Marketing - The Key To Small Business Success In Recession
Marketing - The Key To Small Business Success In Recession
The answer to that is simple: marketing. Customers come around when they have reason to, and they only have reason when they’re convinced that they need or want what a business offers. But that requires that they know what the business offers, and that is exactly what a marketing campaign is for. Though many don’t recognize or acknowledge it, marketing is, in many ways, the bread and butter of a healthy small business, and it’s one of the primary things that an entrepreneur should look at to determine if a business he may be interested in is indeed worth his investment. But how does a person establish whether or not a franchise’s marketing plan is a strong one or not? Here are a few questions you can ask to help determine that.
Do You Recognize The Name?
It’s a simple question to ask and a simple one to answer but it will tell you a lot. If you came to be interested in this particular business because you were familiar with it before you took interest in starting a franchise, chances are it has a very strong marketing system, because you didn’t have to go looking in order to find it. And if you were aware of it because of its marketing, it’s a safe bet that others are too.
Do Industry Professionals Recognize The Name And Know What They Sell?
If you have friends in the industry of this particular franchise, ask them what they know about the business just off the top of their heads. Then ask them why they know it. If you haven’t been long in the market for the type of business for sale you’re looking at, it won’t be surprising if you don’t have much familiarity with the business in question, but if industry professionals don’t know much, it may be a signal of a bad marketing system.
What Is The Marketing Plan?
Ask the franchisor for any information on their marketing system that they can offer. Learn what their strategies are, what media they use, which demographics they target, and how successful it has proven to be.
Has Their Advertising Worked Well With The Intended Population?
Talk with people in the intended demographic, asking how familiar they are with the company in question, their advertising campaign, and the validity of their product or service. If the business has managed to reach their intended audience in a positive way, it’s a good sign.
How Do Current Franchisees Feel About The Marketing System?
Some of the best sources of information on the successes or failures of franchises in any regard are existing franchisees. Though they may be reticent to criticize their own business, they know better than anyone how well the central marketing system works, what it excels at, what it lacks, and where franchisees have to pick up the slack. And even if a franchisee decides to give his presentation of the business a little too rosy of a coloration, it’s generally not very hard to separate the truth from the exaggerations.
Knowing that a franchise businesshas a strong marketing plan in action is a very important piece in deciding to invest in a business for sale. It will often determine what kind of potential a business actually has, and that is absolutely essential. If you’re in the market for a small business with a strong marketing backbone and you’d just like to skip the headache and see some that are good examples of that, here are a few businesses that possess such a trait.
NOVUS Glass
This glass-repair franchise has one of the best marketing strategies in the industry, providing not only a name that is already well known, but also a central PR department, radio and TV commercials, 25mil happy customers who already know the name and pass on the word, and customized marketing for every new franchised area. Best of all, each of the 400 work from home businesses inadvertently advertises for all the rest every time its company van drives across town.
Real Property Management
With 20 years of experience in the property management industry, this home based business is one of the nation’s leaders, and in part, that is because of their exceptional, dual-layered marketing system. Compared to many lesser competitors, Real Property Management is a nationally recognized name with a full-scale national marketing campaign that has been at work for many long years, ensuring that the name is well known. At the same time, though, franchisees are given help to build more localized campaigns for their specific locations.
Who’s Who Magazine
Maybe not what you were expecting, this home business doesn’t simply have a good marketing plan, it is a good marketing plan. Franchisees work at home, in association with other local businessmen, to create a biannual magazine that highlights the greatest businesses and non-profit organizations in the local area. It’s a great source of advertising for other companies that deserve it, and as the franchisee makes connections in town, his Who’s Who Magazine business also becomes well known.
There are really a number of factors that, when put together, make a small business either a winner or not, but if marketing isn’t there to draw in clients, none of it really matters. Do your homework on a company’s marketing plan before you commit to anything and you’re sure to make a better ultimate decision.
Marketing The Key To Small Business Success In Recession - To learn more about this author, visit Candice Clem's Website.
