A healthy list of customers is not only generated with heavy spending of money on advertisements, but through effective and goal-oriented marketing policy. Survival of Small Businesses gets into trouble with even a small fluctuation in economic conditions. Costumers are very self-seeking; they only seek the products which satiate them at reasonable prices. However, their level of satisfaction may vary from person to person depending on their needs, income, fashion, taste etc.

Even a small entrepreneur can attract masses by employing some great tactics that will enhance its business to the peak of it. But that requires patience and a good behavior. Here are some of the tips that can boost your client base.

• Get Branded

Come up with some innovative and catchy ideas to make your company unique in the market. Nowadays this has been crucial for every company to brand itself. Go for a professional Logo design company, instead of doing it yourself. Because sometimes it costs you higher than you had tried to save.

There are many logo design companies in the market which are providing services at very competitive rates. So, it won’t be affecting your budget as much. Once you are done with your unique logo that distinguishes your company among others in the market.

• Maintain your Brand

Brand management is mandatory to get your company up to date in this competitive market. According to a survey, after every minute a new brand is introduced in the market. It implies that competition is so tough in the market and only the up to date and creative businesses can survive. Get your website designed by a professional designer with a very fresh look. Its design and color scheme should match the corporate scale and should give an amateur look from any side.

Put a blog section on your website and maintain it on regular basis. The reason behind is the search engines which rate the page with respect to date and time and show your website in search results accordingly. Internet based companies live on the ratings of search engines. A slight fluctuation in their rankings can lead them to bear heavy losses.

Not only the small businesses are making their way in market through blogging but almost every giant of the market has shared its interest into it. In this way you can stand with the big corporations technically.

• Value your Customers

It’s a popular maxim that one angry customer gets hundred others. This implies to the condition when a customer is in a mood to wage harsh words against your company. This critical condition requires great patience and skillful attitude to cope up with it. Listen to the customer’s complain very attentively and then carve out the solution for it and make customer feel listened and compensated.

It is one of the basic costumer care concepts, and it is natural that you feel good when you are valued by someone. Ultimately your valued costumer will get another costumer to you. In this way a trail will follow and the chance of increment in your clientele gets galvanized.

• Come up with promotions

Always keep eventful dates in mind to set up promotional campaigns for your products. This must be accompanied with an effective slogan to grab the attention of people. A solid marketing policy in such dates when most of the people turn to the markets for shopping can yield huge revenues to the company.

The concept doesn’t only imply to eventful dates only. The tool is meant to be stricken whenever you feel like. Another interesting factor about the promotion is once it is kicked off with some advertisement. It pursues the way to people with the word- of-mouth marketing. Thus, your promotions should be capable of spreading gossips and rumors around the masses.

Even though the financial crises are slowly loosening its grip on the business arena, small business owners and entrepreneurs are still reluctant to initiate their businesses. Setting up a business is relatively more difficult that running it. According to the latest Statistics released by US Small Business Association (SBA), there are 49% chances of a small business failing within 5 years. This shows the appalling success ratio of establishing a business these days.

But, failure can be avoided if preventive measures are taken beforehand. One of the common reasons of small business failure is the lack of planning and forecasting. Following are 5 common questions that haunt a small business in its initial stages and hence must be addressed ahead of time.

1. What Are My Financial Perimeters?

The first question to answer before establishing a small business is regarding your financial perimeter. You must establish your business scope and scale according to your financial stretch. Most small businesses fail because their liabilities outweigh their assets. Moreover, some entrepreneurs tend to be over-ambitious and diversify their business more than their available resources. This leads to under-utilization of resources and your business falters.

2. Do I have the Right Corporate Logo?

The next critical thing that determines a stable business is your corporate identity and image. Corporate logos are the cornerstone of every small business brand identity. They help the customers in memorizing and recalling your brand/product when required. Without giving due consideration to your identity development, you cannot run a successful business venture.

3. Who are Your Targeted Customers?

Another common small business owner’s mistake is not defining their target market beforehand. In a rush, they fail to correctly identify and recognize who they would like to cater through their business offerings. For a small business, a well defined target market is suitable to gain reasonable and stable profits.

4. What is my Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

According to the SBA Statistics of 2011, there are over 27 million Small Businesses in the US alone. In order for a new entrepreneur to make his mark in the business arena, uniqueness and distinction is required. Hence, another question that small business owners must ask themselves is what their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is. This refers to the one competitive advantage that makes them stand out from the crowd. By defining your USP, you can make an impact in the market.

5. Do I have the Right Marketing Tools?

In this congested world of media and gimmicks, marketing is something that is hard to overlook. Before establishing your small business, you need to be aware of the marketing tools like business cards, flyers and corporate brochures that will propel your business in the market and help you advertise your business to the target audience. Without adequate exposure of your business, nobody will recognize your presence in the market.

Thanksgiving is round the corner. Although it is just a holiday, but if you think like an astute businessman, it is also an ideal time to promote your business. Like every other auspicious occasion, thanksgiving also brings a host of opportunities for small businesses to capitalize on.

Holidays seasons like thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas are the prime time when customers are emotionally sensitive and responsive to any activity related to the occasion. Thus, there is a great prospect for small business owners to utilize this vastly untapped opportunity of marketing their products and services.

