Basic business marketing strategies

In this first post about Marketing for your business I want to talk a bit about what marketing actually means...
(märk-tng)
The act or process of buying and selling in a market.
The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer.
Ok so thats the dictionary answer...
WE are going to talk about an overall philosophy of good and BAD ways to run a business. I like to call it Smart Marketing. Everyone has heard the saying "the customer is always right" well.... as much as it hurts, its correct! Well not EVERY customer, but for the most part, your POOL of customer thought IS always correct. This means simply that unhappy customers dont spend money! So marketing in this context is about how to keep the customer happy and thus spending money!
Heres my number one ... BE NICE! bite your tongue, shut your mouth... whatever it takes, now we all know there does come a time when this will not work and you need to say something that you know you dont really want to say, but hey ya gotta! other than that, BE NICE! So smart marketing in part is just plain treating people the right way.
Do what you say you are going to do... in fact, DO MORE! if you say you will call, call, if you say youll call at 2, call at 2... its really easy guys. Smart Marketing is how you present yourself to your client and the world, but also what you DO in that regard. Basic marketing is a lot of the things mom, grandma, and that sunday school teacher told you all those years ago... just treat people the way you like to be treated, It will amaze you how far that simple rule will take you. I like to kick my marketing up a notch by doing MORE, by surprising my customers. One of my favoate Marketing tricks is this... say I have a business person looking for advertising or marketing his business who approaches me about an ad... (my offline business is basicaly advertising) They kick the proverbial marketing tires so to speak but in the end, dont buy. Well from there on out.... after I have made a reasonable number of normal marketing tries to get the sale, I turn to plan B... Im NICE... Im VERY nice.... not condecendingly, but honestly nice. I dont mention business... at least not mine if I run into them.. but I do mention theirs.... like "How is business?" now for the most part, right now business sucks for almost everyone so I know Im not going to get a really great positive responce ussually... but it plants a seed... they know I sell ads... ads bring in biz... and gosh I AM a nice guy.... see what I mean? Marketing is sometimes Subtle. Its a lot more than that banner you spent too much money to have made blowing aroung in front of your store...
But I digress... So now we know marketing, in a nutshell is how you go about doing business. So I would spend some time looking at just that. Ask yourself, "Is my marketing smart?" Do I treat every customer well, even the ones Im not crazy about? Remember it is easier to KEEP a customer than to GET a new customer.
So speaking of keeping a customer, what do you do to keep yours ? Is it part of your overal marketing plan? In other words is your marketing and plan designed and set up to actually keep those hard earned customers? Maybe, maybe NOT. I see so many people not taking advantage of the customers they already have. Does your marketing plan include always asking for leads? Again... there is marketing, and there is smart marketing. Your marketing and advertising must of course follow a few tried and true rules, youd be a fool to constantly re-invent the wheel, BUT it also needs to be smart marketing taylored for your business!
So be smart, be nice, and make your marketing make you money!
See you next time!