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When all the pomp and circumstance are taken away, a successful franchise businessrides on one thing: customers. If there are people paying for your product or service, and basic operations are taken care of adequately, your business will do alright, but if you have no customers purchasing your goods, you’re in trouble regardless of how well everything else works. Everyone knows this, even if no one ever says it; we don’t take that for granted. It’s the next question that we tend to ignore: how do businesses get those customers that keep the operations afloat?
The answer to that is simple: marketing. Customers come around when they have reason to, and they only have reason when they’re convinced that they need or want what a business offers. But that requires that they know what the business offers, and that is exactly what a marketing campaign is for. Though many don’t recognize or acknowledge it, marketing is, in many ways, the bread and butter of a healthy small business, and it’s one of the primary things that an entrepreneur should look at to determine if a business he may be interested in is indeed worth his investment. But how does a person establish whether or not a franchise’s marketing plan is a strong one or not? Here are a few questions you can ask to help determine that.
Do You Recognize The Name?
It’s a simple question to ask and a simple one to answer but it will tell you a lot. If you came to be interested in this particular business because you were familiar with it before you took interest in starting a franchise, chances are it has a very strong marketing system, because you didn’t have to go looking in order to find it. And if you were aware of it because of its marketing, it’s a safe bet that others are too.
Do Industry Professionals Recognize The Name And Know What They Sell?
If you have friends in the industry of this particular franchise, ask them what they know about the business just off the top of their heads. Then ask them why they know it. If you haven’t been long in the market for the type of business for sale you’re looking at, it won’t be surprising if you don’t have much familiarity with the business in question, but if industry professionals don’t know much, it may be a signal of a bad marketing system.
What Is The Marketing Plan?
Ask the franchisor for any information on their marketing system that they can offer. Learn what their strategies are, what media they use, which demographics they target, and how successful it has proven to be.
Has Their Advertising Worked Well With The Intended Population?
Talk with people in the intended demographic, asking how familiar they are with the company in question, their advertising campaign, and the validity of their product or service. If the business has managed to reach their intended audience in a positive way, it’s a good sign.
How Do Current Franchisees Feel About The Marketing System?
Some of the best sources of information on the successes or failures of franchises in any regard are existing franchisees. Though they may be reticent to criticize their own business, they know better than anyone how well the central marketing system works, what it excels at, what it lacks, and where franchisees have to pick up the slack. And even if a franchisee decides to give his presentation of the business a little too rosy of a coloration, it’s generally not very hard to separate the truth from the exaggerations.
Knowing that a franchise businesshas a strong marketing plan in action is a very important piece in deciding to invest in a business for sale. It will often determine what kind of potential a business actually has, and that is absolutely essential. If you’re in the market for a small business with a strong marketing backbone and you’d just like to skip the headache and see some that are good examples of that, here are a few businesses that possess such a trait.
NOVUS Glass
This glass-repair franchise has one of the best marketing strategies in the industry, providing not only a name that is already well known, but also a central PR department, radio and TV commercials, 25mil happy customers who already know the name and pass on the word, and customized marketing for every new franchised area. Best of all, each of the 400 work from home businesses inadvertently advertises for all the rest every time its company van drives across town.
Real Property Management
With 20 years of experience in the property management industry, this home based business is one of the nation’s leaders, and in part, that is because of their exceptional, dual-layered marketing system. Compared to many lesser competitors, Real Property Management is a nationally recognized name with a full-scale national marketing campaign that has been at work for many long years, ensuring that the name is well known. At the same time, though, franchisees are given help to build more localized campaigns for their specific locations.
Who’s Who Magazine
Maybe not what you were expecting, this home business doesn’t simply have a good marketing plan, it is a good marketing plan. Franchisees work at home, in association with other local businessmen, to create a biannual magazine that highlights the greatest businesses and non-profit organizations in the local area. It’s a great source of advertising for other companies that deserve it, and as the franchisee makes connections in town, his Who’s Who Magazine business also becomes well known.
There are really a number of factors that, when put together, make a small business either a winner or not, but if marketing isn’t there to draw in clients, none of it really matters. Do your homework on a company’s marketing plan before you commit to anything and you’re sure to make a better ultimate decision.
Marketing The Key To Small Business Success In Recession - To learn more about this author, visit Candice Clem's Website.
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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