Small Business Marketing Tips?

[lordreith]

The most effective marketing a small business can use is direct marketing. That's because it is the most measurable. You can see IMMEDIATELY which ads work and which do not. The emphasis is on results. Which efforts are paying their way.
What makes direct marketing so useful to a small business?
In brief, direct marketing is direct communication with carefully targeted individual consumers to obtain an immediate response. Direct marketers communicate directly with customers. They closely match their marketing offers and communications to the needs of carefully defined segments or even individual buyers.
Direct marketing is also an effective tool for interacting with customers to build long term customer relationships.
Direct marketing is the fastest-growing form of marketing. That's because there is a trend toward more targeted and one-to-one marketing. The direct marketer can build an ongoing relationship with each customer.
Direct marketing can also be timed to reach prospects at just the right moment.
Direct marketing also permits easy testing of alternative media and messages.
And direct marketing provides privacy--the direct marketer's offer and strategy are less visible to competitors.
In today's economy, direct marketing gives the biggest bank for your buck; there isn't the waste associated with general advertising ("Half my advertising is wasted; but I don't know which half" -- famous 19th century retailer Jjohn Wanamaker.)
For more on direct marketing, you might want to look at "The Direct Marketing Creative Generator" a blog maintained by a direct marketing prize-winner who is both a college professor and a practitioner: a good source of free ideas: martygrossdm.blogspot.com