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Online Small Business Quizzes
Find out where to start with helping your business ramp up.
1. Small Business Solver Questionnaire will help you figure out what part of your business you need to focus on.
2. The Sales Solver Calculator will help you focus on the area of your sales that needs the most improvement.
3. The Idea Tester will see where your business idea could be improved.
Free Small Business Videos & Webinars
Over 65 different topics from small business experts ranging from small business finance to small business marketing and sales. Learn from bankers, consultants, accountants, and lawyers. Whoever it is that you need for your business is sharing online. View them all here.
An example of a typical webinar is below on how to build a local marketing plan and go!
Build a Local Marketing Plan
Local marketing works! For small businesses, local marketing plans are a competitive advantage. We can beat out the big guys by focusing on the local markets. Why not focus on the markets closest to us?
Our goal is to have each and every one of us to build a local marketing plan that you can start using today.
Start with a piece of paper and writing down these titles:
1. Marketing goal
2. Budget
3. Target market
4. Message
5. Tools
Step 1: Marketing Goal
A goal that you write down or say out loud, you automatically increase your probable chance of success. To quantify it and say it loud and proud!
Your marketing goal can be one of any of these options.
– Are you going to increase the number of customers that you have?
– Are you going to increase the number of times that a customer comes to you?
– Are you going to increase the average amount that your customer spends?
– Are you going to increase your overall revenue?
– Are you going to increase your overall awareness?
Step 2: Budget
Once you have your goal, now you have to sit back and figure out your budget.
What do you think sould be a good return on your investement? If you were going to make $25,000 more, would it be fair to spend $1500? Does this make sense? Do you think this is a good return?
Your budget is important as your budget will change what tools are available to you and how many are available to you.
Step 3: Target Markets
Figure out who you need to market to. Who is this marketing campaign targeting?
Most people start with demographics. But this won’t help you as much as how they are behaving.
What are your target markets doing? Are they going to soccer games? Hockey arenas? Are they attending church, summer camps, or going to the local library?
Can you put yourself in the day in the life of your customer? Where are they? You need to be marketing in those places.
We know that it takes 3 to 28 touchpoints in order to convert a sale. So target marketing is important so that we make sure the marketing isn’t being wasted and that we are getting those touchpoints.
The second thing about your target market we need to understand is their values. You need to get a sense of who they are. Once you understand your target market, you can market better to them.
For example, if you are florist target brides it would be easier to sell to them if you were a bride yourself. You understand what they are going through!
Step 4: Message
What are we going to say? We need to start with what our audience actually cares about.
Make sure that it is only 2 or three messages and keep it simple.
Some ideas to include would be your business name, your product or service, what’s unique, brand image, or a logo. But try to choose only 3 items here.
If you do too much, the customer will remember nothing. Your message is lost!
Step 5: Tools
Now that we have all of the other pieces in place. Now we need to figure out what tools will work.
By knowing where our target market is and having a message that they will respond to, we can now select the best marketing tools.
Here are some ideas;
– Cross promotions
– Events / open house
– Sponsorships
– Emails & loyalty
– Volunteering
– Google maps
– Local directories
Now you have your local marketing plan that you can start using today!
