Marketing your business outside
your small business market can
bring you BIG business returns!
Before you stick your nose up at the idea of marketing your small business outside your business market, sit back, absorb, and be willing to be surprised! In fact, I’m willing to bet that I’ll stop your mouse in mid-air within the next 3 sentences.
Before you offer one of those 37 pet excuses why it doesn’t work, won’t work, can’t work, costs too much, makes no sense, is fantasy, and just ain’t worth the time or trouble — before you start in, let me tell you that you need to open your mind and re-visit the idea. Because it works! [That’s 2 sentences; 1 more to go; this bracketed stuff doesn’t count.]
It can work for you and your business and (AHEM!) it’s free! Ah, there it is. The magic word that suckers every small business owner/ manager/partner/entrepreneur. Did it stop your runaway mouse?
Okay, here we go…Let’s say you own a small appliance repair service business in Gumboro, Delaware, and you think it’s ridiculous to promote what you do to people who live in San Diego, Dallas, Detroit, Denmark, or Djibouti, right? (Sorry about getting stuck on D’s, and Djibouti? Who knows?)
Well, you might have been right a few years ago, but with today’s smaller, quicker world, there’s really “no tellin'” where your next sale is coming from. Someone who sees mention of a small appliance business in her cousin’s hometown is likely to mention it in a next phone call or email. If you believe sales could be from anywhere, then sales could be from anywhere. Check out this little story:
A restaurateur friend of mine in California, knowing I went to college in New Rochelle, New York, recently raved to me in an email about a unique “no-menu” restaurant located in New Rochelle after having just seen it mentioned on Twitter, and then checked its website.
I’m a couple of states away now, but my brother’s insurance business is in Larchmont, New York, next to New Rochelle. When I called to wish him Happy New Year, I asked his wife about the restaurant. They knew the place, she said, but had shied away because they heard it had no menu. But my mention of the email I got piqued her interest and she said they would try it this week.
- Total cost to the restaurant: ZERO
- Total value to the restaurant: PRICELESS (My brother’s a big eater AND a big tipper!)
There are thousands more stories like this for all kinds of small businesses that choose to not limit their marketing because making excuses and staying stuck in a time warp is easier to deal with than having to develop new promotional, publicity and marketing strategies.
I’m not suggesting you suddenly abandon your steady customer base, or that you plunk down barrels full of cash to sponsor American Idol.
I AM suggesting that small businesses need to put aside past thinking limitations and step up to global promotional efforts, especially when they’re available for free, 24/7, exercise a little imagination, and go at it persistently.
“Tell your LA & NYC friends they can get LA & NYC music composed & recorded in Ohio…better & cheaper @ http://bit.ly/7LzLES” is all it might take, for example, as a Twitter post (and a dozen characters left over, no less!) or post some variation a few times a day. Or on Facebook, or with a video and soundtrack sampler on YouTube.
Got the idea? Go get the business? It may take longer than you like to get the “buzz” going, but it’s hard to beat the cost.
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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.
Make today a GREAT day for someone!
