Small Startup Business: Become Successful, Keep Marketing Costs Down

Jul 1

posted by Patricia Herrera in STUDENT MARKETING POSTS | 23 Comments

"How a small startup business can become successful while keeping marketing costs down"

Step 1: Learn from others

First, learn from other successful businesses that were in the same unfortunate situation as your company, and they don't necessarily have to be in the same industry as you. Research a number of these companies and study their tactics, what they did to eventually yield a good profit margin, and then apply them to your business as applicable. You will be encouraged to persevere and keep going, at the least, and may even be surprised to learn along the way how a little change in their marketing strategy, possibly inexpensive at that, turned these businesses around.

Step 2: Use an online marketing strategy to get bigger and better results and organize your priorities

a) Building or revising your company's website is your first priority.

Many successful companies achieved their success or turnaround utilizing an online marketing strategy, since it has the potential to reach a much larger consumer target market and thus increase your sales volume. But before you can start on your road to success via an online marketing campaign you need to have an online presence. That means you need a website and it needs to look professional, attractive, and genuine.

You should constantly update it regarding who you are, what you do, what you represent, since in essence it represents your company's image. It needs to take a priority on your marketing to do list, before doing anything else related to your online campaign strategy is done. You don't have to hire an expensive professional website designer either. There are plenty of comparatively low cost options out there for small and startup businesses, from do it yourself off-the-shelf software for website building to website-based companies that will build one for you inexpensively or allow you to build and customize it easily yourself, like godaddy.com. Some even include, at no additional cost, search engine optimization, automatic mobile website conversion, and SMN management.

Statistically, the longer period of time your website is viewed the better the chance of a purchase or contact being made by him/her. (Note: here is where the consumer/client is in the decision phase of the buying cycle; that's why it's important to maintain their interest. A well designed website with good informative content will achieve this goal for you).

b) Inbound marketing techniques

Blogging is inexpensive to free and can increase your company's chances of being found on the Web. Blogs have the potential of establishing a business as a “thought” leader in their industries. Blogs are also a strategic tool to capture potential customers' interest and lure them to your website. In addition, blogs are a means for projecting your image, and a good image is highly valuable, since it builds trust. Blogs will allow positive preconceived and professional images of you and your company to be formed in readers' minds even before potential customers ever browse your website or call or shop at your place of business, to purchase your products or services. Blogs allow a business to give to the community, are considered a form of generosity, and potential customers, like anyone else, like to get “freebees”. This in turn helps your company's image. Notably, consumers in general feel that if you give them something for free, you and your company must be a genuine, professional, caring business, and not just in it for the money.  So write several blogs and offer free advice or helpful information in them.

What you write will help shape customer opinions and expectations in reference to your business' professional knowledge, abilities, and products. Blogs will help make your image a positive one and increase your exposure in the marketplace; it is thus important your blogs are well written and have good, remarkable content.  A word of advice about blogging, research how to write a good blog and what “power words” or keywords to include in order for search engines to effectively find and place your blog at the beginning of their search results page. Remember, the ultimate purpose of a blog is to capture readers' interest and lure them to your website, where they can get more information and/or make a purchase.

c) Social Media Networks.

In addition or as an alternative to blogs, depending on your company and/or its product/service offerings, the intelligent, strategic use of Social Media Networks (SMNs) can also increase a company's chances of being found on the Web. They will help your business establish relationships with potential customers, build trust and loyalty with them, and cause them to make purchases. Additionally, besides all that, these days there is no getting around it, if your company can't afford the costliness of using traditional marketing channels and research, you will need to use social media networks to get the word out about your company. The marketing costs associated with using SMN's are minimal to nothing to start. After building your company website you will need to place a link in your SMN content to use as a landing page for potential customers to visit, as well as a link on the company's homepage to each SMN site you utilize.

