Please read the article and answear aboutquestions.

The Need for Promotion

You’ve experienced your business “light bulb” idea for aterrific new product or service. You’ve organized an officecomplete with desk, phone, and computer, and you may possibly evenhave a small storefront or service vehicle. By all accounts, youare in business. Now ask yourself this: Does your target marketknow you exist?

In order for customers to purchase your goods and services, youmust first go to them. You need to advertise and actively promoteyour business before you can expect inquiries into what you have tooffer. While there are a handful of promotional means that arestandard for all business ventures, entrepreneurs’ limit topromotions is their own creativity.

Unless you know enough customers to keep you in business fromthe day you open up, you need to gain customers. To some extent,that is a game of numbers. To get people to buy what you areoffering, you first need to make an impression on them, lettingthem know who you are and what you are offering. Those who havesome interest become your sales leads and the most interested onesbecome your prospects for a sale. So at a fundamental level,promotion drives sales. How many prospects? Marketers talk aboutthe marketing funnel, a rule of thumb about how many prospectivecustomers it takes to find one who will actually make a purchase.For mass market and Internet advertising, the typical ratio is 1000to 1.

Promotion is essential to gaining the attention of people in thegeneral audience, and any- thing you can do to improve yourmarketing will improve your chances of making a sale. The funnelprovides some insights into recognizing what is truly important inthe marketing process. For this funnel, every customer you keepsaves you from having to contact 1,000 new people in the generalaudience to find a replacement customer—so improving customerloyalty is tremendously important. We will talk about loyalty andother postsale issues later in this chapter.

The funnel illustrates selling to the general public, but whatif you could target people you al- ready know have a reason to beinterested in your goods or services? Maybe one or two people in athousand would buy a baseball glove, but what if you could targetpeople playing baseball? Instead of two sales per thousand, withqualified leads like people already playing baseball, you might beable to sell 10 times as many gloves, or more.

Following Figure 10.1, in this chapter we will talk aboutdefining your target market and deter- mining how to identifysegments like those already playing baseball. We then discuss themethods of promotion including social media, public relations, andpress relations. We conclude the chapter with a discussion ofpersonal selling, and managing postsale relations in order toretain as many customers as you can. But first, as is true in somuch of entrepreneurship, it all starts with you, your ideas foryour business, and its goods or services. Because all promotion isabout the value you can provide your customer.

The Basics: Crafting Your Value Proposition

Chapter 7 introduced the idea of value and cost benefit. Thiswas further developed by talking about your total product inChapter 9. As you recall, your total product is not just the barebones object or service you provide, but what it means to yourcustomers. You don’t just do a great job cleaning houses; youprovide free time to your customers. You don’t just sell desks; youhandcraft beautiful and functional desks in exotic woods. You cantalk about your competitive edge—what you do bet- ter than yourcompetition—or your distinctive competency—what you do that no oneelse does, but what it all boils down to is your valueproposition.2

Youcanthinkofdefiningyourvaluepropositionalongthesamecategoriesofvalueandcostben-efits of quality, style, delivery, service, technology, shoppingease, place, and scale and scope. ForeachofthecategoriesmentionedinChapter7,thinkabouthowyourcompany,product,orserviceisdifferentfromanyoneelse’s.Undereachcategory,answerafewquestionsasobjectivelyasyoucan:

?   Why would someone want your product or service?What need does it fill? List the benefits and the problems itsolves. In what way does it improve the life of the user?

? Would you personally buy this product? Why or why not? The“why nots” may give you an insight into potential weaknesses orcategories of differentiation that you need to work on.

From there, you can then start to determine who will mostbenefit from your product or service. Begin with thesequestions:

? Who, in your opinion, is most likely to buy it? Be as specificas you can. How old are they? Male or female? Where do they live?Where do they work? These people are your primary target market. Itdoesn’t mean that you don’t have second-or third-tier markets.

? How does your primary target market currently go about buyingexisting products or services of this type? What are its sources ofinformation? Word-of-mouth? Trade publications? Yellow Pages? TheInternet?3

By answering these questions, you can start to further developthe value of your product and ways you can find and communicatewith your customers. Once you know who needs your product orservice, you can begin to craft your value and message directly towhere your market would look to find information related to yoursmall business. Skill Module 10.1 will help you develop a valueproposition.

Segmenting Your Market

Many entrepreneurs have trouble answering the question, “Who isyour target market?” Most en- trepreneurs assume that everyone istheir target market. Why should an entrepreneur care who buys theirproduct, as long as it’s sold? If pressed, the entrepreneurs canusually tell you who is most likely to buy their product or serviceand why. When they can tell you this, they have targeted theirmarket. Although targeting and market segmentation are more fullydiscussed in Chapter 12, there are some concepts that are importantto know in order to understand promotion.

Segmentation is the process of dividing the market into smallerportions of people who have certain common characteristics. Yourtarget market is the segment or segments you select on which toconcentrate your marketing efforts. A marketer can chose more thanone target market, but it is customary for a smaller business toconcentrate its efforts on one target market at the beginning andconsider secondary ones later. Marketers use information on thetarget market’s wants and needs in order to tailor the product orservice, as well as its price, distribution, and promotion.4

Dividing the market into different segments can be done in anumber of ways. Some of the more typical ways includegeographically (in a certain city or neighborhood), demographically(income, age, religion, ethnicity, and many others), or by thebenefits sought (clothing that is practical, styl- ish, for aparticular sport, etc.). Most companies will use several ways ofsegmenting to come up with their final target market. For example,the Beacon Street Girls products were segmented by gender (girls)and age (9–13). In addition, the fact that they were into valuesand community service would be a form of benefit segmentation.Beacon Street Girls also had primary and secondary targetmarkets—the girls and their parents and other gift givers.

