Marketing Tips for Small Businesses is a hub that shares basic corporate marketing strategy you can apply to the simplest of business enterprises in order to help you to be as successful as you can be! Learn how to identify your company image and target market, why you need to hire a professional copywriter and copyeditor, and how to use a few simple tools for self-promotion of your business. This hub is in support of private enterprise - learn what the corporate marketing teams know and use their strategies for your own small-business success. Good luck!

As a professional writer-editor, I frequently encounter clients who are not sure exactly what I do. Often times when people are just starting out on a new business venture, they are accustomed to doing everything themselves. When stressing to pull together the many components involved in launching a new product, writing can fall to the end of the priority list. That is, until someone discovers there was a spelling mistake in that last run of 10,000 labels - and the results become quite costly.

WHAT A COPYWRITER DOES FOR YOUR BUSINESS

A professional copywriter generates the written word (copy) you need for things such as product labels, web pages, product information sheets, advertisements, media kits, mail-outs, press releases, articles and so on. You may think ‘it's just writing - surely I can do this!' but the truth is a great amount of care and detail goes into the crafting of text for promotional purposes. When you hire a copywriter with a marketing background, you gain the skills of a professional who knows how to use words to sell your product for you - an ally who can create dynamic visual images and emotional connections through text. This is one of the foundations of a strong marketing strategy.

WHAT AN EDITOR DOES FOR YOUR BUSINESS

An editor is responsible for the proofreading of all written copy produced in relation to your business. Errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar can seriously hurt your professional image when appearing on promotional materials. You have invested a great deal of time, energy and finances to launch your product - you want to make sure that you are represented to your customers in the most pleasing and professional way possible. Few people these days have been trained in the subtleties of English grammar - you want to make sure your copy is squeaky-clean, from correct spelling to hyphenation rules.

The major players in the market are using a professional editor and marketing specialist - if you aren't, it is going to show in the copy you produce. Poor-quality writing in your promotional materials is like showing up to a formal event in jeans and sneakers. The bottom line: you want to give your product the best chance it has for success. Appearing professional in the marketplace is extremely important.

© 2007 JILL STEPHANIE MORGYN, COURTESY OF MORGYN CONSULTING, www.morgynconsulting.com.

When you are starting out as a team of family and friends to launch a start-up company, most decisions are made according to personal preference around the kitchen table. It's understandable that the business be run like this in its early stages - however - in today's highly competitive marketplace, it pays to have an understanding of basic marketing strategy from the get-go. Many start-ups don't realize that there are a number of essential questions that need to be answered in order to present your company with strength, clarity and consistency in the marketplace. It's important for a start-up company to identify its personal image and its target market early on, in order to avoid a cascade of obstacles and inconsistencies that will arise down the road.

IDENTIFY YOUR CORE MANAGEMENT TEAM

When new companies are forming, they often consist of family and friends, and decisions about advertising and marketing are made by group consensus. As your company grows and the responsibilities increase, it is essential to determine who will be consistently involved in making marketing decisions. Gaining consensus among group members can be difficult, and the larger the number of people involved, the more complicated the decision process can become. Consider things such as: advertising experience, understanding of marketing concepts, ability to choose confidently and willingness to submit to the best overall choice for the company. You do not want team members who are going to stubbornly hold onto their own viewpoints when they are not in the best interest of the company. You do want individuals who are willing to listen to solid reasoning by experts with experience, and those who are comfortable carrying out decisions that may be different from their personal preference.

Ideally, the core management team consists of the company president and partner, and possibly one to two additional high-level managers, advised by in-house or contracted marketing, advertising and design experts with experience in your market. If your company is of the size that all working members are family members - that's okay too. Just make sure you hire some outside consultation and listen to what they have to say.

Once you have identified your core team, you will want to call a meeting for two to three hours specifically focused on hammering out the details of the following questions. This brainstorm session will lead to the decisions that will largely affect the success of your company's marketing and advertising strategy. Advertising and marketing professionals will always ask you to describe your company's image and your target market. Be prepared with three keywords for each that you can give to anyone you work with.

KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS

Company Image

A great exercise in clarifying your company image is to first imagine your company as a person. Have each member of your group answer all of these questions:

• What kind of clothes does this person wear?
• How does this person speak?
• Where does this person live?
• What level of education does this person have (high-school, community college, university, graduate, post-graduate)?
• How would you describe this person's personality? (e.g., polite, active, funny, impressive, relaxing, gallant, chilled-out, intelligent, wild, classy, fashionable, demure, outrageous, young, mature, groovy) Come up with your own. Pick only three.
• What activities does he / she do?
• Does he / she have children or not? If so, is this person interested in this product for the child or the adult?
• What age is this person?
• What issues are relevant to this person?

