| Small businesses are ceaselessly
seeking low-cost, high-impact marketing techniques. Looking forward
to 2003, I asked Kare Anderson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter
and author of Pocket Cross-Promotion Marketing, for her thoughts
on next year's trends. Anderson is a co-founder of Sausalito, California-based
Communicate to Connect Center (kareanderson.com), a consulting,
speaking, and writing company that helps businesses attract clients.
Kimberly McCall: Marketers
are planning for 2003 marketing with meager budgets. How can a small-business
owner squeeze extra mileage from a minimum budget?
Kare Anderson:
1. Join forces with others who serve your kind of client to gain
access to each other's client base, cut overhead and multiply contacts
with hot prospects. For example: Refer to each other's products,
display each other's products (perhaps as they might be used together)
or offer samples of each other's products.
2. Inspire customers to buy more at one time, or over time, by
giving them a prize/product from your cross-promoting partner (your
customers must pick up their prize at your partner's premises);
you do the same for your partner.
3. Rather than selling products or services by name, sell the situation
in which they can be used, especially situations that your most
lucrative kinds of customers crave.
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4. Multiply positive exposures
people have to your product (fun, fast, convenient) and reduce negative
(boring, irritating, confusing, "unfairly" priced) exposures.
McCall: Crystal ball time.
What marketing trends do you see for 2003?
Anderson: Times and the economy will be uncertain,
so people will want to:
- Be coddled (called by name)
- Get personalized treatment (let me offer my product to you,
your way).
- Get guilt-free excuses to make small splurges (a timeless cashmere
sweater or gourmet coffee beans)
McCall: You're a big proponent
of cross-promotions. Please give a few examples of how two businesses
might partner up for mutual benefit.
Anderson: Use a "marketing multiplier method."
You dramatically cut marketing costs while multiplying the credible
ways and places hot prospects see your product in use. Many prospects
will see your product along with businesses they already know and
trust.
For example:
1. Take a digital photograph of a situation in which your product/service
and those of others can be used with other products/services. Add
an inspiring and instructional message about why and how to create
that situation, with the names and contact information of the participating
vendors.
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Turn this into a multi-use
promotional piece: a poster for all participating vendors to display
on-site; a print ad for the local shopper newspaper; an outsized
postcard to mail to your local market area; put into each customer's
bag when they buy from you. With three to ten partners, you can
afford a high-quality photograph.
2. Print joint promotional messages on your receipts.
3. Offer a reduced price, special service, or convenience if customers
buy products from you and your partner.
4. Lease space within another establishment or agree on side-by-side
sites. Examples: Noah's Bagels sells Starbucks Coffee. A restaurant
or fast-food operation leases space within a hospital or motel (Pizza
Hut in Days Inn). Kinko's leases space within certain hotels. Popeye's
Chicken & Biscuits in a Kroger supermarket increases traffic
for both guest and host companies. The post office locates a substation
in a supermarket. An accessories store leases space within or next
to a clothing store and is joined by internal doors. A stadium leases
space to a concession operator.
Co-produce an in-store or office event, a demonstration, celebrity
appearance, experts' free consultations, free service or "how-to"
talk from a master.
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Kare Anderson is the founder of the Say It Better
Center, located in Sausalito, CA. She can be reached via email at
kare@sayitbetter.com.
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