Marketing Essentials for Very Small Businesses

The first thing I do when I sit down with a new client is spend several hours going through a very detailed marketing status survey. This gives me an idea as to what their goals and expectations are and also to determine what marketing assets (if any) they already have in place.

My clients tend to be very small businesses--less than 20 employees (at least they start out that way). Many times they've been in business for years and have never had even an informal marketing program in place. Typically they have an admin that is sporadically taking care of things like social posts, but that's about it.

There are a few elements of, what I would call, marketing infrastructure that even very small businesses need to have. No marketing effort can be successful without them. Some of the elements are as follows:

• An email list of at least 500 good clients and prospects

• A basic analytics tool

• A lead ID tool

• A blog

• Webpages with metatags

• Basic graphics (including a logo)

• Core templates w/company boilerplate

The two most important items in this list are the strong email database and an active (or any) blog--and these are the two things that most very small businesses don't have. The good news is that we are used to creating both these things for new clients--the blog is straightforward, the email list requires some ingenuity.

For a no cost discussion of your situation and how we can leverage metrics-based marketing to grow your business call 630-363-8081 or email jeanna@smartprcommunications.com. Find out more about our Core Marketing Solution for Very Small Businesses