Small Business Marketing Tip - Find a Key Driver

Is there one key driver that motivates your customer's behavior?

If you know it--Leverage it.

If you don't know it--Find it!

The small business marketer needs to use every tool available to them, and this is one place where all the work you’ve done to understand your customer can really pay off.

Brand is a key, here, because your brand reminds you how your customers perceive your company. An in-depth understanding of brand can help steer you in the right direction when you make any marketing decision for your business. For example, let's imagine your Brand = ‘Trust'. People trust you. Your customers buy from you because they trust that you always produce and deliver a quality product to them.

Maybe customers complain. OK--there’s no "maybe" about it: customers will complain. Possibly they complain about price, for example. Maybe there is some negotiation in every deal and yet you know that while on the surface price may appear to be a huge reason people tell you they buy from you, in actual truth the reason they purchase because they trust your quality.

So, for you trust translates into consistently producing a quality product. This theme of consistent quality should be a rallying point for your marketing. Stress quality every way and in every place you can--in your print and broadcast advertising, at the point of sale--and especially in your packaging.

By stressing the theme of consistent quality you create and reinforce your brand of trust. Everybody knows trust is earned--so show why you are worthy of the customer's trust, by stressing how you've consistently performed.

Trust may not be what your brand stands for at all--maybe you are the low cost leader; or the cutting-edge innovator--regardless of what you are known for, the vital lesson to remember is to find out why your customers return to you, and then leverage that in all your marketing.

It’s just another way of letting your Brand help you stay focused. And focus is one quality every small business owner needs to continually hone and develop.

Remember: People (customers and employees) + Package (your Face to the Customer) + Brand (who you are) = Marketing Success.

© 2006 Marketing Hawks