Business ideas

10 qualified ways of improving  your small business.

Written by Henry Jex/N.J personal services.

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How do businesses make money? It’s
simple; they sell products or services to
people (customers) at a profit. No matter
how great your product or service, your
business will not make any money unless
customers are willing to buy them. No
customers, no business. Period! However,
most small businesses experience hard
times or fail, not because customers do
not want to buy their products, but
because customers don’t even know their
products/services exist in the first place.
For many small businesses, marketing and
advertising is a huge problem. This article
looks at 10 cheap and interesting ways
that small businesses can market and
advertise their products and services. If
this has been a challenge for your
business, you will certainly learn a lot
from this article.
Marketing and Advertising is a Huge
Problem for Many Small Businesses...
For many small businesses, cost is a major barrier
when it comes to marketing and advertising. Many
of the popular methods we know (like radio, TV,
magazines and newspapers) are often too
expensive for small businesses. In a world where a
30-second advert slot on radio and television can
cost hundreds of dollars, it’s difficult for small
businesses to cope. Big companies with
advertising and marketing budgets that run into
thousands and millions of dollars dominate the
billboards, newspapers, magazines, radio and
television. Because most small businesses cannot
find the customers they need to remain in
business, many small businesses starve and die
because they cannot sell enough products and
services.
Despite these difficulties, how come there are still
a couple of businesses which start very small but
are able to attract enough customers to remain in
business? My research has shown that these
smart businesses and entrepreneurs use several
taken-for-granted methods that many of us have
learned to overlook. Some of them are amazingly
simple and will cost you nothing. Some of the
others will cost you a little, but not enough to bore
a hole in your pocket.
Thanks to the internet, there are now more free,
cheap and interesting advertising options for small
businesses. Although some of the methods we will
share with you shortly may work very well when
used alone, we recommend that you combine
different methods to get the best results. Here are
the top ten ways to find new and more customers
for your small business.

#1 – Word-of-mouth always works!
This is definitely the oldest form of marketing and
advertising used by businesses since the world
began. While it may bring slower results than radio
or television, it still works very well. Because
people are becoming increasingly suspicious of
paid advertising, I still think word-of-mouth
remains one of the most trusted methods in the
world today. When a customer is happy and
satisfied with a product or service, it’s a natural
human tendency that they are likely to share this
experience with people in their circle of trust and
influence - family, friends, colleagues, neighbours
and sometimes, strangers.
A satisfied customer is one of the most effective
marketing and advertising tools a small business
can ever have. Satisfied customers become foot
soldiers, evangelists and advocates for your
business. It is amazing how many of them will go
to great lengths to promote, convince, protect and
defend your business outside. Word-of-mouth is
so effective and powerful that many successful
business rely solely on this method to advertise
and market their products and services. Network
marketing businesses are a good example.
So, how exactly can your small business grow an
army of passionate customers who will use word-
of-mouth advertising to your advantage? Well, I
have a couple of ideas.
The first and most important step is to sell a
product or service that really works and provides
great value to anybody who uses them . If a
product or service delivers on its promise and
does more than what it says, it’s a winner! Most
people buy products or services to solve a
problem or satisfy a need. Nothing will make a
customer happier and more satisfied than getting a
product that makes a very challenging problem go
away. They’ll scream your name from the
mountain tops!
Great customer experience . Most times, it
doesn’t really matter how large or deep-pocketed
your competition is. You can grow a successful
business on great customer service. People like to
buy products and services from businesses that
treat them with respect. People love to be given
attention and treated well and will always return to
enjoy that beautiful experience again. For people
who are spending their hard-earned money on
your products, don’t you think they deserve a big
“Thank you’ with a wide smile on your face?
People hardly forget a great customer experience
and will happily tell other people about it.
Give your customers a reason to advertise and
market your business . Sometimes, word-of-mouth
advertising doesn’t come automatically; you have
to encourage, motivate or incentivize your
customers to do it for you. Start a referral or
reward program for your existing customers. The
more people they refer to you, the more free
products, services and discounts they will enjoy.
The reward should be large enough to trigger their
interest and make them take action. It’s a win-win
method that always works.
I once helped a friend of mine create a loyalty and
referral program for her barbershop and beauty
salon business . The way it works is simple. All
existing customers were registered and given a
unique code. Whenever they spend money in the
shop, it increases the total amount they have spent
to date. If this total reaches a certain level, they
are awarded certain discounts for all the services
they pay for. There were four levels (Bronze,
Silver, Gold and Platinum) with increasing
rewardsThe results were amazing! Almost every
customer was referring their family, friends,
neighbours and total strangers to the salon to
spend money under their code thereby increasing
their totals and making them reach the Gold and
Platinum levels faster.

