AB: All-Round Nice Guy

Marketing your business is both a dark art, and an inspired work - that is, even with the best of intentions, marketing is a lot of trial and error, and plenty of hit and miss. Sometimes you make gains with bold new initiatives, but other times you’re just one of the many messages that radiates daily from the business world.

To use just *one more* cliché, the important point here is not to put all your eggs into the one basket - spreading around different marketing strategies is just the same theory as in the investment world: spread your risk, and make a secure return overall.

One of the best ways to spread your marketing message is to cover both extremes: highly targeted, under-your-nose type things, as well as far-reaching, low cost-per-view type things.

One of the best highly targeted marketing tools is a direct mailout - a brochure/catalog/catalogue/cattle dog - call it what you will, it’s either read voraciously, or used as a bin liner by millions daily.

And at the other end of the spectrum, one of the best ways to mass market is via the humble web site - build it and they will come… perhaps…?

It’s fitting that web sites without any changing content are back-handedly referred to as ‘brochureware’ in the industry, since both paper-based brochures and virtual brochures have both the ability to communicate strong marketing messages about your business, as well as ability to bore your customers to tears.

Since we’re aiming for ’strong messages’ here, and not for ‘bored to tears’, the following will show you the strengths and weaknesses of both types of brochure, when to use which one, and how to use *both* online and offline marketing to make good investments in your small business marketing.

OK - bear with me here - before I tell you how to have a more successful 2008, I’m going to talk about the *brand* of your business for a few paragraphs - but don’t go all glassy-eyed on me, OK?

In simple terms, the brand of your business is the total message your business communicates to your customers. It’s the sum of your logo, your shop fitout, your customer service, and your business ethos - everything that adds up to ‘the real you’ in business terms.

In pure marketing terms, ‘branding’ and ‘brand management’ are complex concepts that are often vague and immeasurable - so much so that small business owners don’t often invest too much time in ‘their brand’ - well, not knowingly, at least.

The great news is that the smaller a business you are, the more your own personal ethos infiltrates your business, to the point where your business reflects the person *you* are, and vice-versa - in effect, your own values and beliefs shape your business, and hence how your customers perceive your business
- your brand.

In short, for a small business, the big picture of your brand takes care of itself - all you have to do is keep on making small, smart improvements to your business marketing each year.

With that in mind, here’s some top tips for reviewing and re-invigorating your business in 2008.

It’s a familiar adage (well, the first part anyhow), used by people all over the world - you hear it from business owners, marketing gurus, as well as from the end user of the phrase, the well-heeled shoppers.

But (and this is a big but) I’d like to put forward when there are certainly times when the customer is not always right - sometimes they can indeed be horribly misled into thinking one thing, when the reality is something else entirely.

Sometimes our customers and our clients earnestly and confidently choose their own path, regardless of our best advice, or our best suggestions of ‘top quality’ products and services. Inevitably, this leads to later dissatisfaction, and distrust in our products and services, and a lack of respect for our business. Even with the best of intentions by both parties, wrong choices can accumulate, and result in bad relationships.

Given that we don’t want this to happen, here’s my list of ways to improve your odds of making sure your customers can make decisions that are both right AND correct.

The colours you use in your logo help to promote your image in the most subtle of ways - by the power of association. Furthermore, the *number* of colors you use in your logo impacts on the options when reproducing your logo, and the costs thereof - so to make the most of your choices, here’s some practical advice on how to select the best colours for your logo design or redesign.