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Small Business Marketing 101: Only Benefits Count 

Small Business Marketing: Getting the most bang for the buck 

Small business marketing really involves getting the “most bang for the buck“ possible in order to survive . Unlike large enterprises, small business marketing usually involves very limited resources, a real need to optimize marketing exposure and minimize costs. The reality is, that there will always be some “trial and error” necessary to develop marketing ideas and carry them through to fruition, but, significant risk-taking in the early days can certainly bring about the untimely death of your enterprise. Small business marketing, as in all marketing, begins with focusing on your target market and spending your resources very wisely.  

Small Business Marketing: Targeting your market 

Targeting your market will be described in more detail on another page, but suffice it to say, that you must target your market in a very knowledgeable way. Small business marketing begins with choosing the right target and then aiming very accurately. Target marketing is when you choose a homogenous segment of the market to which you then direct your specific marketing program. As a geropsychologist, my target market is elderly individuals in need of mental health services. Your target market always needs to be a population you choose to serve, one that is accessible to your services, and one that will provide the financial rewards to make it worth your while. 

Small Business Marketing: Why choose you over the others? 

The best opportunities always provide small business marketing challenges. There will always be stiff competition (unless it is a new market) when there is a lucrative or even an adequate, return on investment. Differentiation is the key to successful small business marketing. How do you differentiate yourself from other providers of your type of products or services. What separates you from the pack? What is your unique quality that ultimately benefits your target market? You must truly develop the ability to walk in your customers shoes and be able to answer the question; “What’s in it for me? One of the best ways to do so, is to be able to identify the benefits rather then the features of your product or service, and then conveying in a highly credible way, how you can provide these benefits to your consumer better than your competition. 

Communicating benefits vs. features with your small business marketing: 

The optimum way to focus your small business marketing efforts, is by defining the benefits to your consumer rather then its features. Features are traits of your product or service.  Your qualifications or years of experience in providing your product or service are features. Customers don’t care about features, they only care about how it may improve their lives. How it will solve their problem, or enhance their life in some meaningful way. You must consider the problems you’re customers face and the results they want to achieve. This is one of the best ways to pull benefits from features. All of your small business marketing efforts must focus on communicating the benefits, not the features. Karen Thackston (2003), author of probably the best small business marketing  copywriting course on the Internet, The Step-by-Step Copywriting Course has identified a few steps to help you work through the benefits vs. features equation: 

1.        List the features of your product or service.

2.        Next, think about the concerns or needs of your customers.

3.        Next, ask yourself, “Why does this feature matter to my customer?”  Write your answers on the list.

4.        Finally, take it one step further.  Ask yourself, “What problem or concern can this feature address?”

5.        There’s your first shot at a benefit.

6.        Now…ask yourself (or better yet-ask someone ELSE) “So What?”

7.        Refine the benefit until it is crystal clear what the customer gets from a particular feature. 

A final note on your small business marketing effort: 

Your small business marketing success will totally be determined by your ability to identify a target market that is worthwhile, defining how you can provide the service better than others, and focusing on communicating how you will provide benefits rather than features, and ultimately answering the question for your customer of, “What’s in it for me?”. 

By Paul Susic MA Licensed Psychologist  Ph.D. Candidate President/CEO Susic Psychological Consulting P.C. 

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