Monty Henderson

“Shotgun Marketing” occurs when a business really has no idea of who they are targeting when they spend their advertising budget. They just pick up a tool and use it hoping they hit a potential customer. Usually they miss because they don’t know who they are targeting and the effort is a failure.

“No Marketing” happens after a series of volleys of shotgun marketing occurs. The owner realizes he has wasted his money and just stops marketing, thus handicapping the future of his business.

“Cheap Pricing” happens because an entrepreneur knows that their customers like good deals and this will bring them in. The error in this case is the fact these entrepreneurs often don’t know their costs and so there are no profits forthcoming from the discounted sales.

“Stuck in a Rut Syndrome” is observed primarily in established businesses that get comfortable running their business the same way over a long period of time. Eventually their sales decline because their customers and the marketplace have changed while the business has not. Meanwhile the competition has adjusted and is attractive to the consumers in the marketplace.

“Multiple Owners” often translate into “Multiple Decision Makers” which leads to “Poor Decision Making.” Partnerships without defined roles and salary parameters are on a path to failure. This I have witnessed many times. Suffice it to say that there can be only One CEO and this One must be foremost capable of leading the business. These roles must be agreed to in advance and their authority must be recognized by the other partners.

“No Web Presence” is an error that amazes me, yet we learn that a huge number of businesses do nothing to participate in one of the most exciting, cutting edge, and affordable marketing opportunities ever known in the business world. There are hordes of prospective customers searching on the web for solutions to their problems and yet these businesses choose not to engage them.

“It’s MY Business” owners sometimes berate, scold, and / or expose their customers to negative connotations about their business. They may also overlook that their customers are looking for an experience that the entrepreneur should provide – but doesn’t.

“No Money” is why businesses close. Usually it is a result of poor planning, budgeting and funding and shows its head when it’s already an established virus running rampant through the business. This is often the summary result of the other named errors listed above.

These classic errors are a sure way to put a business into the back of the pack and they may even cause it to crash and burn!

Monty Henderson is in his sixth year as a Hoosier Heartland ISBDC business advisor, and in his thirty-second year as an independent businessman. Working from the Kokomo office, Monty has assisted hundreds of entrepreneurs.  ISBDC Business Advisors have tools and resources specifically supplied to them to aid business growth. All counseling is by appointment without fee. You may contact him at mhenderson@isbdc.org and follow him on Twitter @montysmemos.

I will often encourage them to think about their interactions as a consumer, and consider some “best practices” of companies that they do business with. What impresses you as you buy goods and services in the marketplace? From my own personal experience, here are some observations that I often make to my clients to stimulate their thinking:

Enhance Your Product (Inexpensively)—While visiting a new town years ago, I stopped by a small “mom & pop” ice cream store. I ordered a soft serve ice cream cone, and it was served with a cherry on top. “I didn’t order this with a cherry”, I said. “Yes, this is just the way we do it around here” was the reply.  You know, they didn’t have to do that. It was a “little thing”, but it was their small way of making themselves slightly different than the major ice cream chain competitor down the street.

Connect With Your Customers (Initially)—My wife and I visited a new steak house in our hometown when it first opened, and when we entered, we were asked by the greeter if this was our first visit. After being served a fine meal, the store manager then personally brought us our check, “It’s my understanding that this is your first visit—we appreciate you being with us this evening.” You know, he didn’t have to do that. It was a “little thing”, but his taking those 30 seconds to talk with us made a big closing impression and significantly enhanced our overall dining experience.

Touch Base With Your Customers (Periodically)—In the city where I used to live, I had some auto repairs completed by a local automotive service shop. A few days later, I received a phone call from the owner, “I just want to thank you for stopping by and seeing us last week—any problems with your car?” You know, he didn’t have to do that.  It was a “little thing”, and I can tell you that I continued to receive similar calls after many subsequent service visits, either from the owner or the store manager—I can assure you that they would still be servicing my vehicles if I now didn’t live a hundred or so miles away.

I would encourage you to think about positive experiences that you have had in being a customer, and then try to creatively incorporate some of those practices into your own operation. By perhaps adding some “little things” that don’t cost much money, you can go a long way toward differentiating your business in the minds of your customers, and thereby helping you achieve your long-term growth goals.

