Small Business Source

Business Marketing vs. Consumer Marketing

2010-07-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Although on the surface the differences between business and consumer marketing may seem obvious, there are more subtle distinctions between the two with substantial ramifications. Dwyer and Tanner (2006) note that business marketing generally entails shorter and more direct channels of distribution. While consumer marketing is aimed at large groups through mass media and retailers, the negotiation process between the buyer and seller is more personal in business marketing. According to Hutt and Speh (2004), most business marketers commit only a small part of their promotional budgets to advertising, and that is usually through direct mail efforts and trade journals. While that advertising is limited, it often helps the business marketer set up successful sales calls.

Marketing to a business trying to make a profit (Business-to-Business marketing) as opposed to an individual for personal use (Business-to-Consumer, or B2C marketing) is similar in terms of the fundamental principals of marketing. In B2C, B2B and B2G marketing situations, the marketer must always: successfully match the product/service strengths with the needs of a definable target market; position and price to align the product/service with its market, often an intricate balance; and communicate and sell it in the fashion that demonstrates its value effectively to the target market.

These are the fundamental principals of the 4 Ps of marketing (the marketing mix) first documented by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960.

Big Problems Within Small Businesses - Part Three: Complicated and Cumbersome Business Process Management

2010-07-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

Symptom #3 - Complicated and Cumbersome Business Process Management

Small businesses's biggest flaw is being too small and not having adequate capital. And their biggest advantage is also being small. They can response to problems in a quick and timely fashion. That is hard to achieve in an enterprise. However in practice many small businesses does not utilize their size to their advantage. Instead they use the tedious and complex processes that enterprises use to respond to market demands and problems. We continue to see this happen in many small and upcoming businesses. This is the most unfortunate and tragic of things.

A small and medium-sized companies in the process of preparing company policies and regulations did some of the most ridiculous things: The company basically issues new processes, systems, files and requires employees to learn them everyday. Half a year later, the company has 200 new processes and 500 pages of A4 paper. Finally, the employees do not know how to "Use" the system, because the company has added is too much new complicated business process management tools, and there is no focus!

Small companies are very afraid of it. Once the small company processes become cumbersome and complex, they lose a huge competitive edge on the market. Most of our staff will be consumed in these "internal process", rather than to win the market and reap rewards!

So, when your business process is tedious and complicated time to please take a look: your company has been in the "large enterprises disease" and your company has too many employees that is narrow-minded!

Big Problems Within Small Businesses - Part Two: Over Management of Companies

2010-07-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Symptom #2 - Over Management of Companies

Small companies should put survival first and development second. Small companies should not be thinking about strengthening internal management and organizational structure like big enterprises on a daily basis. But keep enough capital to sustain the business.

Large enterprises believe management is the most important. Many small and medium-sized company CEO often blindly follow large enterprise's management style. So they would strengthen internal management in their daily course of business. For example: Sales staff writes a variety of reports every day. Participating in various training activities and examinations, thus not having enough energy to focus on their real marketing work. At the end of the month, performance looks bleak and they blame it on poor training. So they strengthen management more. Putting the company in a death loop.

Another example: Researchers meet every morning and evening. Participates in discussion forums and conferences. Learning communication and management techniques and experiences. They become like management and read newspapers every day in the office. As such it is over management.

It may look like small businesses are benefiting from learning enterprise management styles but essentially they are harming themselves. Over management is worst than no management. Small companies should use management methods that is more suited for their current stage of development than copying enterprise management techniques.

Big Problems Within Small Businesses - Part One: The difference between small businesses and big companies.

2010-07-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

The difference between small businesses and big companies.

The starting scale of the business can affect the problems the business will face. People typically believe that small companies have small problems. The truth is small companies have a lot of big problems. If the issues are not resolved properly, it can affect the companies long term growth.

Symptom 1 : Too many unprofitable employees.

The company's core purpose is to obtain profits, to maintain the normal operation of the business and the long-term development of the company. If a company has always been at a loss or not making money. Then it has deviated from its original purpose.

There are two major employee groups: profitable and unprofitable employees. Profitable employees are mainly our sales staff and researchers, they belong to a specific function, to create a direct benefit (particularly the marketing personnel). Unprofitable employees mainly refers to our platform, including administrative, personnel, finance, logistics, etc., they are the "front-line soldiers" escort, providing logistical support, they are part of the costs and expenses. Every company needs to have both types of employees, but the two types of employees must be maintained at a more reasonable rate level. In particular: the company must ensure that the ratio of employees to make money than not making money, or loss of the company is not making money, and every company CEO's thoughts are not consistent!

The problem is that many of our companies, including a large number of small and medium-sized companies, often inadvertently, discovers their own companies has more and more unprofitable employees. And profitable employees drops until one day finding the company spent.

Furthermore, in that time, our CEO will also find two strange phenomenon: every platform employee 's (unprofitable employees) role is very large, and are indispensable. But profitable employees (marketing personnel and research staff) can be cut or substituted any time.

At first glance, the company employees of many talents are everywhere; Until when you need them to make money, there are none available. This time, in fact, our little company, had slipped into the "big business problem" it does great harm.

Big Problems Within Small Businesses - Part Two

Create Super Targeted Ad Campaigns on Search Engines - Part One

2010-07-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

When you spend money advertising on search engines you want to get the MONEY traffic in a cost effective way. You want as much traffic as possible for as little as possible, as targeted as possible, and a very low bounce rate from our landing pages. Understanding what each keyword means helps you determine what the prospect wants and you can give the prospect an ad that they want to see.

There are three different mindsets people have in their buying process.

Surfing Mindset - Prospect are not sure what they want or need. They are searching for solutions to their problems. Keywords associated with this mindset are usually questions or solutions.

Comparison Mindset - Prospect have a specific product in mind and are looking for opinions. Keywords associated with this mindset are "compare, recommended, best lists and reviews."

Buying Mindset - Prospect know what products they WILL buy, so it is important you catch these buyers. Keywords associated with this mindset are "Cheap, Buy, Discount, Price and Free Shipping.

It is important that you have a landing page that is well written and tailored to the traffic.

The Importance of Marketing to Small Business Owners

2010-07-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

Marketing is essential to business growth. If people don't know about your great product or service you won't be making much sales no matter how GREAT it may be. That is why big organizations spend millions of dollars on advertising their products or services. Even a crappy product can sale a lot if it is advertised the right way. That is the power of advertising.

The interesting fact is that marketing of all goods and services purchased impact every one who consumes. This is because it is already incorporated in the price of the merchandise. So, consumers actually pay for all marketing costs of purchased goods. Of course the cost is on the back end but never the less we do compensate for it. Marketing can be considered an activity created by communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that hold value to society (Perreault, 2004).

It is important that marketing focuses on customer needs and specific target audiences (Perreault, 2004). If this is done correctly the product will sell itself. A great example of this is demonstrated by the Lamborghini, Porsche, and Rolls Royce companies

Business owners to need know that if their business doesn't grow it will slowly die. Which is why business need new customers and you can only obtain new customers by letting them know that you exist. Now advertising doesn't have to cost you millions of dollars. There are great methods to get the attention of your targeted customers for very low costs or even free. You can use social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook to throw contests. Other cost effective ways include PPC, Media Buy and signing up for affiliate networks to let other expert marketers market your products for a share of the profits.

Now with all these methods of marketing i will try to find the cheapest and most cost effective way to market different kind of products and services. Follow this blog for more information.