The hardest thing for all of us involved in small business is how to cost effectively find new business. Everything starts and ends with generating new business. Without new business there are no products to make or no services to be delivered.

I have seen some debate in the forum on the effectiveness, or lack of it, in press advertising. So here’s my pennyworth.

Advertising, like other marketing instruments is a tool. It doesn’t work on its own and it’s unlikely to work for you if you don’t know how to handle the tool.

So you have the contacts, networking and financing for a great business and want to get going on your new venture but how are you going to come up with a marketing plan? So many business owners and entrepreneurs make the mistake of believing that because their business ideas are great, they won’t have any problems selling their product or service.

 A penny saved is a penny earned. The scenarios:

1. The money boss makes the marketing decisions
2. Believing that not spending on advertising or PR is saving money
3. It seems so expensive so I am going to get the cheapest one OR
4. It seems so expensive so I am going to get the smallest quantity even though the cost per unit is almost double

So many entrepreneurs believe that the mere ingenuity of their idea is what will sell it. Most of the right are right, but most of them also do not give any thought to how they are going to get that idea across to their target market. So many business owners think that the brilliancy of the idea alone will attract customers.

There’s free and there’s low cost. When you spend a bit of money your capacity to make an impact goes up; it’s something of an investment in your target audience. Here are some easy and cost-effective ways to get your brand out there.

Corporate gifts - unique and free

Branding promotional goods that are unique and eye-catching is a great way to ensure you stay front of mind. The trick is to make them unique and useful.

 

It’s no secret to career-minded professionals to understand that you must stand out and make a name for yourself to ensure the highest level of success. As an entrepreneur you should be well aware of the power of branding and the role it plays in corporate - as well as individual - success. You have probably mastered personal branding in the real world through regular speaking gigs and writing articles but how are you doing with your online branding?

Hi Everyone I registered 10min ago on this website. Seems like a great idea. I do a little photography sometimes and the best thing I could ever do was to join a forum for advice and assistance. One is never to “old” to learn I suppose… I am starting a beverage...

A young friend of mine, who has his own home caretaking (construction) and project management business proudly announced he’d bought his wife (who has the cleaning side of the business) a Volkswagen Beetle. Whilst he was driving it back to his home he came up with all sorts of wonderful ideas to market his wife’s business around the words bug, after all, the car is affectionately known as a Beetle Bug. His first creative attempt was “has the cleaning bug bitten you yet” with visions of this slogan painted on the side of the royal blue Beetle. The name “The Cleaning Bug” pinged for me and I suggested they use it for this business as it didn’t have its own name, trading only under his business name. And so the name “The Cleaning Bug” was adopted. Catchy – yes! And there’s more. The creative juices continued to flow and he’s decided to put an advert into the local newspaper which read “has the cleaning bug bitten you yet? Get vaccinated – phone ..” Catchy? Yes. Effective? No, no, no!

Is it important to do marketing and communications during a recession? Nokukhanya recently ran a workshop with young entrepreneurs who raised this question which raised very interesting debate and we hope that this may assist with the answer. While marketing and advertising is very beneficial to the growth of a...

Aren't you sick and tired of people pulling your email address off the internet and sending you random crap? I am.

This does nothing more than develop a bad reputation for the organisation or email marketer. Unsolicited, or once-off emails (or newsletters) have a very low conversion rate.