Getting the word out about your company and advertising it to its full extent is very expensive, especially if you are a small business in today’s economy. However, marketing and advertising your company is a fundamental and necessary aspect of building a business.
Are you a small business owner or entrepreneur concerned about your budget? Currently paying a marketing / advertising firm millions without seeing any results? Are your marketing efforts going to waste because you are too busy thinking about all the other aspects of building a business? Is your product getting lost in a pool of uninterested customers?
If the answer is yes to more than one of these questions or if you’re just interested in learning how to advertise and market your business on no budget then you are in the right place. There are a couple of ways that you can market and advertise your company without really having to spend millions of dollars or hours wracking your brain. Just invest time and create a concrete plan of action. But before that let me put a little thought in your head.
Mark Twain once wrote; “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” If you think about your product as being an extension of yourself then there is only one way you can think about this problem. Your business, your product and by extension yourself need to be represented at its best. Think about it this way, you finally received and opportunity to interview for your dream job. You make sure that your resume is up to date and have picked the right outfit. All you want to do, in the one moment you meet the interviewer is be the best person you can be. You want to present yourself the best way possible. At the end of the day the only thing that you want to do is make sure the interviewer knows that you are qualified for the position and would be a great fit for the company.
The same thought process applies when you are pitching your product to potential clients. That one moment when you shake their hand and pitch the product is the only moment that counts. So really the question is; why spend millions of dollars and hours cracking your brain when really it all comes down to a couple of minutes. Research shows that the attention span of a human being is only of 6 to 8 second. So really it’s not about paying millions, it’s about that eoght second when you are shaking their hand and Saying “Hi my name is Mike and this is my product and services”.
Just like that science project you had to do in the third grade for the science fair right? Absolutely! It’s all about that charisma and spark, the product and your company can only take you so far. Create that one 8 second spark in their eyes. What do they need? What do they want? How can you and your product change their life?
Once you have their attention and they love your product the next question really is; how do I maintain their interest and loyalty. Before those problems arise, ask yourself this. Are you targeting the right type of customers? If you are not then my suggestion is go to a trade show. You will not only find a large pool of industries that you can meet with but you can also find within those, your niche and find the perfect clientele there. However, if you do have the right pool of customers and they are not loyal then your marketing and advertising efforts stopped working the moment when they walked away from your presentation or the moment when something got disorganized.
Marketing and advertising a product is not really a hard sale. It’s all about organization, collaboration and innovation. Moreover it’s about keeping this ball, this idea that you created and keeping it alive, keep it rolling. If you ever stop any of your efforts more than one is guaranteed to fall right next to it if you don’t quickly replace it with another one. Just like a domino tower.
So make a plan execute it and follow through. There are a million ways that you can get your small business to become a million dollar business. But it’s not about the steps, there is no one specific equation to follow or a list of multiple resources to use. It’s all about organization, collaboration, innovation and that 8 second pitch spark. And there is no budget for any of this. Shaking someone’s hand and telling them the story of your product and your company has no price and it is the best investment. It is all about how you pitch your product to your clients.