Marketing Techniques to use on thanksgiving:

Following tips will help small business owners understand how they can successfully promote their business this thanksgiving:

1. Synchronize your Corporate Logo:

One of the latest and catchy marketing gimmicks that companies use nowadays is they spice up their corporate logos in line with the upcoming occasions. The best example is Google, which changes its logo on every important occasion in order to blend with the customer’s feelings. This technique is especially useful for restaurants and fast-food chains.

2. Send Greeting Cards:

Greeting cards have been one of the most common techniques of business promotion. By sending greeting cards to your present and potential customers, you remind them that you care about them and value their sentiments. This in turn, generates trust and integrity of your business. Remember to print your corporate logo on it as well.

3. Deliver Thanksgiving Gifts:

Thanksgiving is all about “Giving” right? So it’s high time to give your customers something in order to create goodwill. You cannot imagine what it means for customers if you send them complimentary gifts. For example you can purchase turkey basters, which are inexpensive, tie a ribbon to it and attach your business card and deliver.

4. Give Thanksgiving recipes:

Use your corporate brochure to connect with your customers on this thanksgiving. What is the best part about Thanksgiving? Food! You can attach some yummy thanksgiving recipes to your brochures. This way, the customers will feel obliged to your services.

5. Spice up your corporate website:

Online marketing and social media is growing incessantly, and small businesses must take advantage of this marketing mode. Using your corporate website, you can make a huge impact on your customers by aligning your website with the thanksgiving occasion. You can wish your customers through your webpage and add interesting facts related to thanksgiving.

The biggest constraint that any small business encounters in its initial stages is advertising and promotion budget. The unavailability of funds immobilizes small business owners to launch their company identity through proper promotional campaign. What good is your business logo when it is not evident in the market?

Overcoming the budget constraint!

Lack of media exposure is a prime reason that small business owners fail to initiate their business. In this overcrowded world of media coverage, it is imperative to make your business identity noticeable. Social media is especially helpful in this cause for small business owners who do not have sufficient funds to raise an advertising campaign. In simple terms, social media helps small business in getting heard. It is the cheapest form of promotion.
With the increase in consumer awareness, it is essential for businesses to establish their names in the market. The mindset of consumers has changed drastically over the years. People nowadays emphasize on the brand name rather than the product itself.

The statistical facts:

Common sense apart, there are statistical evidence to proof that social media is gaining popularity among small business owners as well. Recently, The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business in collaboration with Network Solutions published the Small Business Success Index (SBSI). It is a study that discloses the degree to which small businesses are accepting social media. According to the report, social media adoption among U.S. small businesses doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%.

The report follows a list of extensive figures. Following are the rest of the interesting facts of the study:

• 75% have a business page on a social network site like LinkedIn or Facebook.
• 69% enthusiastically post status updates and articles of interests.
• 57% are building networks through sites like LinkedIn or Facebook.
• 54% monitor customer feedback of their business on social networks.
• 39% run a blog on their area of proficiency or interest.
• 26% tweet information related to their area of interest or knowledge.
• 16% use twitter to provide customer service.

Social Media – Time to embrace:

With all logical and statistical information, it is evident that social media is the best tool in bolstering the image of small businesses. Social media is like a great conflagration that sprawls over the blogosphere within minutes. It spreads out your business information within the blink of an eye. Hence for those who haven’t yet embraced the blessings of social media should start using it right away. The results will be evident within days.

Failure is every small businessman’s nightmare and an investor’s worst fear. Yes, the apprehension of failure looms in the minds of every small business owner from start. But everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? Then why do 9 out of 10 small businesses ultimately fail?

Some small business owners are lucky enough to last for a few years, while a majority of them don’t even stay long enough to celebrate a single anniversary. One can never attribute the reason of small business failure to a solitary reason. In a normal business life cycle, there are four phases. The introductory, growth, maturity and decline phase. Failure at each level is owing to different reasons. In order to analyze the precise reasons for failure, let us make an inspection on each phase of the small business life cycle.

• Failure at introductory stage:

A majority of businesses collapse at the initial stage. This is the stage where the business is raw. The main reasons that small businesses fail in this early phase is lack of planning. Businesses set-up in haste are always prone to fail. Without any future planning and long-term strategy, any business is likely to fail. Another reason for collapse in the early stages is the lack of financial support to sustain the business over the years. This is also linked to reckless planning on the part of small business owners.

• Failure at growth stage:

In the growth stage, a small business commences its take off from the runway of infancy to the skies of development. Problems during this phase are partly attributed to the lack of vision and forecasting. Although many small businessmen claim extraneous factors to be the real cause of failure, but this is far from the truth. No doubt, unexpected business and environmental factors play a role in failure of business. But this crisis can be averted with a pre-planned approach taking all the intrinsic and extrinsic factors into account.
“There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them.”
 Tom Krause

• Failure at maturity stage:

At the maturity stage, a small business moves towards the phase of stability. At this point the business growth is in stagnation. Since the business has reached its threshold, it cannot move any further until innovative measures are taken. This is the reason why small businesses at the maturity stage fail. This is the point when small business owners require inducing innovative and creativity to lift their business endeavors.

• Failure at decline stage:

This is the final stage that a failing small business goes through. Failure in this phase is genuinely due to lack of commitment and interest on the part of the owner(s). Business at the decline stage is like a sinking ship. There is little that a small business owner can do. But then again…where there is a will there is a way. Small business owners should work out a bailout plan for their business in advance to prevent this situation.

However, I would advice all the small business owners not to give up easily and try to overcome all these problems mentioned above. After all, it’s better to try and fail than fail to try.