The Small Business Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed in Your Small Business, 3rd Edition

Chapter 39

Marketing Muscle

Marketing is not an event, but a process.. . .It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end, for it is a process. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely.

—Jay Conrad Levinson

Small businesses do not have unlimited funds—indeed, quite the opposite is true. Just as you need to be thoughtful about how best to use your advertising dollars, you need to be equally intelligent about your marketing efforts. Both must clearly reinforce your business identity. Marketing, advertising, and branding are the threads that make up the tapestry that is your business image. Together, they constitute your most powerful weapons for getting people to notice you and buy from you. If these threads are disparate, if your advertising does one thing while your marketing does another, and neither reinforces your brand, your tapestry will be, well, ugly. But if these threads reinforce one another, if they communicate a unified message, then your business image will be a tightly woven fabric with a clear identity that people can recall. That is the plan. There are so many small businesses out there competing against you for the same customers that it is the ones with a rich, memorable tapestry that get people to remember them above the din.

Marketing Overview

Marketing, boiled down, is the combination of all your efforts to get people to remember your business. It includes everything—from how you answer the phone to how you deal ...