Step 3: Establish trust

It is important to understand that anyone, even criminals, can put up a good looking website, so just having a website that shows everything about you and your products might not bring your company the success you desire. Businesses need to build consumer trust before they can successfully lure customers to the company website's landing page to entice them further to make a purchase. This is especially so for brick and click retailers who want to reach non-local consumers and those companies that only sell products online. Thus, whether using blogging or SMNs, companies, small or big, need to create peace in consumers' minds, putting them at rest concerning purchase decisions, that the company is a genuine, good and honest business and not out to harm them. Owners or managers can do this by showing potential customers who you are as a company and what you sell through online demonstrations of your products and/or services.

Patricia Herrera is a student in the MBA Program at the Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship.

This entry was posted on July 1, 2016 at 11:30 AM and has received 2386 views. There are currently 23 comments. Print this entry. Download attachment.

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• #1 by Joanne on 8/23/16 - 12:02 AM

  

  Amazing and informative blog post! The success of a business depends on a strong foundation. This strong foundation is constructed through extensive research into the current market and competition. This blog post mentions a great point about how research comes in different forms. A new business owner should turn to other business owners’ for advice. It is more convenient to learn from another person’s mistakes than to suffer the consequences of one’s own errors. Additionally, the fast paced American lifestyle demands an online presence in order to be successful. Before I go to a restaurant, I visit the website and look at the menu offerings to determine whether the business is a good fit for my needs and desires. Furthermore, I like the blogging recommendation. It seems that blogs can help convey a business’ mission statement. For instance, Chick-fil-A has a blog where they reiterate their core values of religion, integrity, and natural products. I agree social media is a wonderful tool for new start-up companies. Social media networks create a direct communication line between marketers and the market. Consumers can immediately respond to a new product through likes or tweets depending on the network. In A Framework for Marketing Management, Phillip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller discuss that social media activity, such as likes or tweets, can be types of engagement measures where the value of the firm increases due to active involvement with the consumer (2016). Sadly, as this blog mentions, an online presence does not guarantee success. There are a lot of fraudulent accounts and websites where consumers are cautious before purchasing an item. As a result, trust needs to be built between the consumer and marketer. Maybe through sending free samples or reviews from other customers.
  
  
  
  Kotler, P. , & Keller, K.L. (2016). A framework for marketing management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

• #2 by Joanne on 8/23/16 - 12:03 AM

  

  Amazing and informative blog post! The success of a business depends on a strong foundation. This strong foundation is constructed through extensive research into the current market and competition. This blog post mentions a great point about how research comes in different forms. A new business owner should turn to other business owners’ for advice. It is more convenient to learn from another person’s mistakes than to suffer the consequences of one’s own errors. Additionally, the fast paced American lifestyle demands an online presence in order to be successful. Before I go to a restaurant, I visit the website and look at the menu offerings to determine whether the business is a good fit for my needs and desires. Furthermore, I like the blogging recommendation. It seems that blogs can help convey a business’ mission statement. For instance, Chick-fil-A has a blog where they reiterate their core values of religion, integrity, and natural products. I agree social media is a wonderful tool for new start-up companies. Social media networks create a direct communication line between marketers and the market. Consumers can immediately respond to a new product through likes or tweets depending on the network. In A Framework for Marketing Management, Phillip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller discuss that social media activity, such as likes or tweets, can be types of engagement measures where the value of the firm increases due to active involvement with the consumer (2016). Sadly, as this blog mentions, an online presence does not guarantee success. There are a lot of fraudulent accounts and websites where consumers are cautious before purchasing an item. As a result, trust needs to be built between the consumer and marketer. Maybe through sending free samples or reviews from other customers.
  
  
  
  Kotler, P. , & Keller, K.L. (2016). A framework for marketing management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

• #3 by Camilo Correa on 8/29/16 - 12:49 AM

  

  Excellent Excellent Advice!!! Small business owners start out, and then eventually have no idea how to bring in customers. Most of the time someone is looking for that particular product or service and they don't even know that it is in their backyard! "Step 1: Learn from others", going away from the idea of small businesses for a moment, this is what we do naturally. When you want to know how to do something, you learn from someone who has already done what you want to do and of course adjust as needed. "Step 2: Use an online marketing strategy to get bigger and better results and organize your priorities" Websites are your digital face. They are what showcase you and your products. Having administered corporate intranet sites, you learn the wants and needs of your customers through these portals/sites. Everybody has an Instagram, show off your product by increasing your SMN presence! It's awesome how many brick-and-click stores I find on Instagram. The simplest things like bungee cords and custom fixtures are all being seen by thousands of people.
  
