Her point – Let him experiment. It’ll grow back, can be cut off, can be colored, will fade out. It’s a temporary expression of his personality. And the cool part I failed to consider – My son was OK with trying to figure out what HE liked, regardless of outside opinions. You can approach small business marketing in the same manner. Experiment with different marketing and advertising strategies. Vary your message, your media outlet, your offers, the frequency. If they work – Great! You’ve just found something which works for you and your business. If it flops, at least you’ve gained valuable data to help you plan for next time. One benefit a small business has – Agility. You can add, remove, change, update and experiment quicker and easier than large corporations. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new ideas or a different approach. Work to create that personality for your business... even if that means being that business owner with the “crazy haircut.”
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in a world of crazy and unlimited varieties of ice cream flavors, the top two flavors were… Vanilla and Chocolate!
That result reminded me of a solid, long-thought principle – Simple can be successful. This holds true for all aspects of life, from ice cream to rocket science, and also in marketing. Sure, geo-targeted web ads based on data obtained from web browser cookies has merit, but so does asking customers for their name and email at the point of sale. So many things have become “complicated.” When a customer now goes to pay for their purchase, they need to have a loyalty card scanned, redeem online coupons through their cell phone, decide if they want the receipt emailed, printed, or both, whether to use the card chip reader or magnetic stripe... Complicated! Certain people within my industry act like marketing has become so complicated (they like to use the word “targeted”), but in the end, the purpose and principles of marketing are as basic as they have ever been – Get the right message, with the right offer, delivered to the right people, at the right time in the buying process. Yes, technology provides businesses effective “complicated” ways to accomplish marketing principles, however, there are also simple and successful tools which can be just as successful. A sign-up list by the register, a suggestion box by the door, a banner in front of the store, and my favorite – Word of mouth!!! All simple, yet successful, for small business owners nationwide. While lactose free, passion fruit infused, organic peach ice cream with a sprinkle of ground dandelions may one day become the most popular flavor, one cannot overlook the current, and long-term success, of vanilla and chocolate. Simple can be successful. |