Larry White is a Business Advisor with the Central ISBDC. Larry can be reached at lwhite@isbdc.org.

First, you should evaluate your own business. Determine if your business has the capabilities to handle additional work.  Many times suppliers want to do government contracting, but when they get involved in the process, they realize that maybe their business is not ready to take on a new contract.

Also, you need to determine if your company is financially sound. Do you have cash flow issues? Does your company have enough money to sustain a contract, in the event that it requires you to purchase materials up front to start the contract? If your business is struggling financially, it is not recommended to get involved in government contracting at this time.

If you are able to answer yes to both of those questions, then you can move forward in the government contracting process. Next, you will want to decide who you want to market your business to, whether it is federal, state, or local government contracting, or all three. Each type of government can purchase differently than the other. When you decide which agency(s) that you want to market your business, you will need to register your company in their respective websites. Federal and state have their own separate websites, but local government can be several different websites, depending on which agencies you are interested in marketing your business.

Doing business with the federal government requires that you register in the Systems for Award Management (SAM) website – www.sam.gov. This website does require that you have a Dun & Bradstreet number, also known as a DUNS number, before registering. You can request a DUNs number from the Dun & Bradstreet website – http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform. Make sure that you request a DUNs number for doing business with the government, so that it is free to your business.

If you decide to market to the State of Indiana, you will need to register your business at the Indiana website – http://www.in.gov/idoa/2464.htm. There is a list of information on this website that you will need prior to registering.  It is recommended to have this information available when you begin your registration.

Also, on the Indiana website, if you meet the criteria, you may be able apply for certification as a Woman Business Enterprise (WBE), or Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), or as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) with the Indiana Department of Transportation. All of the certification information is located at http://www.in.gov/idoa/2489.htm.

As I stated, local government contracting may require multiple registrations, depending on which agencies you are interested in marketing, but here is a link to a list of a few different agencies and how they do business – http://www.in.gov/idoa/2488.htm.

There is also a link for becoming a subcontractor for the Kentucky-Indiana Bridges Project – http://www.kyinbridges.com/.

One last tip for getting involved in government contracting is to contact the Indiana Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC). They provide a bid match service that searches federal, state, and local websites for bid opportunities and compiles the bids into one email that can be sent to you daily. Their contact information is listed below.

Indiana PTAC

http://www.piccorp.org
5209 Hohman Avenue
Hammond, IN 46320
Phone: (219) 750-1200

For additional help with working through the government contracting process, feel free to email southeast@isbdc.org.

Tom Steiner – Thousands of articles have been written on this subject, seminars held everywhere, the internet wants you to purchase online books about it, consultants want you to spend a lot of money for their expertise about it, and they all tell you the same thing differently. There are as many ways to learn about your customers as there are recipes for chocolate chip cookies. However, in the end, it is your business that is more like chocolate chip cookies. Your customers have choices and if they don’t like your cookies, they will find a recipe they like.

As a side note, Google found 5,190,000 results in .17 seconds for chocolate chip cookie recipes.

So, if your cookies are not what the customer is looking for, how do you find the customers that do want your cookies?

As a Business Advisor, I have talked with many clients about their customers. The conversation usually goes like this:

BA: What kind of business are you starting?

Client: I am going to sell a UFO detector. For $94.95, you can have this UFO Detector on your desk. It monitors the area for any “magnetic and electromagnetic anomalies” and, if it does detect said anomalies, it goes off like crazy. Because that means aliens are approaching.

BA: And who are your customers?

Client: Everybody.

BA: Everybody? What about those that do not believe in UFOs or those that think the product is a hoax? My wife would not let me buy one.

Client: Ah, I was thinking of producing an infomercial…

The question is, “How do you begin to understand and find your clients?”

Customers are defined in many different ways. Most people define their customer profile at the top levels. They are gender, age, geographical location, income, education, race, and marital status. All of this information can be found on the US census website. It is always a good place to start. It is a bad place to stop. This top level information is only the beginning. You need more.

