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This edition of TMAI Premium is free for Standard Edition subscribers.
I got so immersed in writing game-changing Premium editions, I forgot to send a standard (free) edition for two weeks! Over three editions, we explored how to activate machine-learning powered Propensity Models to deliver exponentially profitable results (B2B, Email, Value-based Bidding, etc.). I then spilled my secrets behind creating dashboards that act as agents of change, vs. glorified data pukes. Last week's was special Premium, with ten lessons for crisis management - they are a part of my leadership practice every day.
You can upgrade to TMAI Premium here. All Premium revenue is donated to charity. | | TMAI #384: Small Business: Marketing & Analytics Playbook - P1
| Each week, when I hit Send, it brings me immense joy to share insights and actions that will have a transformative impact on businesses of all types and sizes. B2B. B2C. DTC. MC. SMB. Brand. Performance. EDU. And, everything in betweenToday, I want to do something special, rather than one special dimensional deep dive that applies to most... A comprehensive deep dive into Small Businesses!Small businesses face a unique set of challenges. (Like North Bridger Bison in Montana, by TMAI Premium member Matt Skoglund - please click and buy!) To contribute to their success, and yours, I'm packaging everything I know into an actionable Playbook simplifying the complexity of four areas of focus any small business owner worries about: * Marketing
* User Experience
* Data Analytics
* Agencies & Consultants
The eagle-eyed among you will immediately spot that nearly every recommendation for profitable action in the playbook applies to businesses of all sizes. In as much, I hope you all will benefit and win bigger.Before we get going… Let me say one thing at the start: The single biggest way for a small business to grow into a medium-sized business is word of mouth.
My playbook will help you understand what really matters, and the specific steps you can take to improve profitability (on an incrementality basis!). You'll notice it is, like me, extraordinarily pragmatic. Read everything, take action, but please remember the super crucial role winning word of mouth will play. Ergo, obsess about: 1. Making the very best product you can
2. Deliver it using the best experience you can create
3. Provide the best after-sales service you can
Everything I’m saying below will add incremental value, but it is not a substitute for the above three do-or-die variables.
In Playbook Part 1, let's cover profitable Marketing recommendations in-depth. Next week, the same in-depth approach to User Experience (to ensure you don't forget winning behavior), Data Analytics (to set your small business truly apart), and the optimal mindset to leveraging external help from Agencies/Consultants.Ready to rock? | Marketing.
Solve for word of mouth first. :)
Make it easy for people to spread your stories. Entice them to write reviews on Yelp & Google Maps, but also on your site. When they come to your retail store, give them little postcards with your art that they can give to their friends. Explicitly say, (I know this sounds crazy, but it works), in your order confirmation emails or when they leave your store, will you please tell your friends about us? If I like a cute dress on your site, make it easy for me to WhatsApp it to my wife or my girlfriends. And so on and so forth.
Word of mouth is gold, you are never too big to invest in it.
When it comes to taking advantage of marketing options, I recommend the following priority: M1. Almost completely free.
M2. Cost a little bit of money.
M3. Cost a bunch of money.
It is worth remembering that at the end of the day, all Marketing is content. Content can be stories about your company, your industry, things you are selling clothes/meat/tax services, things that humanize you, tips to use your products/services better, latest trends, and, my absolute favorite, content that is an expression of your values. Content. Content. Content. Content. Content.
I know, I know, you are saying hot damn avinash, I’m not an author and if I were one, do you think I would be selling Singaporean noodles!!! You have a point.
Still, no content, no Marketing. And now, you can use AI as a Muse. (Premium members see, TMAI #358, 359. Please email if you can't find them.)
If you have no content, a lot of what I’m going to say, especially the free stuff, will be harder. If you don’t have content, you’ll pay more to build an audience and get a sale. | [Tip: TMAI editions tend to be comprehensive, this one is particularly so. I'm going to label-number each recommendation so that you can keep track. The sweet blue graphic at the end will bring everything together in a simple picture you can put into PowerPoint/print.]M1. Almost completely free marketing strategies.