Let’s start with an example: you run a day care center. Who isyour market? For starters, it is small children, or at least, theparents of small children. You have segmented by life cycleposition; that is, you have eliminated children, teenagers, seniorcitizens, and parents of older children. But this really does noteliminate very many potential customers. How else could you limityour poten- tial customers? Driving distance, say 15 miles, is apopular limit since parents are unlikely to want to drive too far.Income, or disposable income, is also a key segmentation device.Families need to be rich enough to afford your service but not sorich as to hire nannies. Other segmentation ideas include schedule(parents who work evenings and nights) or children’s hobbies (e.g.,offering soccer or music lessons). The more accurately you defineyour segment, the closer you come to defining your targetmarket.

Using our example from above, let’s say that you are located ina town with a large Hispanic population (Phoenix) and all of yourday care workers are fluent in Spanish. Your day care center islocated in a middle-class, Hispanic area where most households aredual income parents with several children. Your research has shownonly a couple of nearby competitors and none of them have thebilingual staff that you have. This opens up the opportunity forthe business approach you have in mind, targeting a bilingual daycare center for the Hispanic parents needing day care. A potentialsecondary market might be non-Hispanic families who desire theirchildren to be fluent in Spanish—a market that could be consideredat another time.

With the target market defined, it becomes easier to determinewhat information customers need in order to make a decision to buyyour service. The Juarez family (as we imagine our typical cus-tomer) needs to find a day care center for little Tomas, who speaksa mix of English and Spanish. Good news! At your center he is notlikely to be misunderstood. Other benefits include being able toleave instructions in English or Spanish or having children get amix of both cultures, such as holi- day and birthday celebrations,stories that are read, decorating colors, the day care center’sname, and such. These are things that an entrepreneur could use tomake this day care center “perfect” for a bilingual clientele.

Promotion includes getting the message out to the target marketso that they can make decisions about your product or service. Whenadvertising, your day care center will want to mention the lan-guage abilities and other benefits likely to be important to thetarget market. In order to catch the eye of the audience, theadvertising might make use of Hispanic music, a Hispanicmodel/spokesperson, or symbols that will resonate with the Hispanicculture. (In the Phoenix area, perhaps a Mexican flag would workwell.) It is likely to run ads in Spanish or at least partially inSpanish. It is also likely useful to use local Spanish television,radio, or newspapers depending on its budget and the ability ofthese media to reach the target market. Your day care center maysend out mailers in the local area and other predominately Hispanicneighborhoods.5 Parents who visit the day care center would likelyhear a sales pitch that was directed to cares and concerns of thistarget market.

Consider, for a moment, promotion for the secondary marketmentioned earlier: the non-Hispanic parents that wanted theirchildren to be fluent in Spanish. Now the ads are likely to be inEnglish. They are likely to run in different media. Mailings wouldgo out to other areas. The sales pitch that the prospective parentswould hear would likely be much different.

So how do you do this for your particular product or service?First of all, consider where your target market gets theinformation they need to make purchasing decisions. Is it theInternet? From their friends? From magazines such as ConsumerReports? From television or radio ads? From talking to the clerksat the stores? Or is your product something they will buy withoutmuch prior thought processes—an impulse purchase. These all haveimplications on where you will put your message in order to makesure they see it.6

Secondly, what features about your product or service areimportant to your target market? That is, what is it they arelooking for when considering buying this product or service? Is itcost? Reli- ability? Technology? Appearance? Fitting in with theirpeer group? Convenient location? How do what the customers deemimportant fit in with your product or service? (If your customersare motivated by price and your product’s distinction is style,technology, or other factors that increase price, maybe you havethe wrong target market—or the wrong product for that market.)Knowing what the customer wants will help you determine what to sayabout your product or service. If you really aren’t sure aboutwhere they get their information or what they want, try checkingout your competitors’ ads—your successful competitors, that is.While you’ll want to be different in your message content, you canget a lot of hints from what is already working.7

Next, what will get your target market to pay attention to yourmessage? Are you going to use rap music or classical music? Willthe people in your message be wearing grunge or high fashion,business professional or jeans and a T-shirt? Will you use boldcolors and exotic fonts, or will you use understated elegance? Oneof the major mistakes an entrepreneur can make is to choose an ap-pealing (to them) message or media, instead of picking one whichmatches the demographics—and tastes—of the target market.8

The answers to these questions are determined by a person’s age,gender, ethnicity, education, income level, profession, geographicregion, personality, and a myriad of other factors. This is whatmakes defining your target market accurately so important. Whilemany entrepreneurs have dif- ficulty selecting only one targetmarket, it is nearly impossible to design a message that willappeal universally or to find media that will reach all consumers.These rather generic messages often end up appealing to nearly noone and can be a considerable waste of marketing dollars.

A word of caution: unless you are particularly artistic, do notcreate your own promotional pieces. It is quite acceptable tosketch out concepts, suggest colors, symbols, and other featuresand to retain final approval, but expect to spend a little moneygetting professional artistic help. A graphic artist is well worththe investment. If you have an exceptionally tight budget, considerasking a graphic design department at a local university to use youas a class project or for a student who is willing to do the workfor minimal cost and a chance to include the results in his or herportfolio.9

Once you have a clear idea of who your target customer is, aworld of data is available to help you think about their habits.Many of the large marketing firms offer information onpredetermined market segments based on their own unique approaches.Nielsen, a company you probably recall is famous for televisionratings, has several types of segmentation analyses. The one thatfits for most consumer-oriented firms is called Prizm(www.MyBestSegments.com). For nearly any zip code in the UnitedStates, Prizm can tell you the predominant groups in it.

For the day care center, our entrepreneur defined the targetmarket based on personal contacts, discussions, and first-handresearch. With the target market defined and the likely areas(specifically zip codes) identified, it is possible to supplementthe personal work with information on predeter- mined marketsegments. Prizm, for example, will identify the five largest marketsegments within a specific zip code for free. For each segment,Prizm provides a free, detailed, rundown about the buying habitsand demographics of this group. For the day care center, one of thelikely zip codes is 85008. In that zip code the Prizm segment “NewBeginnings” is one of the top five. The information on the segmentis shown on this page.

