Home Business Marketing: Where To Spend Your Money, Part 2
First off, I’d like to say that thanks to the awesomeness of IttyBiz readers, yesterday’s Remarkable Communication extravaganza resulted in a 2000% increase in Sonia’s traffic.
2000%
To those of you who have been paying attention, that’s double what I promised. Na na na na na na na. Thank you everybody. You rule.
Moving on to what you should be spending your money on. I have a super-yuck migraine right now so I’m going to make this quick. (Get the ebook when it comes out later. I’ll expand.)
Remember, yesterday’s mandate was that you should only be spending money on the things that people notice about your home business. No notice, no spend. Repeat it to yourself while you think about marketing ideas in the shower. Or maybe you don’t do that. Maybe that’s just me. Anyway.
1.) Paper goods. There are very few businesses that are only able to promote online. Even if you do the majority of your business on the internet, you can still promote offline. Business cards and stationery must be good. Stationery can be done in Word on your computer, as long as you use high quality paper and a laser printer. Business cards cannot. No discussion. And never, ever use an inkjet for business communications of any kind. Yes, that includes you.
2.) Phone stuff. If you primarily use your cell phone, ask around to find the company with the most reliable and consistent reception and pay whatever they charge. We don’t use cell phones in Canada as much as y’all do in the States, so I wasn’t prepared for all the horrendous phone calls I’d be having when I started working online. You don’t think this has to do with marketing, but it does. If I can’t have an understandable conversation with you, do you really think I’m going to refer you to someone I respect and admire, and have them call you, too? Uh, no.
3.) Swag. What you give out for free is a huge reflection on you. Make sure it’s good. If you do t-shirts, make them very good t-shirts. I recommend American Apparel. Nobody wants another Beefy T. (On t-shirts - look at the shirt you’re considering, sans decoration. Would you pay $20 for it, plain? No? Put it down and find another shirt.) When it comes to swag, think about Return On Investment. Yes, 100 shirts at $6 a pop is cheaper than 100 shirts at $10 a pop. However, if your $6 shirts bring you no new business, congratulations. Your dog just peed all over your $600. You are net -$600. You lose. But if your $10 shirts bring you $1200 worth of business because they make your company look freaking awesome, you are net $200. Zero dog pee. You win.
4.) Your physical appearance. One day last month, before it became stupidly cold and snowy, Jamie and the kids and I were walking to the library. It occurred to me that each of us was wearing jeans, a grey hoodie, and a buzz cut. Jamie joked that this should be our company uniform. While I don’t recommend Nazi Chic for everyone, spend some cash to not only make yourself look good, but to make yourself look branded. If you wear suits, wear damn good suits. If you wear Chuck Taylors, make them pristine. If you’re the crunchy granola type, make those hiking boots so treehugger it hurts.
5.) Memberships. Spend whatever it costs to join the relevant associations - your local small business association, networking groups, whatever. People will bring you more business than any other form of advertising. (Side note: In order to benefit from your membership dollars, you actually have to go to the events. The wine is always bad. Drink beforehand if you must.)
That’s it. I’m going to bed.
Liked this post? Subscribe here. It’s so cheap, it’s free.
***
Want a small business marketing consultant of your very own? Click here to get started.
Next Post: Marketing School: Turning Weakness Into Strength
i agree with all your points. with that being said, i feel number 4 is the most important. you look good, you feel good, your more confident and you come off as an expert.
this reminds me of a study where they had grade school children rate the effectiveness of teachers. the teachers that were well groomed, stylish, in shape, and good looking were viewed as smarter, funnier, and more successful then the other trolls.
good work and good night!
Naomi: Sorry to hear about that migraine! Hope you feel better soon.
“And never, ever use an inkjet for business communications of any kind. Yes, that includes you.”
Can you expand on that? I have trouble telling text printed by a quality inkjet from text printed by a laser printer. And I know printing cost per page is lower with a laser than an inkjet. But inkjets have a significant advantage over laser printers: Inkjet printouts are much easier to recycle. Laser printing basically fuses the black toner to the page, which makes it a lot harder to get rid of when it’s time to recycle.
I try to run my business in an environmentally sound manner. But if my using an inkjet printer instead of a laser printer for my business communications is harming my business, then, well, I guess I have a hard decision to make.
If you have some kind of creative profession, you can be more adventurous with number 4 too. I can get away with wearing head to toe black most of the time because I’m a designer, see. If I wore antlers on my head, people would probably be all “Oh, she’s a designer, it’s cool.”