A good example where this information falls short is the income category. Ask yourself, “Where does the income come from?” Income can come from a variety of sources. Two people may make $35,000 a year but one may have a college education and work in an office while the other never went to college and is a plumber. Both make the same amount but may have entirely different spending habits. Now ask yourself, “is my customer a plumber or an office worker?”

Drill down.

If you understand your product and the needs it fills, you may have a pretty good idea as to who your customers are. You just need more information about them. The ISBDC has resources that will help you develop a definition of your customers beyond what the census can provide for you. With regards to knowing and finding your customers, here is a small list of the information that is available to you:

• Household Budget Expenditures
• Medical Expenditures
• Recreation Expenditures
• Pets and Products Market Potential
• Disposable Income Profile
• Retail Goods and Services Expenditures
• And lots more

In addition the ISBDC can also help determine the geographical area your customers live in as well as give you an accurate personality of the potential customer.

By drilling down you can start to see a more complete picture of the customer and this will help bring them to your business and sell to them. By understanding their background, you learn several things. You learn if your customer lives in your geographical area. If they do, how many actually purchase from you as well as how many could be purchasing from you. Knowing this helps you develop strong financial projections, marketing analysis and strategy.

By learning as much as you can, you will know what to say to your potential customers, where they are and how to reach them. This is called target marketing and it takes less time, money and effort to reach your customers. Every marketing expert agrees that you need to do target marketing and not take the shotgun approach.

So, you have taken my sage advice, done your homework and have determined who your customer is, how to reach them, and what to say to them. Are you done? Of course not. Once they are in the door, customer service, product quality, environment all help to enhance the customer experience. But are they buying? Here is where you need to do more detective work and it can only be done while the customer is in your store.

What can you learn about your customer once they are in the store? Here are some customer personalities that you can only experience firsthand:

The Child believes everything you tell them. They are trusting and open because they are looking for someone to tell them what they need and want.

The Judge walks in suspicious of everyone. He believes that all salespeople are evil and will say anything to make a sale. They judge you by their value system. They prefer you listen while they talk.

The Negotiator will try to beat you down on price no matter what. However, one thing in your favor is that they will ask a lot of questions and listen to your answers before ever discussing the price.

The Bargain Hunter is very much like the Negotiator in that they are motivated by price. The difference between the two is that the Bargain Hunter is more likely to make impulsive decisions.

Is that it? Nope.

After being in business awhile you will discover trends or types of customers that visit you. After a while you will be able to recognize these types of customer and develop sales strategies to increase your chances of them making a purchase.

Loyal Customers are about 20% of you customer base. They may make up more than 50% of your sales. Let them know how much they are valued. Get to know them personally and make them feel that you appreciate their business.

Discount Customers shop a lot but are only looking for mark downs, sales, or the cheapest price. They can contribute to your bottom line because it usually means product turnover.

Need Based Customers are looking for a specific thing. They look for what they want, purchase it and leave. Sometimes they are looking for the lowest price. Needs Based Customers can be converted to Loyal Customers with customer service that respects their purchasing style.

Wandering Customers are just looking for a place to visit. They may or may not have a purchase in mind. In fact, they may be there just to browse. Be aware, even though they may not purchase anything, Wandering Customers are more likely to talk about their experience in your business.  There is such a thing as minimal great customer service.

Is that it? Nope. Learning about your customers is an ongoing process. Keep in touch with the customers. Look for changes in spending behaviors, and be interactive with your customers. People change and you need to keep up with what is going on with your customers. After all, it is your job to make sure you meet your customers’ needs, wants and desires.

Tom Steiner is a Business Advisor for the East Central ISBDC. Tom can be reached at tsteiner@isbdc.org.

Heather Strohm – As we wrap up a turbulent and economic challenging 2012, you may be asking yourself how can I change things to be more productive and to provide a stronger revenue base in 2013? One of the most popular ways is of course social media. You have read and heard this before either in this series, on television, through friends, etc. It is truly something you must embrace in order to establish a market presence and build brand recognition. Today, I am going to touch on some techniques and tips to help you as you begin to blog you way to stronger revenue foundation and greater market presence.

What should a blog contain?

