No marketing job is trickier, and more varied, than marketing a
specialized product or group of products for a small business, whether
it's industrial or consumer. In my years of advertising and marketing,
businesses like yours probably made up half of my clients -- not in
dollars, but in number. They're always the toughest and they tend to have
very different, if not unique or singular, solutions.
Services such as search engines and AdWords complicate the equation. Now
you're operating in a mode that was impossible to do for years, in which
people seek you out. That boosts your efficiency if not your reach, and it
lets you skip over some steps in the process.
But whether you have the optimum program is an open question. I'm not
presuming an answer, only commenting that the question isn't answered by
your experience. If it works to your satisfaction, though, I wouldn't mess
with it.
Tricky - yes.
Works for me - yes.
Changing anything - slowly and with much thought.
The biggest marketing question in such situations, once you're satisfied
with your sales volume, is where it may leave you vulnerable to
competition. That's a VERY big question, and another one that we couldn't
touch here. A key issue that determines it is your current market share;
another is your relative recognition in your core marketplace.
Only two of my competitors are saavy enough to be a threat. Neither has
surfaced enough to put me out of business and we have a very good working
relationship with them for projects that need it. I'm the kind of guy who
will send you to my competitor if they can do the job better. It's not
often, but sometimes they can and I don't want to take a job where it builds
resentment with a customer.
I've often told people, "You live in XXXX. I want to visit XXXX some day,
but I want to do it while on vacation, not to fix a problem with my product.
If I sell it to you, I'm sure you will be happy with the price and
performance."
In ten years, we've made two service calls. I'd rather be here than off in
Bucksnort, USA fixing a $20 problem anyday.
The basic truths in small-business marketing are that people won't buy
your product unless they prefer it; they won't prefer it if they don't
know about it; and they won't know about it if you don't tell them about
it. Recognition is ALWAYS lower than business owners, their sales
managers, and even their marketing managers (if they're not well-trained)
believe. I see that you have positioned yourself well on Google and that
you probably get a lot of hits based on people searching on relevent
terms. What I don't know about your market, but which probably has a lot
to do with who gets the business, is which names a prospective customer
will recognize when they do a search. The ones that pass you over for a
competitor, simply because they've heard of the competitor but they've
never heard of you, is almost always a larger number than a typical
advertiser realizes. And you will never know it happened.
Thanks for the kid words... Hopefully, our name is out there enough that
people look for us specifically. Otherwise, if they are smart enough to
call us and get a quote, they will see the difference pre-sale in the way we
solve the problem they have, the service we provide and the quaility of the
product post-delivery.
That being said, I'll settle for being the "Pepsi" or even less in my
industry. Too many headaches when you are the "Coca-Cola" provider.
Thanks for the insight by the way. Would never have thought to post a
question about the subject here seeking an answer(s) like this.
I always enjoy the subject, Joe.
I'm not sure I *enjoy* it, but at the very worst, it's a necessary evil...
grin
Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
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