#2 – ‘Free’ works like magic!
Everybody loves free stuff. Giving away some of
your products and services for free does three very
positive and interesting things for your small
business. First, it lets people out there know that
you exist. Second, it gives you a chance to prove
the value of your product or service and show that
it really works. Third, it provides your future
customers with a risk-free way to try out your
products or service without spending any money.
And if customers find value in your products or
services, they will be willing to pay money for it.
Let’s say George wants to start a barbershop in
his neighborhood and is looking for a simple,
cheap and effective way to advertise and kickstart
his new small business. He decides to put up a
sign in front of his barbershop that reads: ‘Free
Haircuts. First 20 People Only’ . This reads like a
sign that will definitely catch a lot of attention.
That is the power of free! Anybody who walks into
his shop for a free haircut and loves the service
will happily return next time to pay for it and will
likely tell his friends, colleagues and neighbours
about the ‘cool’ new barbershop down the road.
Most people have a weakness for the word ‘free’.
In their minds, it’s another opportunity to enjoy or
use something without spending any money.
Customers love free because they have nothing to
lose; they just sit back, relax and enjoy the service
or product without any risk. By drawing them into
your business, you give them a chance to see and
experience something that would have been totally
hidden from them if you didn’t open your door.
However, you must make sure that the free stuff
will not last forever. From the outset, determine
the number of people who will enjoy the free stuff
or how many days the promo will last. Not
everybody should get free stuff; that’s what makes
it very appealing.

#3 - Offer discounts and deals
Just like free stuff, discounts and deals work well
too. They are another creative and low cost way to
attract more customers to your business. People
often see discounts and deals as a huge
opportunity to save money and enjoy a product or
service for a whole lot less. In fact, discounts and
deals usually influence customers to buy more
products or services than they initially planned.
They love to ‘take the opportunity’ because the
same products may not be so cheap tomorrow.
(photo credit: blog.mixedchicks.net)
Offering deals and discounts are also a powerful
way to publicise your brand. There are now a
couple of deal websites in Africa that advertise
great deals to deal-hungry customers on a daily
basis. Take Nigeria’s DealDey website for
example. Every day, it advertises mouthwatering
deals from several small businesses in several
cities across Nigeria. For a small fee, small
businesses can reach thousands of potential
customers through the good discounts and deals
they offer and websites like DealDey offer a great
platform to do this.

#4 - Start a Contest
Everybody loves to win. It’s not just always about
the prize you win, it’s the thrill of getting lucky or
beating other people. Call it ego or whatever you
like but it always works. Let’s say you’re in the
wedding business and sell wedding gowns, bridal
accessories and other stuff to young people who
are planning a wedding. Let’s also say you start
an interesting contest and the prizes include a
designer wedding dress or a fully-sponsored
honeymoon trip to a local resort. To enter for this
contest, all the couples will have to do is submit a
romantic poem about how they met each other.
Can you imagine the kind of buzz this could create
for your small business? To spread the word about
the contest, you could use word of mouth and
social media like Facebook (we’ll talk about this a
little later). Potential couples will start to talk about
the contest and create free attention and buzz for
you. Even though many of them will not win the
grand prize, they will still be interested in finding
out more about your products and services.
A word of caution though. Make sure you can
comfortably afford the prize(s) you plan to give
out. Draw out a reasonable budget and stick to it.
It makes no sense if the money you make from
selling your products during the contest cannot
cover the cost of running it.

#5 - Do You Have A Website Yet?
Photo credit: choonsae.info
Yes, you’re right. Small businesses need websites
too, even if it has just a single page. As a result of
the huge influence of the internet, our world is now
more connected than ever before. Most people
simply use the internet nowadays when they want
to find a product or service. With the spread of
mobile phones across many parts of Africa, it is
easier and more effective to search Google for
information rather than ask the nearest human
being. Let’s say you run a small laundry and dry
cleaning business in Tema (a small city in Ghana).
Will your business come up among the search
results when a desperate customer searches
Google for ‘ Laundry Businesses in Tema ’?
Owning your own website is no longer a luxury
that only big companies enjoy. The internet has
now made it possible for everybody to enjoy the
opportunity of getting found. You can get a
website for free nowadays and www.blogger.com
is a good place to start. With a Google email
account, you can set up a single web page with a
brief description of your business, products and
services. More importantly, you should include
your contact information (physical address,
telephone and email). A website is like your own
billboard or newspaper advert. Get your small
business represented on the internet. It costs
nothing and will benefit you a lot.

