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Aggressive Small Business Marketing & Advertising
Showing archives from 05/2004.
Target Marketing
Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, May 28, 2004Trying to be all things to all people is one of the worst marketing mistakes you can make.
Jennifer Rice has a great post on the topic, read it here: All things to all people. From her post:
Trying to be all things to all people is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to attracting and keeping customers. Choosing a target market is tough. It means eliminating entire groups of people from your messages. But without focus, you risk a bland, diluted message that means nothing to anyone.
On the same topic, and also of interest... this post on Dell Marketing Strategies. (Mine.) A small blurb from it...
Most people look at Dell Computer today and think they are being all things to all people. It is an illusion created by their size. The success of Dell lies in large part with market segmentation and specialization strategies that Michael Dell learned that hot Houston summer, pioneered at Dell Computer, and that the company still does today.There are 1 comments, add your own!
Oh Crap Marketing!
Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, May 28, 2004I have to admit "Oh Crap Marketing" is a source of endless curiosity and entertainment for me. I know you want to know what IT is, and I'll get to it, after a little background...
I'm working with a retail bricks-and-mortar store in Kentucky.
The thing about working with small retailers is that because most of them are so horrifically inept at marketing, just a few small tweaks and changes can completely change the business in a short time. Their problem quickly shifts from one of business volume to one of "how do I keep up with the business volume." This is good for the client, of course, even if I occasionally get bored with the basic marketing stuff.
Anyway, that's not the point of this post...
What is?
It never fails that when I work with a new client, within 30 days we shake up the existing system of other owners of the same type of business. Badly. Like a 7 year old who just ate a full meal getting on an upside down roller coaster kinda shake-up. These people are so used to their apathetic "do-nothing" attitude, that when one of "their own" breaks out, they get...
SCARED!
In fact, having been around for a few of these sessions, they usually say something like, "Oh S%$#."
Hence, "Oh Crap Marketing."
In the latest example, the competing stores actually started complaining to a common manufacturer that what my client was doing wasn't fair because it'd take away all their business. "All their business" might be an exageration. After all, I'm sure some family buys from the other place. But I will say the plan I've put in place is explicitly designed to make the competitive store sell out or get out in less than 18 months.
So, here's a tip to everyone reading this... no matter what your business is...
Don't wait for the other guy to do something that makes you say, OH CRAP. Get off your rear and do something to make them say it.
Reactive marketing sucks, proactive marketing builds empires.
There are 10 comments, add your own!Mark Cuban on Knowledge Acquisition, Michael Dell, and more…
Posted by Michael Cage on Wednesday, May 26, 2004Count me as an official "fan" of Mark Cuban. His Success and Motivation Series is drop-dead incredible. The kind of stuff every entrepreneur should print out, stick somewhere they see it every day, read, and take action on.
You never quite know in business if what you are doing is the right or wrong thing. Unfortunately, by the time you know the answer, someone has beaten you to it and you are out of business. I used to tell myself that it was ok to make little mistakes, just don't make the big ones. I would continuously search for new ideas. I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, 3 bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that lead to a customer or solution and it paid for itself many times over. Some of the ideas i read were good, some not. In doing all the reading I learned a valuable lesson.
Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn't want it. [Michael's note: Oh, how true and sad this is!]
I remember going into customers or talking to people in the industry and tossing out tidbits about software or hardware. Features that worked, bugs in the software. All things I had read. I expected the ongoing response of "Oh yeah, I read that too in such-and-such." That's not what happened. They hadn't read it then, and they haven't started reading yet.
Most people won't put in the time to get a knowledge advantage. Sure, there were folks that worked hard at picking up every bit of information that they could, but we were few and far between. To this day, I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the net making it so readily available, I can get an advantage in any technology business. Of course my wife hates that I read more than 3 hours almost every day, but it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my businesses. AT MicroSolutions it gave me a huge advantage. A guy with little computer background could compete with far more experienced guys just because I put in the time to learn all I could.
Also, some tidbits about a young Michael Dell.
Read it all at: Success and Motivation part 4.
There are 0 comments, add your own!Is no competition a good thing?
Posted by Michael Cage on Wednesday, May 26, 2004This was written specifically for computer consulting businesses, yet it applies to many others.
New marketers often get flustered by competition when there is no reason to be. In most cases, competition will actually help your business when you learn how to think about it and use it the right way!
Here's the link from my other blog: "Is having no competition for your computer consulting business a good thing?"
There are 1 comments, add your own!The truth about Copy-Intensive advertising
Posted by Michael Cage on Wednesday, May 26, 2004...courtesy of a brilliant snippet from Jerry Seinfeld, via A Penny For.
There are 0 comments, add your own!