Marketing Introduction

Your small business is something in which you take pride. It offers customers the most efficient and effective services in your industry of all the stores within a 20-mile radius. And yet your sales and customer base are both shrinking. You run ads in the local newspaper on a monthly basis and offer a variety of coupons to your loyal customers. Word around town is that your small business is first rate. So what is causing the decrease in business?

When attempting to solve the challenges of marketing, it is sometimes helpful to ask the famous question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, then does it make a sound?” In other words — are your advertising methods even reaching your potential customers? If the answer is yes, and it very well may be, then the question becomes more about if your advertising and marketing methods are making a sound loud and clear enough to resonate with and draw in your potential consumers.

If you own a small business, then your marketing and advertising resources are probably limited and are seen as an investment that must yield a profit if your business is to remain afloat. After all, paying for a net with a hole in it and that returns no fish will render the fisherman with a hole in his wallet. So how do you lure in “fish” both big and small? By baiting them with advertising that attracts people based not on the truths of your product but based on the psychological truths of the consumer.

My intention in writing this book, you see, is to inform small business owners of the modern realities of potential customers. You are marketing to people defined by four characteristics that greatly affect their consumer potential. These qualities are especially true of contemporary consumers and if gone unaccounted for will result in a business that will yield no profits. These four realities are:

• People Are Inattentive. · Your marketing approach must account for this reality if your product is ever to gain the sustained interest of the public.
• People Are Trendy. If your product is wrapped up in a popular movement or is related to a new product niche, then people are more likely to purchase it.
• People Are Needy. People Are Needy. From Facebook friends to Twitter followers, people like to collect things. Why not convince people to collect your product as well?
• People Are Tribal. People Are Tribal. People like to be part of causes or affiliated with organizations. If you can align your product with a brand or way of life, then you will have at your disposal a built-in customer base.