Marketing and Advertising Your Business

When you are considering the marketing and advertising small business aspect of your operation, it pays to think basic.
For many business owners, basic means taking on each challenge as it comes up. Decisions are made on hunches and feelings.
For example, you may buy an ad in a special publication. Later, when a customer mentions the ad and buys something, you are likely to remember and repeat the ad "same time next year".
Your memory helps build a personal recollection of the years' experiences.
A better way to be basic is to actually set aside a couple of uninterrupted hours and do some analysis and planning. This is where you can include your personal preferences and include them in the bigger picture.
First, you need to determine your approximate budget . You can do it based on last year's figures, or your can start from scratch with "zero based budgeting," adding specified expenditures.
Second, you'll need to determine your sales goals that will lead to strategic planning. From there, you can choose the tactics you want to use to reach this goal. Some of the major categories are found in the navigation bar to the left.
In the eye of the business owner, everyone's business is different. Yet, in the final analysis, all businesses are similar because (1) they must have customers to exist and (2) sell goods, services or a combination of both.
The differences between individual businesses surface when (1) determining the strategy and then (2) finding the tactics that match the customer buying process. This is the heart of marketing and advertising small business.