  "Step 3: Establish trust". Trust is key in every relationship and transaction. Instill trust in customers existing, futures or even possible customers. If they feel safe with you, it will build a long and lasting relationship leading to a long and lasting business.
  #smallbusiness

• #4 by Ariel Rivero on 8/29/16 - 5:44 PM

  

  Let me start of by saying that the article was very insightful and had a lot of tips on how to jump start your marketing strategy on a new business. First of all, the first step, which talks about “learning from others” is a crucial step to any startup for many reasons. For one, I truly believe that if you don’t research other companies whether they share the same line of business as yours or not in order to learn more about their marketing strategy, you won’t have a clue about how to create and implement a marketing strategy that works for your business. Furthermore, once you learn more about other company’s tactics, you’ll mitigate risks by avoiding similar mistakes and you’ll instead focus on improving or tailoring those tactics to fit your business. Step 2 brings up a few good points which are crucial to the beginning stages of your business such as, creating a professional website that is interactive and detailed so consumers have the opportunity to get to know your company better and browse through the website without trouble. I feel that this is one of the most important components of a business because it opens up your marketable crowd indefinitely, as consumers have easy access to the internet. The key is to maintain a well-designed, clean and free-flowing website which includes your mission statement, company background, products or services being provided/sold and contact information. There are tons of information that can be added apart from the ones mentioned but I think that those are crucial to a business. I believe that the second part of step 2 goes hand in hand with step 3 as blogging can be the key to gaining consumer’s trust and here’s how: The idea of blogging is simply to create a post about a particular topic and delegate your professional advice or opinion about that particular topic. For example, if your business is a consulting service as a financial advisor, ideally you would want to create a blog giving tips and advice on how to budget more efficiently, or how you can save money by paying off certain types of debts before others, etc. The more consumers read your blog and implement it in their lives, the more trust you’ll gain with those consumers and the more clients you’ll earn. I think of a blog as a win-win just because you get to give back to the community by providing your professional advice for free, but at the same time you have the opportunity to earn potential clients reading your blog. As for social media, this is the easiest one to implement as you can post about your business through Facebook, Instagram and other channels to give it publicity to those individuals using that SMN. Overall, I think the article brings up good points and is a great read for those looking for options on how to effectively market their business without increasing their costs.

• #5 by Darrion on 8/29/16 - 7:48 PM

  

  A wealth of information here that's broken down in an easy to process format. Learning from others is an important step in having a successful business.
  
  I also noticed the section about hiring someone to put graphics together for a company whether it be for a website or logo. I am developing a clothing line I purchased my logo from fiverr.com which is an excellent source that offers a ton of services starting at $5. I would recommend this site to anyone who is starting out it will also help with cutting cost.

• #6 by Andrea Jean on 8/30/16 - 9:05 PM

  

  I agree that it is vital to establish customer trust. It is about keeping your customers coming back. Not only that, when a customer is satisfied with a product or service, they will tell others and recommend your business which leads to more customers through word-of-mouth. To be a winning company, the business must know how to reduce the rate of customer defection while increasing the permanency of the customer relationship, develop the growth of each customer through cross selling and up-selling, make low-profit customers more lucrative or dismiss them and treat high-profit customers in an exceptional way (Kotler & Keller, 2016).
  A good company will monitor their customer satisfaction. An extremely satisfied customer usually stays loyal longer, purchases more as the company presents new and upgraded products, talks positively to others about the company and its products, pays less attention to rival brands and is less worried about price, offers product or service ideas to the company, and costs less to serve than new customers because dealings can become monotonous. It is wise to recognize the influences that shape the gratification of the customers and change what is deemed to cause dissatisfaction causing the customer to discontinue purchasing the product or service as a result (Kotler & Keller, 2016).
  Sometimes one bad experience could cause the customer to discontinue service with a company. I can recall a situation where I was a customer of a company for many years and one particular time, I had such a horrible experience that I left the company altogether. That company reached out to me and as a result, I went back and have not had that occurrence since then. You have to be able to rectify the situation to gain back the trust from your customers.
  References
  Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2016). A Framework for Marketing Management. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.

