A Tiny Rant for Small Business Marketing Basics

General Marketing Ideas

You don’t need any more marketing ideas.

I read at least 2 or 3 business books every week, I read plenty of trade magazines, I scan dozens of marketing blogs daily and guess what - there’s rarely anything really new.

There ARE lots of smart people explaining good ideas in new ways and framing them for new audiences. There ARE lots of really smart people using these ideas to create tools, services and resources to make your marketing life easier.

BUT - there’s rarely anything fundamentally new. Why? Because most of what we consider as new is actually a new application of a time-tested concept. Social networking has always existed, online tools make it easier and faster and more obvious than ever before. Referrals and positive word-of-mouth (WOM) have always been part and parcel of how good small businesses grow - the Internet has simply made the spread of opinion faster and (often) more powerful.

New media, new tools and new thinking may be changing how we play the game but have they really changed the rules all that much?

If anything, the things that good businesses have always done are the things that will stand them in good stead in the age of social media. However, before we run too far down that road we should pause to take in the view. And the view is not all Facebook and blogging.

In fact, the way a lot of businesses operate (and a lot of customers buy) has seen little change - Twitter or no Twitter. Most people still choose their corner shop because it’s on the corner. People still read their local papers. And the sandwich shop on the corner still sells sandwiches without ever feeling the need to create a blog about it.

Will these things change? Perhaps. Should these business owners prepare themselves for change? Absolutely. But holding out social media and everything else Web 2.0 as a panacea for all marketing’s failings is as much a mistake as burying your head in the sand and ignoring it all.

So what’s needed?

In my opinion, the answer is simple. Marketing - for small businesses or large - should be focused on basic principles that are proven to work, (like referrals and like positive word-of-mouth). These principles can then be expressed using both online and offline methods - but most importantly using methods that work.

And I suppose that’s what this mini-rant is about. It frustrates me every time I hear someone dismiss the internet tools at their disposal as ‘not for us’ or because ‘our customers aren’t online’. But it frustrates me just as much to hear people dismiss everything that has gone before as useless or outmoded.

So, with all that being said, over the next few weeks I’ll be running a number of straight-forward informational posts on Small Business Marketing Basics.

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