Start a blog on your website. Matt has one for North Bridger. Do you?
The blog will also be fuel for two profitable strategies: Email Marketing. SEO.
M1A. Email freaking rocks.Even if you think you’ll only scrounge up 10 subscribers, please start a newsletter. These days, it is one of the best ways to build an audience, build a community, and…. turbocharge word of mouth!
You can use EmailOctopus, it is what I use for TMAI. It is free up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails per month. I've been happy with the service and reliability.
Send your blog posts via email. Send content about any of the five ideas I mentioned above. Write once every other week to get started. It will create a regular engagement with your current customers (who can help you spread it), and future customers.
[Big company lesson: Newsletters that only focus on Do intent suck quickly. Focus your newsletter on See and Care stories, with a tiny sprinkling of Think. You'll. Win. Big.]
M1B. Big or Small Company: SEO = Profit.
When you are a small business, it is hard to find clients. Yet, every single day thousands of people are searching for what you sell. Search Engine Optimization requires comparatively less investment and effort. It takes just doing a few things right technically (pick the right web platform for your site, write intuitive, user-friendly URLs, add optimal meta tags, etc.), and publishing content on a regular basis (yes, content again!).
My good friend Joost de Valk has a great guide that demystifies SEO, and systematically tells you want to do - even if you know nothing about SEO:
If you don’t use WordPress, don't worry, Joost’s advice applies to sites of all types.
You can choose to hire an Agency to help. But, for a small business, if you are willing to read the guide above, follow the advice blindly (and I do recommend blindly following) you can probably get from 0 to 80 points by yourself. Going from 80 to 100 will require spending some money, do it after you've claimed the free wins from getting to 80.
One last bit of advice: Anyone who tells you they can guarantee you a ranking, is not being honest with you. Anyone who tells you they have schemes to “trick” / “game” Bing or Google, might not your friend.
M1C. Embrace Google My Business (GMB) fully.
Another close to free strategy you should not ignore is using Google My Business. Claim your business, upload pictures, descriptions, menus, hours, anything that a potential customer might find helpful. And, remember to update with your weekly specials, latest promotions, customer engagement events, whatever you are doing.
You show up better in Google organic search results, you show up better in Maps, you'll automatically work better with the Google Assistant, and on and on and on.
When my wife opened a restaurant, Google my Business sent us free stickers and posters that we designed on their site. These were great for attracting foot traffic - for an SMB, every little help you can get, take it. | M2. Cost a little bit of money marketing strategies.
M2A. Be Cautious with Organic Social.From my experiments with companies big and small, I do not recommend investing in Organic Social. [Premium members review analysis shared in "TMAI #317: The Enduring Myth of Organic Social."] With organic reach at well under 1%, close to no one is seeing your wonderful took time to create content (without buying paid social ads - which I do recommend below).
You are likely to bump into some viral story about home bound chefs being able to do pretty good business on Instagram during the pandemic by showing their dishes. Or, a particular local jewelry business having success on Facebook. Know that it is very, very hard and rare.
It is ok to experiment if you would like to. Be aware that it will take a time to build your audience, it will take some spending money to get the content to be engaging and then using ads to amplify that organic content.
Set a goal for yourself. If in three months and $5,000, you don’t get $30,000 in revenue, then pull the plug. [Note, I did not say how many followers you should have in three months. What’s the point of bot followers who don’t buy and keep you in business?] The best Organic Social strategy? Get your customers to post on their channels! Have an Instagrammable Mural inside your shop or on the outer wall (with your name clearly visible). Put QR codes directly to the review pages. Deliver exceptional customer service. Let others tell your stories (and they'll spread to networks you'll never reach). M2B. Don’t forget offline and local advertising.
Local newspapers and magazines are surprisingly affordable. Circulars and Mailers. Local mobile apps. Catalogs. Flyers and Posters. Local business groups. An ad on a bench near a local park. Even good old direct mail (the much, much older brother of email!).
