|
The Wall Street Journal via "The Journal Report: Small Business" shared some
vital small business marketing tips from a recent discussion with Stefan
Tornquist, research director of MarketingSherpa.
Stefan Tornquist took the opportunity to provide some key pointers for
business operators to leverage "underused marketing channels" to improve
their marketing performance in "a shaky economy".
According to the survey MarketingSherpa conducted in Feb/Mar 2008, the
majority of small businesses (those with fewer than 100 staff) are playing
the "sit and wait" game. However, a large proportion of respondents see the
current economic climate as an opportunity.
Tornquist points out, "that people who see the down economy as an
opportunity aren't spending their
money in the same way. They're taking money out of traditional advertising
and direct-marketing campaigns and putting it online. That was a movement
that was already taking place, but the economy is accelerating the trend."
The article is a great read for all small business owners - whether you're
feeling the pinch or not. Here's some excerpts from the interview that I
feel are worth highlighting:
WSJ: What marketing strategies should small companies be looking at
right now?
Tornquist: "I'm of the opinion that it's a good time to increase a
brand imprint...One of the greatest challenges for small companies is to
make a name for themselves, and a downturn actually provides an opportunity
to do that because it tends to suppress the branding activity. There's
absolutely the opportunity to leapfrog competitors, especially if the local
leader is using the downturn to curtail their activities.
WSJ: But don't online ads offer better bang for the buck and an
opportunity to jump ahead of other small companies that aren't online at
all?
Tornquist: Definitely. Many small companies direly need to improve on
[marketing using search engines]. What we see with small organizations is a
lot of them have gotten into search marketing, but many of their programs
are quite limited... they have yet to do the work to figure out what the
highly converting search terms [those that lead to sales] are. When you look
at organic search [the unpaid results that appear when someone types a
phrase into a search engine] and poke around in different industries, you
find out that smaller companies do not show up when they should.
A nice thing about online marketing is it's cheaper
than offline. But the real advantage is it's easy to analyze, and there are
many programs to help."
WSJ: What about companies that simply have to cut their marketing
budgets? Are there ways to save?
MR. TORNQUIST: "...Also, they should focus on increasing conversion
[the number of hits on the site that lead to actual sales],... Let's say
you're an e-commerce site. You're
probably experiencing something like 50% abandonment [of shopping-cart items
by shoppers]. A big part of that is caused by usability problems. And copy
[the text description of products] is still the No. 1 factor in whether we
buy or not. So companies should be conducting usability
testing and copy testing of their sites to see what changes lead to the most
conversions."
The interview goes on to cover a range of other topics such as local
marketing options, direct mail and the best way to find the balance between
online and offline. Do yourself a favor and find out some options for you to
improve your business' prospects.
|
Click
here
to share
your
opinion
about
this
article... |
|
