Your small business strategy rests directly on the foundation of your marketing system; and if you don't have a marketing system and you're not planning on creating one, then you have no small business strategy. End of.
If being successful in business is important to you, then there is no alternative but to take marketing very seriously indeed, and to educate yourself to become very, very good at it. Frankly, the level of marketing expertise I see from most small business owners is embarrassing.
The furthest most of them go is to have some fuzzy notion about the need for more business, and then to leave the rest to chance, hoping, wishing and even praying for punters to walk through the door or hit their website and buy something from them. But hope is a rotten strategy for success.
If you want to enjoy the advantages of a successful marketing system, you need to understand most of what you listen to, believe, and probably think you know about marketing and small business strategy is incorrect. The business world is dominated by marketing myths, and they serve no one but a few phonies.
Strategy idea # 1: Marketing is a money maker
Most small business strategy is curbed by an unscientific "marketing budget". But why? If you're marketing properly, then you should be getting an expected positive ROI from everything you do. So... why would you limit your marketing according to some number a bean counter has pulled out of his butt? Bottom line: when your marketing is making money like this, and it's measurable, trackable and predictable, be ready to plough back as much as you have into it.
Strategy tip # 2: Grab the keys to the Mint!
OK, now let's pretend you have this stupendous marketing system and you know from experience there's a 90 % probability every time you run it you're going to make a handsome profit. A nice place to be, right?
Right. (it's eminently practical for your business, too).
Nope. If you had any sense at all you'd keep pushing that button like a rat with a wire in its head giving it the shots of "happy juice"
Strategy tip # 3: Look before you leap
But, be smart about this. Start with small tests and monitor responses like a hawk watching a mouse. And even when you have a process that works, don't wager more than you can stand losing, because the unpredictable happens, and you don't want to be cleared out by rotten luck falling on bad judgement.
The safe thing to do is determine your evil "budget" as a fraction of profits, so the more you bring in, the more money you can spend on your marketing.
More than once small business owners have said to me they can't do any more marketing this year on the grounds that they don't have the budget for it, even though their marketing is making them a profit. Some years ago, right at the beginning of the 2007 recession, I heard a real estate agent say she was stopping all of her advertising, even though it was the only thing bringing in business. Now THAT is insane..
Strategy tip # 4: How to make it pay
So how do you know when your marketing is working?
When it's making you money.
How do you know that?
By ruthlessly and conscientiously tracking and measuring everything you do.
So the "secret" here is to ensure that your small business strategy is designed in a way to let you track every sale to the marketing activity that brought it in. Right down to every email, postcard and sales call. You can never ever have too much information about this, since it's the difference that'll make you wealthy.