I realize these are all so old school and unsexy. Remember, the name of the game is reach and frequency. All these established approaches to advertising can be surprisingly affordable and surprisingly effective.
(Read my important note about creative below, also applies here.) | M3. Cost a bunch of money marketing strategies.
M3A. Paid Social.
No one has made it easier for small businesses to advertise like Facebook - much credit to them! If you are paying for this newsletter, you are certainly slightly technically inclined. If so, spare some time, use the Facebook Ads Manager to start to test some ads and monitor the results. Try different ad formats, calls to actions. If you feel lost, there are certainly a million consultants ready to help you (pay them for outcomes and not activity - for results delivered, not ads delivered).
Add the Facebook pixel on your site, and you can take advantage of Facebook’s auto-optimization features - which are good, and you have to do less to figure out what's working and what's not. Just keep an eye on the success metric (say, conversion rate, revenue) and you’ll be safe and well.
Tip: Initially at least, even if you offer global shipping, narrow your ad targeting to your geographic location. Say, within 100 miles, or less. This is to restrict your ads while you are learning. Play with different audiences, play with different targeting options, play with automation. In this stage, you are just trying to find all the way you will fail, or the platform might not be working for you.
As you get more comfortable with the platform, what works and what does not, loosen the restrictions step by step and press the throttle. Everything above applies to TikTok, Threads, or any new Social platform.
M3B. Paid Search.
Google! Of course Google.
Google’s Ad platforms are not as easy as Facebook for a Small Biz. There are so many settings and things and whatnots and cleverness that surprises you (sometimes not in a good way).
So start narrow, start with tight limits, and then ease up.
There is no question about the clear depth of intent in Google queries. There is no question Google will be a profitable part of your conversions and revenue. You just need more patience. To get started exactly and precisely follow these five steps.
[Big company lesson: Depending on your audience and purpose, you can also explore YouTube - which has proven to be effective for numerous clients for me.]
M3C. Please, please, spend time/money on creative.
If you spend money on paid advertising, spend money on building creative.
In our big business meta-analysis, up to 60% of all success of the campaign is the creative. The ad itself. All the wiz-bang features of the ad platform, all the buttons you are pressing to day part or geo fence or audience target... Less than 40% of success.
Due to time limitations, many small businesses quickly slap something together, put a Japanese puppy in the ad and expect BOOM! Sadly, more like meh.
Pay someone to build your ads (or hire your artistic niece with digital skills, or Fiverr). Upload multiple creatives, logos, text, etc., into Facebook and Google and let their Smart Creative machine-learning power help you optimize the creative that a human sees.
There is so much more when it comes to small business marketing. I hope that the think embedded in my recommendations allows you to intelligently evaluate the new shiny objects you come across.
| Next week.Great Marketing results in attention and engagement from customers. It is, but, a small part of the puzzle in building a profitable small business.Next week... Let's build an incredible User Experience for all these newly attentive and engaged humans. Then, let's put in place, even as a small business, a foundational practice of Data Analytics that will, with little effort, deliver extraordinary insights. Then, you are going to grow, make TONS OF MONEY, and need help - how to get that from the right Agency and ensure they deliver.Exciting, no? See you in next weeks' Premium edition. | Bottom line.Doing more with less is a good habit, in general. I hope what you've noticed, more than anything, in this newsletter (and next week) is that regardless of size… You can do more with less.At some point, less is less. That point is usually six miles away in nearly all companies, though we all tend to act as if that point is six inches away.A good example of this is the breathless activity and millions being invested in "cookie deprecation," "cookieless future," "clean rooms," et. al. A clear-eyed assessment here.Do more, with less. Carpe diem.-Avinash.PS: We'll fill this out next week, for now, an appetizer... | Committed to investing in your professional growth, and a significant salary bump?
Upgrade to TMAI Premium here - it is published 50x / year. | |
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