I like Some Other Naomi’s comment. But of course I’d like it — she’s a designer; of course she says intriguing things. (Pause for d’oh moment.)
“While I don’t recommend Nazi Chic for everyone, spend some cash to not only make yourself look good, but to make yourself look branded. ” I like the sound of that, but not the execution. How can I put this? (It would help to really know what I mean; sorry, I don’t.) Ever seen an ad for some service company, like the lawn care guys (excuse me, greenery maintenance specialist), and in the ad the guy’s driving the truck with the logo, and he’s wearing the short-sleeve shirt with the logo, and he’s wearing the hat with the logo., and he’s holding the clipboard with the logo. His shorts likely have the logo (no, really, thats okay, I don’t want to know. ) Now think about when the actual in-the-flesh guy shows up. He probably has the shirt with the logo, but likely not the hat. And the truck has the logo, but there’s likely mud on it. And the clipboard, well, its kind of battered. So I guess what I’m thinking is that branding is useful, but not super-useful. It’s almost, I don’t know, tertiary — like, yeah, I work here, see, I have the company logo on my butt. However, it doesn’t prove that I know squat. Think of the Geek Squad people. Initially, the image was interesting — gosh, so uncool, they must really know what they’re doing! (Kind of like the anti-Mac image. Would that make them the CAM image? Sorry…) But now, the Geek Squad image is more of a Yeah, Sure, Right, I Really Believe that someone smart and bright will show up and do PC magic for me. Uh-huh. Its just an image. Didn’t I see you folding shirts at WalMart last week? It doesn’t convey ability; it just conveys that you’re on our payroll.
So neatness or scruffiness, scrubs or business suits (good ones, yeah, I agree) — but brands per se? Um…I know what you’re saying, but I can’t *quite* buy it. Sorry.
On #4, you are much braver than I am–I have a whole blog post written about communications professionals who look like somebody’s mom, but I lack the guts to post it. Not somebody’s hot mom, either.
Not only do I use an inket printer, I use one that leaves randomly colored speckles on things. OK, pencilling in trip to Kinko’s for stuff I actually send clients. (Almost never happens, I must say.)
Traffic still fairly insane today, kisses and love to all of you. xoxox
Sonia, doesn’t Kinko’s offer to pack and send stuff for you? Or is that essentially a lie? (ie, ‘well, yeah, we DO it, but, you know, it has to be….written in Lithuanian and weigh less than 13.56 imperial ounces, doncha know’). But if they really do, couldn’t you just electronically send to them and let them handle getting it out the door?
I know, I’m believing ads again. Me, who once tried to email something to a local Kinkos to print, holepunch, and bind, and ended up deciding it’d be easier to do it myself, on our old color printer and three hole punch. I HAVE to stop self-medicating….
Thanks for mentioning pristine Chuck Taylors. I was losing the “Buy some respectable shoes for work” argument with my wife. Now I get to buy a new pair of chucks.
Couldn’t agree more with no 1. Offline promotion is just as important as online promotion and although some like to diminish their importance, first impressions do count, a lot.
Just amazing how so much of the stuff normally associated with “block and steel” also apply to the online establishment.
I particularly like item 5…network or die!
@ Michael - Brilliant idea for a study. My sister-in-law just became a teacher and I think all of her students are madly in love with her, partly for that very reason. I got the trolls when I was growing up. I spent a lot of time in small towns. Troll teachers are a town bylaw.
@ Matt - You raise a very, very good point. I responded with a post about it.
@ Bill - You also raise a good point. Will respond with a post tomorrow.
@ Sonia - If you post it, you’ll have an opportunity to use the word “MILF” in your blog. How could you possibly pass that up?
@ Reid - Definitely and absolutely. Blame me. Tell her it’s part of your marketing school homework. I will happily be your fall guy.
@ Gia - You know, that’s funny. It seems that the people who try to downplay the importance of first impressions are the people who make really shitty first impressions.
@ Adrian - It’s fascinating, isn’t it? It seemed like everybody thought online stuff was going to be so different than regular stuff. Not so, on so many counts.
[...] brand is none of these things – it’s a combination of them, and so much more. A few days ago, in response to one of my posts, Bill wrote [...]
[...] – sometimes it’s only perceived that way. For example, in a recent post, I mentioned that you shouldn’t use inkjet printers for your business communications. While I maintain that most inkjet printers yield really crappy [...]
[...] 12th 2007 2:00pm [-] From: ittybiz.com [...]