The first thing you need to know about Marketing is that its a process and it has multiple moving parts. There is no such thing as a single activity done one time that will get you the results of launching your business.
There are two keys to success: Your message and the market you deliver it to.
There are many options about how to deliver the message.
A basic sixpack for marketing a new small business is:
1. A website
2. A Facebook page
3. Customer Reviews
4. Advertising to the population that are your best targets based on services you offer that they want to buy
5. Basic Public Relations
6. A list of targets that you can call on the phone, send mail and email to.
The best way to start is to begin with a canned program or service and then add or subtract from it as you get going and have data on what works and what doesn't.
You can get a website, automatic email marketing to your customers, reviews, lists to mail to and postcard campaigns with a dedicated account manager from Mitchell 1. I think Mitchell gives pretty good results reporting. Demand Force and Mechanic.net are in that same category.
Great PR and advertising can be fairly easy to come by if you're creative. Post your grand opening on Topix and put an ad on Craigslist. Look for all of the free places you can tell people that you exist. And by no means neglect Google.
Is there a free paper in your area that writes up interesting, edgy articles, restaurant reviews and hip places to go and things to do? See if you can work with them to do a promotion with a radio station for your grand opening?Talk to your vendor partners about a customer story on your business that they'd post on their websites. There are marketing programs that may include your ad on a page or in a coupon book that another company sells - a lot of schools sell those coupons for fundraisers.
Do your vendor partners publish customer stories?
The point is to tell people you're there and that there are a few things that make you different than any other provider in your market. In today's socially networked world, your customers want to know you too.
