Again don’t make this a brag story about your business.

Similarly, you can cooperate with several other business owners on an event. Such multi-business participation makes the event more newsworthy so it attracts more media attention and more people to the event.

But the best reason to work with others on a special event is to distribute the workload. Special events require loads of planning, preparing, delegating, etc. They need to be coordinated by someone with special events experience.

Once you acquires that experience, you can host a special event alone, but the event has to focus on helping or interesting the media’s audiences rather than making a profit.

You must be prepared to do considerable planning and preparation with lots of support the day of the event. Many things can and do go wrong at special events. If you are not prepared to handle the logistics of the event, it can do your business more harm than good.

Business Promotions and Marketing Ideas - Flyers

Flyers provide the third of the seven business promotions and marketing ideas that you can use to market your business.

Flyers are inexpensive. You can produce a simple flyer with your office equipment, a computer and printer. A color printer enables you to add eye-catching color.

Flyers are also inexpensive because you can print on one side of regular 81/2 by 11 office paper.

They work great for:

• making quick announcements,
• promoting special events and sales,
• advertising for employees.

They can be posted in your business, in other places that give you permission, on automobile windows, in doorknobs of homes, and hand delivered to people on the streets. In fact you can distribute them anyway that doesn’t break codes or regulations.

Flyers should be kept simple so that people just walking by get the message. This means a large headline at the top with a similarly sized punch line at the bottom. In between provide sub points in a list that quickly summarize the details of what you’re promoting. Always be sure to include your logo and contact information.

This information can appear either vertically or horizontally on the paper. A sample of both orientations are provided in the right column.

Small Business Promotions and Marketing Ideas - Brochures

Brochures provide the fourth of the seven business promotions and marketing ideas that you can use to market your business.

Brochures are relatively long-term publications for inexpensively promoting your business.

Like flyers they can be distributed in numerous ways, but they are more complicated and expensive to produce. They differ from flyers in that they:

• have more longevity ,
• are more general to your business,
• are more often than not, professionally printed.

Brochures are always folded and printed on both sides of the paper. The way they are folded dictates their design and layout.

By far the most popular brochure fold is the tri-fold. The paper is actually folded twice horizontally, making three panels with the outside right panel being the front cover. A layout for a tri-fold is provided in the right column.

Brochures are often displayed on counters or in display racks. Sometimes they are directly mailed to customers or publics. In this case the outside, middle panel is usually designed as a self-mailer as seen in the tri-fold illustration.

Small Business Promotions and Marketing Ideas - Direct mail

Direct mail provides the fifth of the seven business promotions and marketing ideas that you can use to market your business.

Direct mail can be as simple as sending a postcard or a brochure to your target market. But many are complex multi-publication packages that include a cover letter, a brochure, an order form, and more.

Direct mail enables you to can send your promotions just to your target market members without spending money to reach other people.

Direct mail messages require:

• speaking your target market’s language,
• providing something that appeals specifically to its members,
• including an incentive to respond directly and immediately.

Before producing your own direct mail package, be sure to consider the influence of size and weight of the package on mailing costs. It’s a good idea to talk to your local postal representatives or to go online and check for information with the United States Postal Service at http://www.usps.com/createmail/createdirect.htm?from=home&page=customizeddirectmailor your nation’s postal service.

Besides the package, the list is the most important part of a direct mail campaign. Many list brokers provide lists at a range of prices. You can do a search on the Internet or post a request at http://www.buyerzone.com/marketing/mailing_lists/qz_questions_758.jhtml

Provide the specific characteristics that differentiate your target market. Also provide the number of addresses that you want. Some brokers require a minimum fee that covers 5000, but others will give you a better price for a smaller list.

You’ll get several mailing list brokers calling or emailing you with a bid. Usually you’ll need to communicate further with the ones that most interest you.

It’s also a good idea to have your package printed with a business that also provides mailing services. They often charge no more than what it will cost you to buy stamps. And believe me, you don’t want to address and stamp 5,000 pieces.

Small Business Promotions and Marketing Ideas - Free and Inexpensive Advertisements

Free and inexpensive ads provide the sixth of the seven business promotions and marketing ideas that you can use to market your business.

The problem with most advertising is that it reaches many people not in your target market so you are paying to reach people who are never going to become your customers.

So the trick to using advertising is to either assure that the medium targets the same market as you do and none that you don’t, or to get the advertising free or inexpensively.

Classified ads are relatively inexpensive. If you are selling a product at a reduced cost, a classified ad may get you some business.

Also consider advertising in newsletters and local magazines that target your market. Sometimes you can get some real deals with local radio and television stations by advertising when your target market members are listening and watching, but the time isn't prime.

Ask your business associates what they use and ask your customers what they read, watch and listen to. You'll get ideas that may never have occured to you.

Small Business Promotions and Marketing Ideas – Networking

Networking provides the seventh of the seven business promotions and marketing ideas that you can use to market your business.

Networking is forming relationships with people within your target market and other business owners, who may be candidates for joint venture promotions and marketing.

This requires that you:

• belong to organizations that they belong to,
• attend the events that they attend,
• participate in discussions that interest them, and
• develop relationships with them.

For instance, if you have a local business, you will want to join the local Chamber of Commerce. If your target market members go to church, you should go to church. If your target market is young families with school age children, you will want to participate in the Parent Teacher Association.

Such networking, not only builds relationships, but also helps you to determine what marketing appeals will work best with your target market, and the types of products or services that they want and need.

If you use this information to develop your business promotions and marketing ideas, they will be more successful. Plus, your target market members will grow to like and trust you because you provide what they need, speak their language and cater to their interests.

Many successful business owners credit networking as the core of their success. It may seem like socializing, but the results are good for your business.

Conclusion

You may find that some of these business promotions and marketing ideas work better for you than others. Try them all, concentrate on and repeat often the ones that work best for you and your business.

Of course you can add your own business promotions and marketing ideas to these seven. As you do, your list will grow to include many business promotions and marketing ideas.

To read more about marketing by this author, see

http://StrategicMarketSegmentation.com/blog

Copyright - Linda P. Morton - Best Books Plus - 2008

Business Promotions And Marketing Ideas For Offline Small Business