1. A call to action – each blog should ask the reader to change or do something. It is true blogs contain information, but think about blogs you have read before. For example, Seth Godin. In Godin’s blog, he provides ways to start doing things different.
2. Catchy title – you want to title your blog something that will bring attention. Although the title should relate to the blog, it is alright to be a bit creative with it.
3. Links – Your blog should link to other landing pages and also to social media buttons. The more your blog can be shared with others and that you create strategic landing pages, the more likely you are to have your blog read. And to be honest, that is what it is all about. The more people that read it then the more people know who and your business are.
4. The platform – what are you blogging in? You should use the more recent version of your platform, such as WordPress. In addition, be sure to take the time to learn the virtual editor.
5. Description – make sure you create a meta-description that is less than a 160 characters. By honing in on the description you are more likely to capture your niche audience and customer.
6. Proofread, revise, and fine tune – Always, always, always be sure to proofread your work. If you like, have another individual review it as well. Your blog should be error free. I am sure you have read articles, blogs, stories and other items in which grammatical errors plagued the piece and it took away from the story’s purpose and the author’s experience. So PROOFREAD!
7. Google, Bing, Yahoo – know your search engines. Each search engine has preferences. For example, Google likes freshness, experts and accessibility.
8. If possible, use images – Images allow the reader to understand the viewpoint of the author and what the author is trying to communicate to the reader.

Heather Strohm is the Regional Director for the West Central ISBDC. Heather can be reached at hstrohm@isbdc.org.

Online PPC Advertising Campaigns
The quickest method by far will be advertising through Google in a pay per click (PPC) campaign. With the Google Adwords platform, advertisers are able to market to customers through sponsored text listings that are triggered by targeted keywords. For instance, a mobile application development company may target a phrase such as, “find a mobile application development company in Los Angeles.” When searches for that keyword phrase are entered, the web development company’s ad may appear below the search box or to the right of the organic listings (non-paid). The searcher may then click on the developer’s ad which will result in a new visitor to the website, but the developer will also be charged for each click. The longtail keyword phrases and the less searched words are typically the cheapest as there are less advertisers competing for that term. The downside to PPC campaigns is that it’s very difficult to be profitable in the beginning. Most advertisers need to learn and optimize their campaigns based on customer behaviors, which will in turn improve their return on investment. Therefore, this method while easy to implement, can be costly in the beginning.

Don’t underestimate networking and thought leadership
Most businesses can enhance their online and offline reputations through networking and thought leadership work. What does that mean? In essence, it’s speaking at a conference, conducting a webinar, or even publishing written work. Whether you know it or not, you’re likely an expert in your profession even if you’re not a doctor, lawyer or accountant.  In addition, you can certainly differentiate yourself from the crowd by joining and leading the conversation. The return on investment for thought leadership may not be measurable at first, but over time it will be, if done effectively.

Don’t forget about free public relations                                               
Many companies are familiar with compensating a PR firm thousands of dollars a month and not necessarily being able to measure the return, which is frustrating and expensive. Have you subscribed to one of the email distribution lists that connect writers and publishers to experts and companies for sources to use in their articles? Help a Reporter Out (HARO), launched by the PR guru Peter Shankman is one example. A successful pitch will take some trial and error, but it’s certainly cheaper than hiring a PR firm. This is also free, but takes time.

What’s the best method for your business?
You should work on a mixture of the above, but start with online advertising as that’s easiest method to generate leads quickly.

Ryan Himmel is a CPA, registered securities analyst and founder of BIDaWIZ.com – an online marketplace where small businesses can obtain professional tax, accounting and financial advice and services from a network of online CPAs, EAs, CFPs & Tax JDs.  BIDaWIZ’s suite of services include the ability to ask professionals finance and tax questions for free for 30 days, find an accountant online and work with them, and to subscribe to the premium tax and financial newsletter and knowledge base. Ryan regularly contributes to the community through the BIDaWIZ tax and financial blog.  Contact Ryan at ryan@bidawiz.com or on Twitter at @BIDaWIZ

Three simple words are all it takes to attract and keep a customer base.  Stop and think for a moment about your own purchasing choices of goods and services. From something as inexpensive as a haircut to a major purchase, knowing, liking and trusting the product and service holds an intangible value.  You will discover that many of your transactions take place with businesses that you Know, Like, and Trust. It only makes sense that you should follow and use these same principles and ideals that entice you to do business with one particular business compared to another.