#6 - Get Listed on Popular Local
Directories
In the old days, long before we had mobile
telephones, there were these very large books
known as ‘the Yellow Pages’. Every person and
business usually had their telephone numbers (and
sometimes addresses) listed in the Yellow Pages.
Because there were fewer telephones back then
(known as landlines) it was easy to get
everybody’s names and numbers in one book.
Today, with more than 800 million people with
mobile telephones across Africa and personal
privacy concerns, it would be impossible to do
that.
Thanks to the internet, small businesses can be
listed for free on local directories. When a small
business is registered on a local directory, people
around the world can find it on the map and view
its contact information. The best part is, you don’t
have to pay anything to become registered on
these directories. Some of the most popular ones
out there are Google Places , Yahoo Local and
Bing Places . As you can see, all of these
directories are run by the big global internet
search giants. Get onboard today and fast to claim
your place!

#7 - Are you on Social media?
Social media is changing the way business is done
in today’s world. Although there are now several
social media platforms across the world, Facebook
leads the pack as the world’s largest social
community with over 1.1 billion registered users
worldwide (as at 30 September 2013). That’s more
than 15 percent of the world’s total population.
This is where your target customers hang out and
it makes perfect sense that you register your
business on Facebook too. (photo credit :
maziermedia.com)
In Africa, Facebook has proven to be popular with
over 50 million regular Facebook users on the
continent (as at December 2012) registered on the
website. Social media like Facebook and Twitter
make it very easy for people (both customers and
non-customers) to talk about your business. They
can share or tweet about your products and
services and this allows you to easily engage with
them. For a step-by-step lesson on how to set up
your own Business Page on Facebook, follow this
link : http://www.smallstarter.com/know-the-
basics/start-your-business/how-to-start-your-
business-with-a-facebook-page

#8 - Online advertising is the way to go! That's why my blog,helps in affordable adverts.
More people now depend on the internet for
information nowadays. More people are watching
YouTube than they watch television. More people
read news websites and online magazines instead
of the paper versions. Even big companies have
recognized this shift and are now investing more in
online advertising over the traditional ones. Since
more people now spend more time on the internet,
it only makes sense that you follow them there.
There are different forms of online advertising but
one of the most popular remains Google’s
Adwords Program . Google is by far the largest
search engine on the internet and millions of
people around the world depend on it everyday for
information. It made more than $30 billion dollars
from online advertising (in 2012) and this figure is
expected to grow in the future.
With a small daily budget of $10 to $20 per day,
small businesses can attract thousands of potential
customers to buy products and services. However,
it is important you know that online advertising will
work best for your business if you have a website
for your business. The short video below describes
how the internet’s biggest advertising program
(Google Adwords) works.

#9 – Print and Distribute Flyers
Flyers remain a simple but very effective way to
publicise and advertise your business. They
usually work best for small businesses that target
customers within a particular area (such as
university campuses, residential estates, offices
and industrial areas). To try out this method of
advertising, you don’t need to invest in very
colourful and expensive flyers. If you have limited
funds, it’s best you focus more on the message
you want to deliver and not on the pictures,
graphics or colours . In fact, you can design a
simple one for yourself using any of the free
templates in PowerPoint on your computer.
You can distribute these fliers by yourself or hire
some help to work with you. Putting the flyers on
parked cars and house entry doors usually work
well. You may also encounter some interested
people who may want to know more about your
business and ask questions. That would be a great
time to apply some word-of-mouth advertising to
the mix.
Flyers worked well for Colin Thornton , one of the
inspiring entrepreneurs we profiled here on
smallstarter.com. When he started his computer
repair business from his parents’ garage, he
printed some flyers and shared them to people in
his neighbourhood. That’s how he attracted his
first set of customers and today, he has grown that
small businesss into a successful multi-million
dollar company. You can read his full profile here
to inspire yourself!

#10 – Get Involved In Volunteer Work
Doing volunteer work is often an overlooked
opportunity to enjoy free publicity. Get involved in
volunteer work in your community, church or
mosque. Sponsor an event or offer your services
for free. Have you ever wondered why big
companies invented ‘CSR’, the common acronym
for Corporate Social Responsibility? For some
reason, customers love to support businesses that
give something back to the society in some way.
Most times, all that is required may be your time,
effort and encouragement. If you plan to use this
method of advertising, remember to make sure that
all donations, sponsorships and support are done
in the name of your business and not yours.
Have you been having problems
advertising and marketing your business?
We have discussed quite a couple of simple,
cheap, interesting and creative ways to spread the
word about your small businesss. While some
methods may not work for every business, you will
not lose anything by trying them out to see which
ones work best for you. Like we mentioned before,
the best marketing and advertising strategy is to
combine several of these methods to increase the
number of customers you can attract to your
business. More customers mean more sales. More
sales mean more profits. And profits are always
good news for any small business!
Have you been having any difficulties with
advertising and marketing your products and
services? Have you tried any of the methods
mentioned above? What was the result? No matter
the outcome, good or bad, we would love to hear
from you and share your experience. You never
know, it may help somebody out there.
If you found this article useful, we would appreciate
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You never know, you could inspire somebody
today.
To your financial success!