• #7 by Thomas Bouchard on 8/31/16 - 1:18 AM

  

  Marketing is not just what you intentionally put out but it also includes those that are unintentional. As a small business owner, everything YOU – the owner – do reflects on your company. A company could spend years building up good will and trust and the owner can go out on a drinking bender, but caught doing something senseless and have it posted to social media such as instagram, snapshat, or favebook and have their company’s work completely undone.
  In general, social media presence is one of the most powerful forms of marketing and is relatively free. (Goodyear, 2016) Social media can be a great feeder into a company’s blog schedule by teasing with partial posts or specific posts that are parts of a blog series causing more foot traffic to one’s website and can greatly improve trust and good will by providing free, genuine information to consumers – as mentioned in the post.
  Overall, smaller companies do still face a large curve in terms of marketing challenges compared to their larger competitors but by utilizing all of the social media avenues and providing honest and insightful information to clients, a company can easily crystalize their brand and compete in the black against larger companies.
  
  Reference:
  Goodyear, S. (2016, August 31). The Power of Social Media. Retrieved August 31, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-goodyear/th...

• #8 by Jennifer Gulker on 8/31/16 - 10:25 AM

  

  I have always had a little bit of interest on and off in opening my own business one day and this article just gave me that spark of interest all over again! The information displayed in this short but so very insightful blog is more than helpful in demonstrating ways to start and maintain a successful business. What a great idea to study other businesses to see what they do to stay successful or what they may have done to get out of a bad situation volume wise. I work for a large competitive corporation myself and it is quite interesting to sit back and see all the insight that is brought in from other competing companies regarding how they do things to maintain growth and success. You can also learn from others about what NOT to do as well. I agree that a website is the most important place to start when having any type of presence on the internet. I always get very disappointed when I am researching a business that I may be interested in and there is no website for me to view. Being in the healthcare industry is extremely competitive. One thing that has been successful for us is investing in the search engine optimization. It was mentioned in the article that sometimes you can find this option at an included cost. If so, jump on it because it can be very expensive but you will definitely see results from the investment. Blogging and social media are also great ways of getting your name and products out there. If you have a good product and the right means of attracting the consumer you should start to see your business grow.

• #9 by Natalie Martinez de Castro on 8/31/16 - 12:40 PM

  

  This was a very refreshing read. Step 1: Learn From Others reminded me of a phrase my boss always tells me: “Let’s not reinvent the wheel.” She is constantly encouraging me to look up other departments/colleagues and take the good and the bad. Don’t make their same mistakes, but if something particularly worked for them, to consider that option.
  
  Step 2 is especially important—making an online presence. Due to the technology of today, the world is at our hands—we just must use it wisely. For a bit, my boyfriend and I took on selling perfumes. We started off local—selling to friends, families, and their friends. When our profits hit a plateau, we regrouped and reconsidered. I figured starting an Instagram would spike our sales immediately. Boy, was I wrong. Small businesses underestimate the power of a good site, maximizing the searchability of your content, and inbound marketing. I particularly like the fact that this article brings up the idea of a blog. A blog lures in the reader and establishes a trust with them. If a consumer builds a relationship and trusts this blog, the more it visits the site, the more the consumer is likely to purchase a product/service from this particular site.

• #10 by Cielle Sands on 8/31/16 - 7:54 PM

  

  Firstly, I think it is every company owner’s dream to keep costs as low as they can possibly be. Whether it is in the startup cost, rent, equipment, professional services or so on. With that said, I found this blog to be very interesting and accurate as it outlines ways to keep marketing costs down. I live on a small island and a many years back while still in college, I opened a small online clothing store. Marketing was one of the most expensive investments I incurred in order to gain my clientele. If I had more experience, I would have definitely done the things that have been outlined in this blog. The first mistake I made was NOT learning from others. As the blog states its best to learn from other successful companies who have been where you are. The key to this is research. I did not do much research before I opened. I simply assumed that clothes would make money. I decided to advertise via Facebook and thought that was sufficient. If I had researched other companies I would see the various marketing strategies they used and pattern after them. Although Facebook was an excellent platform, that was not enough to boost my sales. As the blog suggests, a professional web site would have definitely proved helpful. I also agree with blogging. Personally, I am always online reading blogs about the next new product or service. This blog gives good insight on how to go about marketing your business at a relatively low cost.