With that in mind, here are three suggestions that will help you attract customers to Know, Like, and Trust your business.

Get customers to Know by sharing who you are:

• Target, “Expect More, Pay Less”
• Bowman’s Bakery, “Best Cheesecakes in Indiana”
• EC-ISBDC, “We help others do Business—Smarter”

Your business identity is not just a tag line but a view to how you treat your customers.  A unique identity also advertises your business and merchandises your products. You need to communicate who you are and where you come from in order for customers to get to know you and therefore feel a genuine affinity toward purchasing from you.

Understand why you Like one business over another.

Why do I like these three business entities?  I like Target because they offer products I need and at a price I think is fair. Their merchandise is displayed in an attractive, organized and convenient fashion.  Target has met my expectation of “Expect More, Pay Less.”

Bowman’s Bakery offers 65 different cheesecakes that delight and make it easy for me to buy a dessert for my family or as a special gift for others. Doing business with this home town favorite makes guests like me and my choices—and therefore makes me like the bakery.

EC-ISBDC strives to help our clients grow their businesses through proven technologies, resources and methodology. Working Smarter means you as a business owner, will have the tools and knowledge available to you to facilitate appropriate and prudent business decisions.

All relationships are built on Trust.

These three entities have built my Trust in the following ways:

Target’s return policy is very important to me, and Target has never let me down.  I’ve returned items, even without a receipt, and they have always offered me a reasonable refund or in-store credit.  I trust that what I buy there will be of stated value or can be easily returned.

Every cheesecake purchased from Bowman’s Bakery has been consistently good. I trust that with the bakery’s rich and local history that their finished product will always be good. Whether I’m buying my favorite chocolate, or my husband’s favorite peanut butter, their product will be as promised—the best in the state.

EC-ISBDC listens to their clients to first understand their needs and challenges. Through listening, the EC-ISBDC is able to help their clients develop the most efficient and effective ways to grow and build long term sustainability. Trust is built through confidentiality, consistently providing for the client’s needs, meeting deadlines, providing valuable information. The EC-ISBDC builds lasting relationships that help businesses in every stage of development.

Know, Like, and Trust should be the three most powerful words in your marketing efforts. If you can incorporate these three words into your company’s culture, you are on the right track to growing your business.

Peggy Cenova is the Regional Director for the East Central ISBDC. Peggy can be reached at pcenova@isbdc.org.

*Photo via iStockphoto.com

Enter Womply, a San Francisco based data analytics and loyalty solutions provider. Its data analytics solution called Insights, allows an SMB to track revenue, social media activity, and online rating information over time from an easy-to-use website. In addition, business owners can easily benchmark the performance of their businesses against that of competitors.

Womply’s loyalty solution is not your traditional loyalty program. A business owner who uses a traditional loyalty programs has difficulty measuring its effectiveness or knowing who customers are. To address these blind spots, Womply created Loyalty Cloud, which is an electronic loyalty program that highlights an SMB’s best customers based on a range of clever criteria. Not only can a business owner profile a customer’s transactional activity at the business, but the business owner can now also see what other businesses in the area customers are visiting – an industry first.

Armed with these tools, a business owner can capture data and use it to develop marketing strategies and actionable steps to adapt and improve operations. In short, for SMBs to remain competitive running an offline business in the long run, it is very important to make use of online tools and technologies.

Tran Chau is the Director of Operations at Womply. He can be reached at tran@womply.com.

You like me have probably noticed the proliferation of these QR codes over the past year. I
have gone from the “I don’t know what these things are and don’t care” attitude to the “I still don’t know much about this, but everyone seems to be using them, so I better figure out why” mode. A recent survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey found that 81 percent of consumers acknowledged that they had seen a QR code, but 79 percent said they really did not know what they were. If you pay attention at all, they are on grocery products, business cards, brochures, flyers, marketing tools, and a myriad of
other locations. So what are these codes, and what use might your business make of them?

A QR code is actually a barcode that encodes data, invented by the Japanese auto industry and now
expanding its usage here in the United States. The use of QR codes has grown in popularity, and they
hold lots of information, so their use is limited perhaps only by your own lack of creativity.