The information in these predetermined market segments can helpyou identify the financial and shopping characteristics of thegroup, which can be difficult questions to ask people face to face.These segments can also be a useful check on your own analyses ofyour target market.

Competitors to Prizm include Esri’s Tapestry model(www.esri.com/data/esri_data/tapestry .html) and Strategic BusinessInsights’ VALS survey (www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/).Each provides descriptions of their segments, as well as theopportunity to see some data for free by

zip code. Additional data requires a fee. If you want to knowthe general characteristics of particu- lar zip codes without theaddition segmentation analysis, you can use any of the new crop offree zip code data sites, like www.zipwho.com, www.censusscope.org,www.zipskinny.com, or www .city-data.com, the use of which areshown in Skill Module 11.2. There is also a mountain of free dataavailable at www.census.gov for areas, businesses, andhouseholds.

Why don’t we recommend using these carefully crafted segmentsfirst? Because the essential strength of small business owners isthat they are close to their customers. Good entrepreneurs under-stand their customers and their needs at a personal level. Itactually hurts your ability to define your own target market if youfirst rely on some other group’s or firm’s idea of who the targetaudiences are. The only certain way for you to know your customersis to start looking for them personally, finding out what they arelike personally, and hearing what they have to say personally. Thenyou have a basis for deciding if and how these predetermined marketsegments fit any of your real cus- tomers. If they do, then thesecommercial products can help you know more about your customers,but they can never really replace the knowledge you first buildabout your customers on your own.

Crafting Your Message

American consumers are bombarded by messages all day, forexample, a Yankelovich Advertising Agency study reported theaverage person was exposed to 5,000 ad messages a day.10 However,many of us screen out most of the commercials we see or hear. Evenwhen an advertisement catches our eye, we are likely to spend onlya few seconds at most considering it unless it is of specialimportance to us. For example, if you are in the new car market,the car advertisements suddenly become more visible to you, buteven when you are interested and move down the marketing funnelfrom having an impres- sion to becoming a sales lead, you may havea poor recall of any ads you’ve seen. Was it the funny ad or theone with the special effects? Ad recall is a major problem for alladvertisers.

The bottom line consists of two questions: How can you get theattention of your potential cus- tomer? If a potential customersees or hears your message and walks away with only one thoughtabout your firm, your product, or your service, what do you wantthat to be?

The how has been addressed somewhat by thoroughly investigatingyour target market and find- ing out what they like. This will giveus a good idea of where they are likely to be exposed to ourmessages. This will also give us a good idea of how our messagesshould be designed.11 So if you did a good job on the target marketanalysis introduced earlier, you should know where they look andwhat they want. That leaves crafting a message that fits theirneeds.

Figure your goal is to craft one message for your target market.It should be specific to them and appealing to them. You shouldplan to repeat it, because a message repeated is more often themessage recalled. You should also make sure the message is clear.There have been famous com- mercials (like one for Rozerem sleepingpill) where people remembered the commercial (with Abe Lincoln anda talking beaver), but had little recall about the product.

The message you craft should combine the elements of yourproduct or service’s value proposi- tion with the needs of yourtarget customer. If they want speed, you should stress speed inyour message. Once you have that key element, what can you do inthe message to reinforce, repeat, or otherwise support it? Red isthe color of speed, for example, and a fast-paced radio,television, or web ad can also support the impression of speed.

In general, you can structure messages to be similar to thetarget customers or distinctive. Ads with a similar approach useaverage-looking people. Ads seeking to be distinctive may opt formod- els. This is where understanding what your target audiencelikes is important.

Along the same lines, you need to decide the voice or tone ofyour message. Tones or voices include humor, fear, patriotism,collegiality, sex, romance, love, and nearly every other emotion.Some, of course, will work better than others, often depending onyour product. Humor may de- grade into slapstick (okay for someaudiences, but not all); romance or love may become sappy.Medications, insurance, safe cars, security products, mouthwashes,and breath mints may be fine for fear appeals, but they may betough for other products. Be careful of being too strong. A fearappeal that is too strong may cause the audience to reactnegatively.

Will your ad show a real-life situation (think ads for papertowels) or will you exaggerate (the less- than-average guy with thesuper-model girlfriend), use fantasy or cartoons? Will youdemonstrate

your product or compare it to competition? If you compare, willit be overt (We are better than Company A) or not (We are thebest)? Will you use rational arguments about the size andspeed?

The answers to these questions vary based on product/service andtarget market; there are not al- ways hard and fast rules. Carcommercials, for example, range from the excitement of the speedingcar on the curving road to rational appeals about miles per gallonand other features of the automo- bile. They use comparisons toothers, humor, sex, fear (safety), and feel-good family themes.

Effective messages are succinct messages that will make yourbusiness clear to potential clients and customers. You will usemore general messages to convey your firm’s overall image.

A great example is Mary Kay’s slogan “Enriching women’s lives.”If used consistently, these mes- sages will ensure the developmentof a solid business identity.

To start initially, you can use your value propositions for eachidentified market to help you develop your overall message orslogan. Try to think of three to five key words that would describeyour business to anyone. What words capture the essence of what youdo and why you exist?

Specific marketing messages use the same principle: What is thekey idea I want the potential consumer to leave with? Sometimesthese messages are pretty straightforward like “We are having asale on May 24 through May 26.” Others may take more time to craftyour value proposition or other distinct features of your productin a form that will resonate with your target audience. Start outwith a strong first mental image—the first thing your client willsee in his or her mind when exposed to your message. Avoidoverworked verbs; use action wherever you can but pick unexpectedwords. Saying “We beat the competition” is fine, but how much moreinteresting is “We wallop the competition”—and even adds a bit ofalliteration as well.12

Conveying Your Message

The challenge of conveying your message is knowing that yourintended customer has actually heard or seen it. If you are sellingface to face, you can be more sure that you and your message areconnecting, but when you send out a press kit or have an ad printedin a newspaper, it is harder to know. One of the interestingaspects of Internet advertising is that it provides a somewhat moredetailed understanding of who looked at a page, and if a viewerclicks on an ad, you can learn a lot about the potential customer.However, away from the Internet, it is hard to be as sure.