• #11 by Taylor Simmons on 8/31/16 - 9:59 PM

  

  This was a great quick read and very informative. Definitely helpful tips for small businesses who do not necessarily have the money to do a large marketing campaign. The first step I think is a widely underrated. Not enough businesses spend time doing research and looking at other best practices. I personally think a lot of businesses get wrapped up in their own endeavors and their own tactics that they don’t take time to look at their peers. Instead of spending valuable time, especially for a small startup business, reinventing the wheel with marketing practices, they can see what other profitable businesses are doing and mimic those efforts. By saving time here and not spending time crafting a full blown marketing strategy, small startups can spend time on the individual pieces of the strategy outlined in step two.
  
  The three different options presented in this article for an online marketing strategy are great budget-friendly ideas. I feel that older, established businesses often undervalue the strength of an online marketing campaign, so it was refreshing to see all of the benefits listed here. One point that I think wasn’t covered enough in the article was search engine optimization. Doing research on this and incorporating this in the three vehicles (websites, blogs, and social media networks) will ensure that the marketing efforts are being found.
  
  I wholeheartedly agree that it is very important to establish trust. If you don’t gain a good rapport with your customers, they won’t return to your business and won’t tell their friends about your business. Word of mouth is a very important, free marketing strategy that requires no effort from the small startup. But if the business does not establish trust and win over their customers, it will be virtually impossible for them to expand.

• #12 by Cielle Sands on 9/1/16 - 12:38 PM

  

  Firstly, I think it is every company owner’s dream to keep costs as low as they can possibly be. Whether it is in the startup cost, rent, equipment, professional services or so on. With that said, I found this blog to be very interesting and accurate as it outlines ways to keep marketing costs down. I live on a small island and a many years back while still in college, I opened a small online clothing store. Marketing was one of the most expensive investments I incurred in order to gain my clientele. If I had more experience, I would have definitely done the things that have been outlined in this blog. The first mistake I made was NOT learning from others. As the blog states, its best to learn from other successful companies who have been where you are. The key to this is definitely research. I did not do much research before I opened. I simply assumed that clothes would make money. I decided to advertise via Facebook and thought that was sufficient. If I had researched other companies I would see the various marketing strategies they used and pattern after them. Although Facebook was an excellent platform, that was not enough to boost my sales. As the blog suggests, a professional web site would have definitely proved helpful. I also agree with blogging. Personally, I am always online reading blogs about the next new product or service. This blog gives good insight on how to go about marketing your business at a relatively low cost.

• #13 by Ben on 9/1/16 - 4:19 PM

  

  I really enjoyed your post here. It covered some great tips for a small start up company. I believe just understanding the power of the internet at this time already brings a strong foundation for a start ups core marketing ideas. As you mentioned, you need to put a lot of focus into your website at first and then continue with that once success begins to come for your startup. My last job was at a company of 8 employees and we fed very little funds into our Marketing department. However, building a strong website with little costs really helped us take off. What helped even more was using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to help market our new website at the time. It was a simple, cost efficient way to start to build a following in the biggest market out there (the internet).
  
  I also like that you mentioned the importance of building client trust and using blogs to do that. My girlfriend works for a PR Agency and her main job is writing blogs for her clients. I find it so interesting how much trust is formed between them and their clients just by writing these. As you mentioned, its inexpensive and can help establish a business as a "thought" leader in their industry.
  
  Very interesting topic on how important it is for a small business to take the time to build a website and trust with their business as it can provide as a greatly cost efficient way to start marketing itself.