You may be surprised to uncover differing ideas among members of your core management team. If not illuminated, these differing views will manifest as inconsistencies in the marketing material and conflicts in decision-making.

Target Customer

As a second exercise, describe your customer. Have each group member cycle back and answer each of the proposed questions about the buyer of your product. In addition to the questions above, answer the following questions:

• Why does this person value the kind of product you are delivering (i.e. what is his / her motivation for acquiring this type of product)?
• Where does he / she shop for the kind of product you are delivering?

I recommend you have each group member answer these questions personally on their own pad of paper, and then hold a group discussion in which each of you shares and discusses the outcomes. You might be surprised to discover that each member of the group has a slightly different idea of the company's image and / or the customer. Your job will be to bring these together into something everyone can agree on. A clear and consistent message across all marketing materials - business cards, advertising, websites, product labels and packaging - will develop a strong trust-bond with your target audience.

GAIN CONSENSUS ON THE COMPANY IMAGE AND TARGET MARKET

I am suggesting that if you do not discuss these key issues up-front and gain consensus on them amongst your management team, you will experience a host of difficulties down the road. Having a clear image of your company's persona as well as your ideal customer impacts your:

• Selection of product label designs;
• Language and tone of promotional copy;
• Website layout and design;
• Decisions as to which trade shows and promotional events to attend; and,
• Product placement.

The answers your team came up with to describe your company as an individual determines the way you will portray your company visually through its image in the form of logos, web pages, product labels, color choices, advertising images, and the style of language and tone of any copy (written text) present alongside any of these items.

Make sure the members of your team understand the image and target market clearly. Once your team has agreed upon the company's image, do not make any choices in your selection of marketing materials that conflict with it.

The answers your team comes up with to describe your customer affects the products' pricing, placement and advertising strategy, as well as the product's presentation. Your level of success will depend upon how accurately and consistently your material:

• Conveys the company's image; and,
• Appeals to your target audience.

All decisions regarding the text and visuals of your materials (from business cards to ads, websites to packaging) should relate directly back to these two elements.

© 2007 JILL STEPHANIE MORGYN, COURTESY OF MORGYN CONSULTING, www.morgynconsulting.com.

Professionally, my background is in corporate marketing, but I also trained in university as an academic and writer of literary poetry. While the arenas of literature and marketing may seem quite different, in reality there are many correspondences.

My poetry mentors from the University of Regina, Saskatchewan Writer's Guild and Banff Center of the Arts in Canada all taught me one crucial thing - show, don't tell. The best literary poetry creates living images for the reader that result in a direct emotional response. This is precisely the same goal you want to aim for in your business marketing strategy.

CREATE A PLEASANT EMOTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

It might seem that the appropriate way to use language is to state your marketing concepts directly. This is not the case. Advertising is an art-form, and as with any other, you want to weave your copy into a creative web of words that convey emotion, values, lifestyle, dreams, hopes and meaning. Knowing your target market and understanding the need your product will fill, your next step is to find ways to connect your audience with your product. The more successful you are in wooing your audience, the more enjoyment your customer will receive in the experience of purchasing and using your product.

DON'T JUST PRESENT A PRODUCT - CREATE AN EXPERIENCE

Why are some marketing strategies - like Starbucks® for example - so successful? It isn't just because they have a corporate financial structure behind them. It's also because they have succeeded in creating a dynamic experience for the customer. Let's face it - regardless of how you feel about massive corporate chain stores, the fact is, people enjoy the atmosphere Starbucks® has created around their very simple product. When you walk into one of their coffee shops, you get to drink coffee with caramel sauce in it, while sitting in a funky room designed à la IKEA®, listening to great jazz music. It draws a certain crowd - university professors, folks escaping a dreary office, resting shoppers and urban moms. This company knows its market and knows how to create an entire lifestyle around the enjoyment of its product.

Now, you are a small business, not a corporate giant, and it's likely both your values and your target audience are shooting off in a different direction entirely. However, you can learn from what the big guys are doing, and apply it in a way that creates a dynamic, exciting new business with your own unique experience. Why not begin by identifying what the core values of your company are? Then present your ideas to a professional copywriter who can communicate your company values and lifestyle in a way that grips the target audience.

Your advertising copy is a powerful tool for conveying lifestyle concepts, purchasing preferences and aesthetic taste. The written word carries a great deal of information, depending on its tone. Language can be peppy, intellectual, humorous, sophisticated, hip, sultry, playful, political or loaded with innuendo. Make your copy work hard for you - each word, chosen intentionally, can connect with your audience and create a strong relationship.

© 2008 JILL STEPHANIE MORGYN, COURTESY OF MORGYN CONSULTING, www.morgynconsulting.com.