Traditionally marketers think in terms of five types of avenuesfor getting your message out: advertising, sales promotions,public/press relations, and personal selling that will be coveredin this chapter, while direct marketing, will be covered in Chapter11 as part of distribution. The promotional mix essentiallydescribes how much of each of these five approaches you will use.The key to promotion for you as the entrepreneur is deciding on thepromotional mix that works best to meet your needs and yourbudget.

Advertising

Advertising is the major way most businesses convey theirmessage to potential customers. Adver- tising is the presentationof your company’s image, products, and services to potentialcustomers and the general public. It can be done in print outlets,or electronically via mass media or the Inter- net, or via signsfrom business cards to billboards to aerial banners. The goal forany advertising is to give customers and the general public apositive impression that they will associate with you, your firm,and its products. If the impression is positive but they don’trecall who you are, the advertising did not work. If they recallwho you are, but the ads didn’t make the viewer feel more positiveabout you, the ad didn’t work.

Because of the Internet, today’s entrepreneurs have never had somany ways to promote their businesses. Traditional media likeadvertisements in magazines and on billboards can now appear allover web pages. Commercials on TV can also appear on the web. Doorhangers with your coupon can be supplemented with local campaignson Groupon or with Google Local to focus on particular cities oreven neighborhoods. There are more places to put the name of yourfirm or product than ever before—from every square inch of a NASCARracer’s uniform, to the poles of turnstiles at the amusement park,to pop-ups inside of your YouTube video. Table 10.1 gives you anoverview of the many forms of promotion available to you.

As you can imagine, given the enormous number of ways toadvertise, it is impossible to give you detailed information on theins and outs of each type of advertising technique. In fact thereare semester-long courses in advertising in most business programs,with whole textbooks going through the many forms. You can get alot of information online from reputable sources such aswww.entrepreneur.com, www.inc.com, www.itsyourbiz.com,www.mashable.com, and www .ducttapemarketing.com. What we can dohere is help get you started in advertising your busi- ness. So wewill talk about the first steps you take—those you need to pay forand those you can do for free.

Paid Advertising

The first thing you need to do when starting your business is toestablish your company identity. While some elements are free,others will take some money up front. Exhibit 10.1 gives you alist- ing of the key elements of creating your corporate identity.Central to the identity is picking your company name, which wediscussed in Chapter 9.

You will want a name for which you can get a matching domainname. That domain name is necessary to get your own website, andmost websites with domain names also give you the ability to get ane-mail address with your company’s domain name. You can check ifprospective names are available at any online firm selling hostingpackages or domain names, but if you find that a name

you like is available, plan to buy it that day. There are firmspaying each day to see what names were looked for, and they buy thenames up for the purpose of reselling them. Search for cheapdomains to find low-cost vendors. Many web-hosting companies willgive you the domain name free with a web-hosting package. Unlessyou’re planning to do e-commerce from day one, you can open up a“starter” type website (usually around five pages) for a low feeand upgrade as you get an idea of what your business reallyneeds.

Armed with these you can start making business cards, and thenwebsites and brochures (the print equivalent of your website). Ifyou think a professional-looking logo would help, there are freedo-it-yourself sites like www.logomaker.com or www.logosnap.com, oryou can post for proposed logos on a site like www.elance.com andoffer a price ($25 is typical) for the logo you select. Mostmarketing and web design firms can help you in this area aswell.

Although regular phone service is not free, you need it, and youneed the number to include on your business card and website. Thinkabout getting a number that reflects your business—one tile companysnagged a phone number they could display as 555-868-TILE (8453).One free service to consider is Google Voice, which will let youprogram one number to ring in multiple places or across multiplephones. With these basics in place, you can get down to the seriousbusiness of ad- vertising your product and service offerings.

From your prior workups of value proposition, target market, andmarket segmentation, you should have a clear idea of your intendedaudience. You should have some idea of where they get theirinformation—from TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, directadvertising like mail, or the Internet—and how much they use andtrust each of these vehicles. From this, you can begin to thinkabout how to structure your mix as soon as you add one moreitem—price!

Advertising costs are usually based on cost per thousand(CPM—the M is the Latin mille or thousand). Figure 10.2 shows youCPMs for a number of different forms of paid advertising. What thechart doesn’t show, but you need to keep in mind, is that one adimpression is unlikely to do the job. Marketers talk about needing15 to 20 impressions for people in the general audience to noticeand remember who you are. This is why you will notice thatcommercials are repeated so often on TV and radio. The companiesare trying to get enough impressions to you so that you recalltheir product. Taking a look at the graphic; knowing the underlyingneed for ad repetitions, you can quickly see that major advertisingcampaigns using traditional media are problematic for smallbusinesses— they are just too costly for most start-ups. How canyou build an advertising campaign on a limited budget?

For companies whose products have a regional, national, orglobal audience, there is no real competition to the Internet. Adsbought on the major services like Google, Bing, and Yahoo can beseen by millions around the world every hour. But because Internetads depend on how often they get shown, you will want to limit whosees the ad to people in particular localities, or people who havesearched for a term linked to your product, or people online oncertain days or times of day. You will be able to check how manypeople react to the ad by their click-through rate, the frequencywith which they click your ad for more information or to buy theproduct. You can also test multiple forms of the ad in a day, andadjust the ad as you learn what works best with your targetaudience.

But as great as web-based advertising is, it is only worthwhileif your intended target audience is on the Internet on sites whereyou can advertise to them. The story of AO Rafting in the SmallBusiness Insight box shows a powerful way to leverage the web. Forour day care center in Phoenix, we could limit online ads to peoplein Phoenix who search for terms like day care. Services like GoogleAdwords Express let you focus your paid ads in a relatively smallgeographic area. Ser- vices like Valpak and competing local couponmailing or door-hanging services offer a similar service usingtraditional print media. For our day care center, we could useGoogle Adwords for people searching for “day care” or “child care”in the local area and supplement that with mailed coupons in areasof town we know have families with children. We could thensupplement these with the free techniques discussed below. We alsocould check locally for neighborhood newspa- pers where we mightplace ads, as well as church and school newsletters, which tend tobe very low cost.

