Small businesses are still businesses
…or: You’re a Business - Act Like One
As an eCommerce marketer, I get lots of people asking me for advice on how to improve their small business web site. I’m always happy to help because I believe very strongly in small businesses - and I love web marketing.
As I go through my review of their sites and give them my comments, I often get pushback or claims that my tactics and strategies won't work for them:
“Oh no, I can’t do that, that’s big business stuff” is a common response. Or: “My customers have a close relationship with me, they won’t like marketing.” And from artisans and musicians, I often get something like: “That might work for your company because you’re trying to sell stuff … I’m an artist, my site can’t be about making money.”
What?! Of course your site is about making money … small businesses, mom and pop shops, or artisans … everybody has to eat and there is nothing shameful in trying to run a business. Being successful is NOT the same as being greedy.
As far as those in the arts, if anything, I believe that those who create beautiful art (of any variety) should get compensated even more than those who make and sell widgets, and other crap that we don’t need. But, sadly, often the artists do it to themselves.
The reason that big businesses do the things that I’m recommending is that the tactics work. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t employ them. And the reason they might be doing them and you’re not is that they have a team of marketers who knows what works and what doesn’t --- that’s it. There is no rule of “These tactics are only for businesses with a customer base over 1,000.”
It’s not that their customers act differently than yours (they’re the same pool of people after all … someone who buys widgets online also listens to music). And it’s not that certain tactics work for physical products vs. events or music. People behave, interact/react to, and expect certain experiences from websites no matter the purpose of the site.
And it's not even that these tactics can only be deployed by huge marketing departments. The largest differences in their activities versus yours are:
They know that these tactics are available and that they work
Their online actions are purposefully employed as marketing tactics.
You post things to Facebook because you know you should … marketing departments post to Facebook as part of a larger campaign. Each post has a purpose behind it that leads to a greater goal than merely having people read the post. Marketing departments expect each of their activities to elicit a response from the user - some type of action. That action is a goal and should be able to be measured.
Sound too corporate-ish? It doesn't have to be.
Several years ago when my wife decided to go all-in with her online handmade arts business, we sat down and talked about what works and what doesn’t in online marketing. Her biggest concern was that she didn’t want “Marketing Tactics” to erode the personality, charm, and customer-centric persona of her business. And so we built a plan and deployed marketing that matched her customers' expectations and stayed true to her brand. That’s the beauty of online marketing, it doesn’t have to be in-your-face Crazy Eddie style screaming ads to get the sale.
Instead, it’s about knowing how to use the available software to your advantage and knowing what to put where on your site to guide your customers to the result that you want. That may be to check out or sign-up or post a comment; or whatever your conversion action may be.
So, independent music businesses can do these things … and do them well. Check out our next article about how to market to your customers' expectations.