Coordinating a rebranding process for Commercial Street and hiring a new communications manager during the past month have underscored the vital and intimidating role marketing plays for all businesses.
According to a 2013 report from University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, U.S. media consumption increased to an average of 63 gigabytes per consumer per day in 2012 from 33 gigabytes in 2008. Americans talked about, viewed and listened to media an average of 13.6 hours per person each day in 2012, up from 11 hours a day in 2008.
Technology has opened the faucet from the manageable trickle absorbed daily by our grandparents through newspapers and three television networks to a fire hose of channels, e-blasts and tweets aimed at today’s targeted demographics.
How can a small-business owner wade through all the options and make good choices with their precious marketing dollars? Two options are tempting: Default to relationships developed through the years or throw up your hands and not spend anything from a paralysis of analysis. Neither will cut it in a world with ever-morphing customers and competition.
Here are five suggestions for maximizing marketing effectiveness.
1. Know thyself.It is important to periodically perform an objective review of your business and customer base. Businesses must regularly take the time to assess where they are in the marketplace and anticipate the emerging trends. To use an Olympic metaphor, it’s the practice of skating to where the puck will be.
The Commercial Street Community Improvement District hired a national planning and branding consultant from South Carolina to meet with a broad range of stakeholders and build off of the efforts on ItsAllDowntown.com the past three years. Their interviews and insights helped craft a new brand statement, style guide and templates for a wide variety of users. It is possible to get too close to a situation and fresh eyes can be very valuable.
2. Remember, there’s no free ride.Facebook, Twitter and websites have been wonderfully inexpensive media for small businesses to broaden their reach. The most effective adopters cultivate a voice and personality to regularly engage their customers. However, they will only take the message so far. Paid marketing must be factored in to annual budgets in order to reach a broader clientele.
3. The silver bullet is a false hope.The days of just advertising in the local newspaper or a single radio station are gone. Businesses must utilize multiple platforms in order to effectively reach their audiences. Continuity is critical to keeping the key messages consistent regardless of the medium.
4. Seek out partners.Merchant organizations and community improvement districts pool their membership and tax dollars to entice customers to their respective areas and promote their businesses. Both downtown and C-Street look to boost their marketing efforts in 2014.
Individual businesses can network to cross-promote one another in small but important ways. The first is by actively communicating so they can knowledgably suggest nearby alternatives (recall the goodwill Macy’s Santa Claus generated by directing the mother to Gimbles in “Miracle on 34th Street”). Shout-outs on social media about other businesses are a friendly and free way to increase the awareness for both entities.
5. Remain steady.Marketing campaigns should be given enough time to produce results. With all those gigabytes to process every day, customers might have to hear your message several times before it sticks. Identify key metrics such as weekly sales, website traffic and Facebook page likes, and compare them to year-over-year numbers. Tweak the plan as needed, but avoid making drastic changes in the plan too quickly.
Perhaps nowhere in business does art meet science more than in marketing. Businesses can significantly increase the return on investments in advertising through knowing their own business and industry trends, not relying solely on free social media, coordinating messages across multiple media, being open to collaboration and remaining committed to executing the plan.
Rusty Worley, executive director of Urban Districts Alliance, can be reached at rusty@itsalldowntown.com.