When you think about spending money to buy advertising space,especially when we are talking about traditional media like TV,radio, and print, it can make a lot of sense to also allocate somemoney to have advertising professionals prepare your ads. There aresmall advertising and market- ing agencies virtually everywhere(and if you are comfortable working with an online ad agency, theyliterally could be virtually everywhere). Most good ones will showyou a portfolio of their work, and hopefully you can check them outwith their other clients. Most will also give you a cost estimateto help you determine quickly if you can afford them.

This can also apply to your Internet ads, especially if you areplanning to develop videos or want interactive websites withstate-of-the art graphics, or if having a styl- ish site is centralto the image you want your firm to project. Otherwise, many peopleusing the Internet seem to prefer the less professional ads thatgive you the sense of a personal connection to the entrepreneur atsome other computer on the World Wide Web. On the other hand, youmay want to hire some professional help in order to make yourwebsite appear high up on search results, through the techniques ofsearch engine optimization (SEO). Identifying the best keywords anddescrip- tion tags to your web pages can be extremely useful,especially if you are new to the intricacies of the World WideWeb.

Free Advertising

There has always been free advertising. It probably started withentrepreneurs telling their friends about the business whileworking their “day jobs,” or people calling out what they hadavailable in the marketplace, or putting up a self-made signshowing what they were selling. Every one of those forms of freeadvertising remains very much in force and they still work! Buttoday there is more—a lot more.

For our Phoenix day care center, we already have talked aboutpaid advertis- ing. There are several free ways to get the wordout. Posting brochures or business cards on the bulletin boards ofsupermarkets and pharmacies or other stores in the targetedneighborhoods is one way. Passing out brochures or flyers in localareas or at meetings (e.g., PTO) is very inexpensive, but make sureyou get permission first! Think about places families might go andpass out cards and brochures there—think

of parks and playgrounds on weekends, for example. The idea isto think, “Where does my target market go?” and be there toadvertise your business. We could look for local bloggers on familytopics and send materials about our new day care center to them inhope of getting a mention on the blog. In other words, wherever wecan get the word out, we do it. This kind of thinking will be usedwhen building press and public relations programs later in thechapter.

We can make free websites for our business on Facebook (usefulif you sell to consumers), LinkedIn.com (useful if you sellprimarily to businesses), and Twitter (popular with both groups).These sites give you ways to get involved with customers and withgroups as part of an online social exchange, making them feel moreconnected to your firm. On all three websites, there are groups ofpeople with shared interests, and there is also sharing with themembers’ network connections. So if a customer of yours “Likes”your Facebook page, all of their Facebook connections will seethat, which can explosively add to your growth. Typically thesesocial networking websites are linked back to our main website, sothat customers can easily use all your web resources.

While these sites are free and interactive, giving you a way toexchange ideas and opinions with one another, if you are going tobe serious about using these free networks, you need to beconsistent about living up to your social obligations. CheckingFacebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter every 24 to 48 hours is necessary,and you need to not only check what is happening, but to keep thesite’s content fresh, with new postings at least a couple of timesa week. A dormant Facebook or Twitter account actually hurts yourbusiness reputation because it seems like you don’t care.

The other opportunity that opens up with these social networkdriven sites is the possibility of buzz or viral marketing. You orone of your customers on your Facebook or Twitter account may posta message, upload a picture or a video that people start sharing,and the sharing becomes explosive,withthousandsorevenmillionsofpeopleseeingandsharingthematerial.Havingsomething“goviral” is not easily done. Some say that it can only occurnaturally. But you could get a small-scale virus going. Forexample, imagine our day care center owner posts on her Facebookpage a short video on “How to get your child ready for his or herfirst day at day care.” The customers on the Facebook page like itenough to pass it on to their friends, who pass it on, and suddenlya reporter at the local TV station sees it and asks the owner foran interview. In the interview, the reporter men- tions the videoand links to it from the TV station’s website. Suddenly the owneris the top day care expert in Phoenix. Think about that when yousee the local news. There are stories like this happening every fewdays. The two major sources for these are viral marketing and pressrelation efforts.

Getting other people to talk about you and your business is oneof the best ways to get potential customers’ attention. Since thedays of newspapers, this has been called free ink because gettingthe local gossip columnist to mention your restaurant got your namein ink but didn’t cost you hard dollars (although it might havemeant the gossip columnist got a free meal from you). Today thereare more ways than ever to get free ink, and it goes far beyondnewspapers.

Again the Internet is a major player. For example, NM Incitereported the existence more than 186 million blogs worldwide at theend of 2011.15 There are even blogs like Squidoo (www.squidoo.com/sumbit-startup) or KillerStartups.com that are focused onspotlighting new start-ups.16 With that many blogs, there arebloggers focused on every topic, locality, and industry. There areeven directories of blogs, search for blog directory on Google orBing to help narrow your search.

Whether you are seeking free ink from traditional media or theInternet, you have to do your part, mainly providing them withinformation ready to be used. For example, Internet marketer KippBodnar17 suggests blog-ready materials might include answeringcustomers questions, aggregating an interpreting industrystatistics, or making lists or charts the blogger can quicklyincorporate in their next posting. We’ll get more into the detailsof press releases in the section on press relations later in thechapter.