The most obvious use of a QR code is on your business card. After making a contact who supplies you
with a business card, you have a few choices on what to do with that card. You can add the card to all of
the other cards you have gathered over several years, tie them up in a large rubber band, and throw
them in your desk drawer, hoping you can find the right one when you need to do. Option two is to use
special software that allows you to scan the contents of the card into your computer or Smartphone.
QR codes give you a third option of using a Smartphone app to instantly transfer the data on the card to
your list of names and addresses. Or, if you are wedded to the past, you can painstakingly copy the
information from the card to your computer or Smartphone. If you plan on using QR codes on your
business cards, try several of the apps that are available to create these codes, and make sure that your
data can be read by several.

QR codes are also used to drive people to your website by including those codes on all of your marketing
materials. They are also commonly used to direct people to your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter pages.
If you have some special promotion or event coming up, they can be used to provide information about
that or send someone to the direct page on your website that contains additional information. A quick
check of the internet quickly discloses a number of different uses for QR codes, like airline boarding
passes, banners, t-shirts, name tags, and sales receipts among many others. There really is no limit to
possible uses, so get those creative juices flowing and figure out how they might help your business.
Since there are any number of free online websites that allow you to create a QR code, there is no huge
cost to consider before you adopt this technology.

The moral of this story – before you reprint any business cards or other marketing tools that you won’t
use up for quite a while, consider using a QR code to direct your customers to where you want them to
be or where they can get more information about your business or the products or services you sell.
Just be sure to think out beforehand what you are trying to accomplish with such use.

Ron Gifford is a Business Advisor for the Northwest ISBDC. Ron can be reached at rgifford@isbdc.org.

*Image via iStockphoto.com

Social Media Marketing – “The Wild Wild West”

Social media has often been called “The Wild Wild West” because it keeps changing. Remember when it businesses didn’t necessarily have to have a web site in order to be found?  And then came Facebook, with Facebook Business pages. And then came Pinterest, a variation of the traditional use of photo images, first used in scrapbooking. Along the way, social communities have evolved. And the latest? Pinterest just launched Business accounts (before it was personal) and LinkedIn now has company pages.

Where to Start and Evolve

With your business, now it’s even more critical to identify who your target customers and clients are, as well as keeping in touch with your current existing clients. How they liked to be reached and touched are also critical. From there, you can develop and grow your social media marketing strategy by using the appropriate methods.

Determining What’s Best

 How many times have you seen “Find Us on Facebook” or “Like Us on Facebook”? Is it even important to have web site today?  Once again it depends on your existing clients as well as new clients.  If your business involves more of a professional slant and B2B, then ramping up and creating a new LinkedIn company profile page might be a good use of time and effort.    As far as Facebook Business pages, tools are available to link those directly to your company’s web site.   And if you write a blog, you can actually post the link in your company’s Facebook Business page.

Protecting Images

As far as creating a new Pinterest Business account?  If your business has a need to showcase photos, it might be worth looking into.  A word of caution any time you do post photos on either Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook Business pages – those images can be easily downloaded by the viewer and used. In other words, your images can be stolen. To prevent this you need to protect your photos – a key way is using a tool to watermark them. Another option is uploading a much smaller copy of the file than your original. David Peterson, creator of Digital Photo Secrets provides some terrific tips in his “How to Protect Your Photos from Theft on Facebook and Twitter.”

Creating Communities – Also Known as the “New Forum of the Social Age”

 Forums are a place where people can connect on topics of common interest, and today, there is a new breed of forum. Called Forums 2.0 and also known as communities, these new forums have social sharing, social logins, and feel more like popular social networks. Once again, creating a social community might be something you might want to look into for your business.   GetSatisfaction.com has a good complimentary ebook just on this subject titled, “Communities – The New Forum of the Social Age.”

Last Thoughts

Yes, social media marketing is like “the Wild Wild West” because it keeps changing. But to be successful in marketing your business today, it’s critical to decide what works best for you and your business. Then decide what are the best social media tools to use and dive in.

Cindy Bertram is a Business Advisor for the Northwest ISBDC. Cindy can be reached at cbertram@isbdc.org.

*Photo via iStockphoto.com