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It's Time To Get All Strategic - Small Business Marketing Stategy
by: J D Moore
Copyright 2005 J D Moore

So what's your small business marketing strategy? I'm willing to bet that close to 85% of the people reading this are scratching their heads now. Many small business owners fail to create a marketing strategy at all, instead focusing on tactics.

Let me give you one of the definitions of strategy from the fine folks at Merriam Webster: a : a careful plan or method : a clever strategem b : the art of devising or employing plans or strategems toward a goal

So a strategy is a plan and the implementation of that plan. Tactics are merely the methods with which which you carry out that plan.

Planning is important in small business marketing for a few reasons:

-Planning helps insure you keep a consistent marketing effort.
-Planning helps you set goals and move towards reaching them.
-Planning helps you set and stick to a budget.

Many small business owners are intimidated by the idea of a marketing plan. They think it needs to be a huge formal document with financials and charts. It can be that, particularly if you are going for funding. However, if you are just in business for yourself, your marketing plan can be very simple.

Here are some items I think it should include:

-Your overall vision, value proposition, and unique selling position
-A list of your target markets, and what you know about them
-Your budget for marketing
-A list of strengths and weaknesses with the customer facing side of your business.
-A list of steps you are going to take (I recommend a marketing calendar)
-There are three ways to increase your revenue, and your plan should take each into account:

1. Increase your number of customers
2. Increase the amount of your average transaction
3. Increase the frequency at which your customers buy from you

Most marketing efforts I encounter focus only on #1. However #1 represents the most expensive, difficult, and slow method for increasing revenues.

Remember that marketing is not just advertising and PR. Your plan should encompass your customers' entire experience with you. It might include changing the way you answer the phone, more frequent followup calls, cleaning the bathrooms at your store more often, adding plants to your reception area. your plan also might include some kind of customer satisfaction survey, maybe during followup calls or during a visit to your business.

Your plan might also include presenting your products or services better, or repackaging them in different ways. It might have you creating a new brochure, or giving sales training to your staff.

Your plan should include the tactics you want to use, and a budget for each tactic.

There's an old military aphorism that goes: Even the best possible battle plan has not survived first contact with the enemy. This basically means that the unpredictable always happens - it's what makes life interesting. Do not be afraid to revise your marketing plan to respond to changing conditions. However, you still need a consistent and intelligent marketing effort.

You should be able to capitalize on new opportunities and respond to new challenges.

Plan and stay consistent - you will outpace most of your competition.


About the author:
J D Moore Small Business Marketing Coach "helping small business owners inprove marketing results" http://marketingcomet.typepad.com


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Credit Repair Information

Read Articles:


 Five Tips to Obtain Credit for Small Businesses

 You're SOOOO Close to More Business - It's Scary!

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 How Credit Repair Works
 by: John Mussi

With personal debt at an all-time high, a number of individuals have found that they have overextended themselves and have become immersed in debt. As their debt grows, they can't help but get more and more behind… and their credit score pays the price. If you are one of the many who have had problems with your credit in the past (or still have problems with it), you may be considering credit repair as a way to get back on track.

Before you sign up for a credit repair plan, you should make sure that you understand exactly what is involved in repairing your credit score… while there are a lot of credit repair agencies that are legitimate, there are also some that seek to prey on those who need help and perform services that are both immoral and illegal.

What Credit Repair Is

Obviously, the goal of credit repair is to improve your credit score and get you back on track financially after past credit problems. A variety of credit repair services exist, providing everything from credit counselling and debt negotiation to debt consolidation loans and budgeting advice.

When used properly, credit repair services can not only help you to get caught up with your bills and on the path to a better credit score but they can help you to avoid bankruptcy and set you up to avoid credit problems in the future.

Credit repair takes time, however, and should never be viewed as a “quick fix” for your credit.

If an offer claims that they can instantly grant you new credit, then it's likely not only bogus but can also get you into legal trouble if you accept it.

Common Types of Credit Repair

As mentioned above, credit repair can take several different forms. Credit counselling services provide assistance with the budgeting and repayment of your debts, and offer advice on simple ways to improve your credit without additional loans. They also often provide debt negotiation, which is the working out of a settlement with your creditors so that you only have to repay a portion of your original debt within a certain timeframe.

Debt consolidation loans are also used for the purposes of credit repair, allowing you to take out a loan in order to pay off outstanding debts and leaving you with a single monthly loan payment instead of several different payments.

Budgeting assistance services are also available to help you get control of your spending and personal finances.

Avoiding Credit Repair Scams

Unfortunately, there will always be unsavory individuals who seek to make money off of those who are in need of assistance.

Any credit repair service that promises instant results or that offers to simply create a new credit report for you should be avoided… what they're really creating is a business tax identification number, and any individual who uses one is in danger of being charged with fraud and possibly other charges.

Credit repair takes time; if an offer sounds too good to be true, then it likely is.

Repairing Your Own Credit

Of course, by paying off old debts and establishing and maintaining new lines of credit you can begin the process of credit repair yourself.

Request a copy of your credit report and check it for errors, and then focus on clearing the debts that appear as negative reports.

It may take years for all of the negative reports to expire, but by preventing new ones while increasing your positive reports your credit score will slowly rise on its own.

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