If you can get the bloggers to like your product or service,they are more likely to mention it. Sending them your press releasemight work if it is relevant, but a sample of your product might bebetter. Do some research on the sites to decide which to target.For example, there is Coolhunting for urban living products, KevinKelly’s CoolTools for tools and gizmos of all sorts, DailyCandy forfashionable clothing, Gizmodo for electronics, Luxist for luxuryitems, MoCoLoco for modern furniture, and Treehugger forenvironmentally friendly products.18

The whole idea of connecting businesses to blogs has itselfspawned entrepreneurship oppor- tunities. PayPerPost—which is blogfocused but not free—is a firm that connects firms hoping to befeatured on blogs with bloggers who don’t mind some extra cash formentioning their products. The company’s founder countersimplications that this is unethical by stating that the firmdoesn’t specify whether the content needs to be positive or not; inother words, you can even get paid for complaining about a productor service.19

Another of the original forms of free advertising isword-of-mouth (WOM) advertising because it is passed when oneperson speaks to another about a product or service they like, orwhen the entrepreneur makes a personal pitch about their businessto someone they just met.

When it comes to promoting a small business that is juststarting out, spreading the news by word-of-mouth remains one ofthe surest ways to build a client base. Whether a potentialcustomer meets the owner directly or hears of the businesssecondhand, a connectedness is established that cannot be matchedby advertising or other marketing methods. Entrepreneurs shouldmake use of every opportunity to meet potential clients and exposethem to their products or services.

Network advertising includes referrals as discussed in Chapter9, but also the information you spread through your own network offamily, friends, and business associates, who are described in thesocial networking discussion of Chapter 3. Ask those clients you’vesatisfied to pass your name along. If possible, give them anincentive—a discount on their next purchase, for example—to do so.Another example is by passing out your business card at everyopportunity. (You may even want to print special ones offering thecarrier to some token gift—an advertising novelty, perhaps—a freeestimate, sample, or discount when they visit your business.)

While a business card goes a long way, prepare yourself to sellyour business at every oppor- tunity. Join local groups such asRotary or Toastmasters. Get involved with trade associations,chambers of commerce, or even local government. If you are able,offer to speak at organizations; perhaps you can share some of yourfunniest start-up stories and the lessons you learned.21

If you ask most service providers how they get business, theanswer is usually referrals or word- of-mouth.22 Carter Prescott,head of New York-based Carter Communications, which provideshigh-level writing and speaking services for Fortune 500 clients,doesn’t even have a listed phone number. “I’ve never needed one,”she says. “It’s better to have people call you on their own, ratherthan soliciting calls anyway. You get a better client that way.”She only gets calls when a current client gives her number to apotential client.

One cold call to a dealer can start word-of-mouth advertising23and get your product into stores. Lynn Gordon, proprietor of FrenchMeadow Bakery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, started her bread- makingbusiness in her kitchen, producing 40 loaves a week for localco-ops. One day she made a cold call to a local gourmet shop, whichstarted a word-of-mouth snowball. As luck would have it, the buyerwas on a special diet, and Gordon’s bread was just what she waslooking for. Soon other grocery stores signed up. Meanwhile,customers sent loaves to friends around the country, who called toorder more.

Under pressure from stores, distributors started asking forFrench Meadow bread. Next, Diane Sawyer and the 60 Minutes crewshowed up to do a story about the Women’s Economic DevelopmentCorp., a program for women entrepreneurs in which Gordon wasinvolved. Saw- yer highlighted Gordon and her gourmet bread on theshow. Then the state helped subsidize a trip to the InternationalFancy Food & Confection Show in Chicago, where 300 storesplaced orders. Will Steger, the tundra explorer, ordered Gordon’sbread for the international trip he was leading across theAntarctic. Even Neiman Marcus bought French Meadow bread to in-clude in a $5,000 Ultimate Cocktail Buffet. As a result of thatfirst cold call, Gordon moved her operation into a13,500-square-foot storefront bakery in Minneapolis, where sheeventually employed 15 people.

Another effective way to create word-of-mouth marketing is togive your product away. Yes, you read that sentence correctly: giveyour product away. You start by making a list of the top people youwould like to have as your customers. Who is your target market?Who do these people listen to when trying to make productdecisions? What if these influential people had your product—anddidn’t have to pay for it? If your product is as great as youthink, won’t these influencers be excited about it and telleveryone else they know?24

Sales Promotions

Sales promotion is a form of communication that encourages thecustomer to take immediate ac- tion. Good examples of salespromotions include coupons, sales, contests, sweepstakes,giveaways, samples, “buy one get one free,” and other gimmicks.They range from inexpensive—sales fly- ers photocopied—toexpensive—all-expenses-paid vacation. They are relatively easy tomanage— sales and coupons—to much more complex—contests andsweepstakes. Frequent buyer programs (as described in Chapter 9)are also examples of sales promotion. When using contests andcoupons, it is a good idea to check into local and state laws,since there are some places that prohibit or limit

how these are used. For example, if you use a sweepstakes inFlorida or New York, you need to post a bond equal to the amount ofthe prizes.

Building a Press Relations Program

Press relations are those activities you do to influence orincrease media coverage of your busi- ness. Media includenewspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, radio, and television.These can be targeted to the general public or for specific groupslike industry or trade associations, professions, neighborhoods, orlines of business (e.g., gas stations, restaurants, etc.). In thissection we talk about how to target media outlets that can do yourfirm the most good, how to develop the keys to any mediastrategy—your press release and press kit—and even how to determinewhat a media outlet might find newsworthy.

Targeting Media Outlets

Building a press relations program is a lot like planning anyother aspect of marketing. It starts with your target. In publicrelations, determining your target is determining which media arelikely to reach your customer. This may include radio, newspapers,magazine, television, and newsletters. Since you are a small firmand perhaps local in scope, national media are probably not for you(un- less you have invented the next Google, YouTube, or otherbreakthrough technology). Most com- munities have localpublications promoting local businesses. Local television stationswon’t offer you 60 Minutes slots, but like to feature stories asfillers in their newscasts—especially if the story is newsworthy,of human interest, humorous, or generally “feel-good.”

