Startup Guides > 3 Secrets To Marketing Your Small Business Successfully

Small business entrepreneurship shapes the economy. However, it's difficult, especially during challenging economic times, to shape anything if no one knows about your products or services.

Here are 3 pieces of marketing advice to small-business owners who need to get the word out:

1) Target your customer.

According to one of Bill Cosby's famous quotes, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." Now, he doesn't mean saying "Please" is the key to failure. The message is that you can't be all things to all people.

With promoted company listings, you have a much better chance of making a connection with a customer if you know specifically who they are and what they want. A big part of being a brand is making hard choices about targeting your best and potentially most loyal customer base. The more focused the better so that you can create a customized experience that will make your brand indispensable in their lives.


2) Find your emotional benefit.

Functional facts and figures are only half of the story, and chances are that they alone won't differentiate from your competition. But discovering how you can make your customers feel can set you apart and become the basis for building your brand experience.

3) Create a consistent experience.

Marketing, including social media marketing, is all about creating an experience that adds value to your customers' lives. The trick is to apply that experience across every single touchpoint so that your brand is consistent at each and every interaction. Everything is a touchpoint - right down to your logo, your sales employees, your customer service staff, your company website, and even your social networking profiles.

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