Trade show marketing report brought back some memories today on my earliest marketing experiences that I'd almost forgotten - the art of small towns, small business and posters!

When I was in my mid-teens, I opened my first business, a retail bicycle shop. Needless to say, funds were tight. But, I had some advantages, namely that I was the only bicycle shop in one particular county, and was able to serve two other nearby counties due to location. I had about a 15 mile radius from which I could pull customers. I reasoned that the most effective way to get new customers, besides word of mouth, was to ask every business that I felt my customers might go into in that 15 mile spread, if they'd mind putting up my poster for bicycle repair. I had the posters professionally done and printed on very bright colored paper. To no surprise, nearly every business said, "sure, hang it on the bulletin board over there."

I put posters in grocery stores, shoe stores, hardware stores, gas stations, restaurants and every other business I could think of where my customers might find me. I know, pretty basic stuff, but at 14, it seemed brilliant.

The best thing was, it worked! Posters, coupled with the powerful word of mouth network in small town America kept that business afloat for years until I decided to close down and move off to college.

Looking back, I think it could be just a form of affilate marketing or 'link swapping', as I was keen to host advertising from my friends in the community as well. The bottom line is: Never underestimate the power of simple local advertising and more importantly, the power of local businesses to scratch each other's backs.

The Wall St. Journal has a superb resource for small business on its website with information on everthing from hiring to patents to where to look for inspiration!

Having been in small business and a consultant to small business, I empathize with those who do not have marketing at a daily top priority. ( I know, damn shame isn't it...)

John Jantsch posted an idea recently on developing an effective marketing calendar that I"d like to pull along just a bit further.

Here's my tip - Get out an 11 x 17 sheet of paper and draw a grid that will allow you to put 12 months at the top. Then along the left edge list every marketing task you know you need to complete this year and assign it to a month. Resist the temptation to cram every item into one month.

Now, take a look at this calendar at the start of every week and plan accordingly. There is still plenty that you must do but this one habit might just be the ticket to getting your marketing on the right path.

• Create a 30 second introduction
  
• Revamp your telephone message
  
• Create an email signature for all outgoing messages
  
• Mail bumper stickers to customers
  
• Create a online press kit
  
• Write press releases
  
• Do radio interviews Learn how to create powerful radio publicity for your business
  
• Participate in a discussion group or discussion list for your industry
  
• Buy keywords at a pay per click engine such as Overture.com
  
• Start a newsletter
  
• Submit your articles to other ezine publishers
  
• Referrals - Ask my current customers who they know that might be a potential customer
  
• Speaking Engagements

The last point to make is that this approach is reminiscent of the approach posited by David Allen in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. There will be more to come on my recent read of that book in next week's review, but suffice it to say that tackling your marketing calendar, and damn near everything else in your personal and professional life, can be a whole lot easier if you follow some of the simple principles from Getting Things Done.

[more on this from StartupJournal.com - Invest Wisely
In Promotional Strategies]

Microsoft of all companies has a great sales process development whitepaper that specifically geared toward "why you should develop a better sales process" (or have one at all, if you don't) for your small business. Of course, they mention the requisite tools like Outlook in there, but what do you expect.

How a Sales Process Can Drive Revenue for Your Small Business

Microsoft has collaborated with Sales Performance International (SPI), an established global leader in sales process consulting, to deliver a sales process model designed specifically for small businesses.

This sales process model, based on SPI's proven Solution Selling® methodology and integrated with Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003, is a series of customer-focused steps that enables sales professionals to close more sales and build better relationships with customers and suppliers. SPI's research shows that adoption of a formalized sales process can increase close ratios by 20%, decrease sales costs by 20%, and increase sales revenues by 25%.

Download the overview of this high performance sales process model to learn more about the benefits to your company, the specific steps in the process, and best practice guidelines for a successful implementation.

On Thursday, Web hosting provider Interland announced that it had released the results of its Spring 2004 Business Barometer of Online Activities, a survey of small business Web site usage. Interland said the survey showed that small businesses prefer online marketing strategies, such as Web site marketing, keyword marketing and email marketing, to traditional methods like direct mail and the Yellow Pages.

Yeah.

[via Web Hosting Industry News]
[also on Emarketer]

Another great report from the US Department of Commerce. It's not new, but it's still relevant. I have qualms about using 6 year old data though - some of the data are from '98.

Main Street in The Digital Age: How Small Businesses Are Using the Tools of the New Economy

"Main Street in the Digital Age," examines the degree to which small- and medium-sized businesses are participating in the new economy. The term "new economy" was coined to describe an economy with surging productivity due largely to investment and use of information technologies like computers, software, and networks. If we are indeed in a "new economy," we would expect to see diffusion of these critical IT tools to businesses of all sizes throughout the economy. This report finds that small- and medium-sized businesses in every industry are investing in information technologies and exploring the potential of these technologies. However, this research also shows that the smaller the firm, the less it invests in IT equipment on a per-employee basis.

Lessons Learned the Hardest Way, by Going Belly Up is a piece that ran in the NY Times on Feb. 24th. It tells the stories of four business owners and the closure of their businesses. Take note of which failures came from factors that could be controlled (one dominant customer leaves) and which failures were beyond control (D.C. sniper shootings keep customers home).

What did they learn?