As with personal selling, make a list of these media and thendetermine which ones are most likely to carry the sorts of news youoffer. Treat them as if they are your customers. Find out the maincontact people, their phone numbers, and do a Google search to seewhat stories they cover and find out more about them. Ask if theyhave any preferences as to how they like the information delivered.Send them your press kit and ask for theirs.25 Some will preferthat you write the story and let them edit. Others will prefer tosend out their own reporters.

Additionally, the press release can be used on your website, ashandouts to clients, or included in direct mail. If you are apresenter at a meeting or conference, pass it out as backgroundinformation. Frame it and hang it in your place of business. (Manyrestaurants hang favorable reviews where

clients can see them as they wait for their table.) And, as withpersonal selling, continue to build your relationship with themedia. Include a link to the article as part of your signature.26Now, you need to determine which story you will send out and writethe press release.

The Basics of a Press Release27

The press release (see Skill Module 10.2), like the one seen inExhibit 10.2, is the key method for telling your business story.Entrepreneurs can use the AIDA (attention, interest, desire, andaction) formula to write press releases well.

? Attention: Get their attention with a catchy headline.Something clever or a play on words may do the trick. It needs tobe short—no longer than ten words and preferably less. Some- timesa subtitle may be used, especially if the attention-getting titlemay not give enough in- formation. For example, “Udderly Delicious:Dairy Marketing in Venezuela”28 is the example of a clever title—apun—and a subtitle to explain what the article is really about. Tryto strike an emotional chord with your readers. Empathize oraddress a problem they have and you may draw their attentionfurther.29

?     Interest: While the title should startto pique their interest, the opening paragraph should reallycapture them. This first paragraph should include the who, what,when, where, why, and how of the story. If you are really good, youcan get all that in the opening sentence. The idea is to “hook”them and get them to read further.

? Desire: Now provide the meat of the press release—details thattell us more about the open- ing information and increase ourinterest. Depending on what your press release is about, this couldinclude features of your new products, or some biographicalinformation on the new person you hired. Start with the mostimportant information in the story because editors frequentlydelete ending materials to fit space. Quotes from key people fromoutside the com- pany can imply third-party endorsements.

? Action: At the end you put contact information. Where can theyfind out more about your wonderful new product, your exciting newvice president, or this fantastic company that just won an award?The goal is to get them to be potential clients; kind of hard ifthey don’t know where to find you!

Resources for E-Mailing Press Releases31

Once you have developed your press release, there are a plethoraof websites that can assist you in sending or e-mailing your pressrelease to the appropriate media. These include:

? ABYZ News Links—contains links to more than 17,200 newspapersand other news sources from around the world:www.abyznewslinks.com

?               Gebbie Press—where you will find a wealth of media information:www.gebbieinc.com ? American Journalism Review—a great link tomedia sources that are on the Internet: www

.ajr.org

The press release is often included as part of a press kit.Press kits are a variation of the sales kit mentioned earlier.Press kits include brochures, business cards, product information,and other materials that can provide background material for areporter. They should include a letter of in- troduction and mayinclude a brief history of the firm and information about the ownerand other key managers. Include other press releases, articles, andother newspaper clippings about the firm and other such material.Consider including a “frequently asked questions” page, informationabout awards, audio and videos of television, or radio interviews.Financial statements, if you are publicly traded, are a must. Ifappropriate, include samples of your products, camera-ready logoart, statistics specific to your industry or target market, photos,and even an order form—they could be your next customer!32 Wheneveryou run across a new media outlet appropriate to your clientele,add it to your media list.

What Is Newsworthy?33

Press releases are meant to draw the attention of the public tosomething that’s new and newsworthy which could be a range ofthings, from products and people to services and solutions. Tofurther garner serious attention from the media and the public, anews story needs to deliver certain essen- tials that will holdreaders’ attention, and keep your news in their thoughts. It shouldhave public recognition, public importance, or public interest.

Public recognition includes issue recognition (Have you solved aproblem that is an at- large issue? If your problem is not familiarto the public, people need to be familiarized with it before theyunderstand your news), trendiness (Is your news a low-carb diet ora Cabbage Patch Kid? That is, will you be able to ride the wave offashion or will you be just another in a long and dated line ofrelated stories?), famous faces (If the news is connected to one ormore recognizable people or organizations, the public will alreadyfeel a connection to the story.), and proximity (News is sure toattract attention if it can potentially affect a number of people.The more people it will affect, the further your story willspread.). Public importance includes power (Does your newsrepresent a power struggle or shift? Power affects the community,and the farther its potential reaches, the more newsworthy theevent.) and currency (Your event will have its greatest importancewhile the issues are current. Will your news be connected to otherrecent events?). Finally, public interest includes a good story(Does your news present a good conflict and resolution? Nothinggrabs attention and memory better than a good story.), humaninterest (A character with whom the public can relate helpsgenerate interest and attention. Can you pull human interest intoyour news? The human interest story line helps connect the news tothe audience with emotion.), visuals (graphics—action, photography,and so on—draw atten- tion to the piece, making another connectionbetween viewer and the news. Are there interest- ing visuals in thepiece?), and cultural resonance (Broad cultural themes expose theevent or

news to a wider audience. Does the event or campaign speak to awide demographic range? Is it meant to?).

Even though something is “new,” it might not have enough of thethree “essentials” above to grab the attention you had hoped. Forexample, hiring nonexecutives doesn’t hold importance for themedia. Even new products aren’t newsworthy unless they aresomething new and innovative on the market.

Leveraging the Press and Generating Publicity

How do you further leverage the press to grow your business? Thepress can be extremely valu- able in helping businesses of allsizes succeed and gain market share by generating a high level ofexposure to a wide audience. As discussed above, the firstchallenge is to develop that unique story or angle, but once thatis done the next task is to find the appropriate person at specificpress outlets that would be interested in this news. All reportersor editors have their own beat, so it’s imperative that you do yourresearch before approaching them to find out what kinds of storiesthey typically write, what trends might be interesting to theaudiences they write for, and whether or not they just did asimilar story last week.

For a small business, mentions in the “corporate notes” sectionsof the daily and local business papers are a good way to start.These are great places to list new client acquisitions, projectcomple- tions with substantial results, and new hires—allreflective of a solid, growing company. Consumers and companieswant to buy goods and services from a company that has demonstratedit’s going to be around in a few years, not one that has aninteresting idea but can’t properly articulate why the idea isgood.

Building a Public Relations Program34

Public relations include publicity and other forms ofcommunication to the public in general in order to promote afavorable opinion by the public about your firm. For example,corporations send out shareholders’ reports in order to provideinformation and create a favorable impression about the firm withthe shareholders who may never be one of their customers. Otherpublics that are rou- tinely the target of these messages includegovernment, education systems, special interest groups, neighborsto the firm, competition, other business in general, employees andpotential employees, investors, and, of course, potentialclients.

Public relations have some weaknesses as a tool. Many peopleregard public relations stories skeptically: “Of course they willtell us only the good things and not the bad.” Some feel that thesestories are a thinly veiled advertisement. Also, these are verydifficult to control. A firm may spend many hours and resourcesdeveloping and submitting press releases or other publicity and thenews media may never use them. Or, often worse yet, the news mediawill edit the press release to the point that the original intentis totally distorted.

Public relations are those things you do to help create afavorable opinion of your firm in the mind of people in general.For most businesses, the more people who know about your businessthe better, but this only works if people have a positive opinionabout your firm. Often it is easy to do things which help get you afavorable opinion from others. Activities you undertake which showyour willingness to help others, through pitching in or sharingtime or expertise, can do a lot to build favorable publicopinion.

To show your expertise, consider writing articles formagazines35—not press releases, but an article addressing a problemyou can solve, a human interest story, or something about which youare an expert. If it relates to your business, this will helpestablish you as an expert in your field.36 (College professors dothis all the time.) This gets your name out among potentialclients, generates referrals and strengthens your competitiveadvantage. You can also offer different media to consider you as anexpert opinion on related news articles. Include the articles inyour press kit or use them as you would other public relationsmaterials.37

To show your good will, consider sponsorships or donations. Forexample sponsorships can be a good way to get the word out aboutyour firm. Your budget will not cover renaming a local major leaguebaseball stadium, but it might put your name on the back of aT-ball team’s uniforms

in a neighborhood where your target market lives and plays. Thisspreads good will among the local community and might even bepicked up in the press. If a community group has a program whichwould attract your target market, approach the group aboutsponsorship. Unexpected money is often the most persuasive tosponsored organizations.

Donations are the other paying forward approach, and do not needto be millions of dollars. Products that are nearing expiration,returns, or slightly out of specification may be donated toshelters or other nonprofits. Time maybe donated to read books forthe blind; small cash or product donations to local theaters willget your name in the program. Some of these will not result ininstant publicity, but can be worked into company history orbiographical information.39 In addition, dona- tions can have taxbenefits for your business.

There is another approach for building positive public awarenessof your business—creating a publicity event. This works best if itis tied into what you sell. Additionally, it is likely to get morepress if the idea is not seen as self-promotion. For example,Immaculate Baking Company baked the world’s largest cookie—100 feetin diameter and 40,000 pounds. This put it in the Guinness Book ofWorld Records but also generated publicity. What made it evenbetter was that Immaculate Baking tied this into a fundraiser forthe construction of a local folk art museum. Sales went from about$500,000 to over 7 million and the museum gained $20,000 in dona-tions.40 Even simple approaches can pay handsome dividends. Hold anopen house or a tour. Have a booth at a local street fair.Celebrate Grover Cleveland’s birthday with special activitiesthroughout the day. You can even hold seminars or programs onissues of immediate interest when your firm has topical expertise,or you can give your site to the media as a place to film outsideof the studio, but if you do, make sure your signs are visible.These approaches are not the only ones possible. Others can befound in The Thoughtful Entrepreneur: Tips for GeneratingPublicity.

Two Ways to Generate Publicity41

Even though it may be the latest innovation on the market, anewsworthy product, event, or service always benefits fromwell-planned publicity. Aside from advertising, there are severaltools that can help your news gather a piece of the limelight.

1. Write or provide materials:

? Offer exclusive articles, photos, or columns to publicationsthat are read by your target audience.

?      Offer (through a nationalservice) ready-to-reproduce, typeset feature stories to smallernews- papers (mat releases, color pages).

? Not-for-profit organizations can produce public serviceannouncements for broadcast, print, and other media.

?       Produce and distributevideo or audio news releases for the broadcast media.?      Produce your own program or shortfeature for the broadcast media. Depending on distribu-

tion rights, this might also be used as a video brochure or forother groups. ?       Include yourproducts as props for films and TV shows (consider whether theshow’s message

would help or hinder your product’s image). 2. Conductinterviews:

?                        Appear on local TV talk shows or radio call-in shows.?             Hire a professional spokesperson to make appearances and talk aboutyour product or service.?                     Take your message to the media on a multicity media tour.

Having a great product or service does not do you or yourbusiness any good if potential customers do not know about it.Getting the word out about your business and its offerings is thepurpose of promotion in small business. The avenues for getting theword out are fairly well known—current or potential customers, thepress, and these days the Internet—but because everyone knows thoseavenues, crafting and distributing a message that people willnotice and respond to amid all the ads they face is anever-increasing challenge. This chapter focuses on preparing youwith the basic skills of press and public relations, as well asadvice on what makes promotion efforts pay off. Armed with theseideas, you can make your business stand out and be noticed. Theother key role of this chapter is to discuss the specifics ofselling—how to get started and how to close sales. In the end,sales are everything, because everything in business depends onsales. If you can master promotion and selling, your business willhave gone much of the way toward eventual success.

1. According to this chapter, what five elements of the“promotional mix” are included in the typical messageconveyance?

2. According to this chapter, what are the 5 elements ofthe general formula for generating interest in your product orservice (and getting sales)?

3. What are the categories of tips given by Cord Cooperof Investor’s Business Daily listed in thischapter?