• #14 by Natasha Turner on 9/1/16 - 6:37 PM

  

  First and foremost, this is an incredible and very informative post! This is very helpful and there's great several great tips in this post. The first point that I thought was great input was to learn from others. We do this everyday and I feel like it's the biggest life lesson. We learn from others mistakes, but we also learn from others success or positive life events. I remember not only previous bosses, but even teachers telling myself and other students to keep an open eye because there are lessons to be learned everywhere we look. Both have said to apply these lessons to our careers as well and by doing so, we could improve our work ethics and even the success of a business. I do find truth behind this and if applied correctly, a person can have a very successful career and a very successful business as well. Another big part that I agree with is researching companies and study different business tactics. The more we learn, the more we can apply to our careers. I find research to be highly important and it's unbelievable what a steady amount of research can teach a person. With technology being such a big part of our lives, it makes it easier for anyone to research pretty much anything! Our world is constantly changing and the best way to stay up to date is to check up on what companies are doing differently, what works, and what doesn't work.By seeing what works for companies and why other aspects didn't work out some, you can see what you would like to apply and how to hopefully make everything succeed to it's best ability. I, personally, will be using this information to help better myself and keep note for my future career as well! If you know how to please the customer as well as a way to get your name out there (the product or business that is), then that's a sure way to start making your business grow.

• #15 by Gomatie Chowrimootoo on 9/4/16 - 1:51 AM

  

  Starting a small business can be very difficult and one must consider all the advantages and disadvantages before doing so. Things to consider are your competitors, location, getting a loan, when could you possibly start making profits and the list can go on and on. As mentioned in the article you have to find ways to put yourself out there, and make people aware that your business exists. Over the course of the last decade access to the internet has increased dramatically and has been extended to an array of personal devices. People are no longer tied to a desk, or even a laptop, to access the internet. Cell phones, tablet devices, even refrigerators have access to the Web today (Boyles, 2011). Having a website and using an online marketing strategy is a great idea but I don’t know that this can really help a company become completely successful. A website will definitely get you some customers as there are people out there who look for deals all the time within new companies. Others will be skeptical to go onto a new website that they come across. As mentioned in the article, new companies have to be able to establish trust, which personally if I see a website I’m not familiar with I would not trust to open it.
  
  Besides social media, blogging and the website, it’s probably a good idea to advertise on TV or radio. This will probably make people feel more comfortable about visiting your website. If possible, I think people who are thinking about opening a small business should try to even partner with an existing company that’s already popular and carries the same products.
  
  Reference:
  Boyles, T. (2011). Small Business and WEB 2.0: Hope or Hype?. Entrepreneurial Executive, Volume 16, 85

• #16 by Kareem Virgo on 9/4/16 - 9:13 AM

  

  In all honesty, I couldn't have said it any better. With online marketing, it is extremely important to constantly update one's vision and what they stand for. Consistency is crucial, as it keeps the audience updated and aware of your business. As a business owner, establishing trust is one of the most important aspects of owning a business. A business owner must build a positive and trustworthy reputation, such as great customer service, efficient work processes, and quality results. In this new social media area, an online presence is one of the most effective ways to market one's business. Today, everyone is constantly using their mobile devices and viewing social media outlets. With a strong and innovate presence, people will react in a positive way. I strongly agree with the fact that one must constantly update their business, as it provides fresh content to customers, while remaining professional and friendly. This was definitely a great read that I believe will help current and future business owners.

• #17 by Heather Clayton on 9/4/16 - 3:29 PM

  

  The tips provided in this blog are key to inexpensive marketing for a startup business. Having moved recently and not knowing anything about the area, a company’s marketing has everything to do with getting me in the door. From small bait shops, restaurants, or even what gym to go to I search it all online before I even test the waters or spend a dime. A company website for a small shop is excellent, but I have also noticed encouraging a customer to “Like us on Facebook” or other social media outlets has been surprisingly a huge way to bring people in. Upcoming sales, items, or events can flash before the potential buyer’s eyes even if they weren’t looking for it and just as mentioned in the blog they can be redirected to the website. And bingo, there you are again buying lures you didn’t know you needed until your new favorite shop had them on sale. Using social media as a small startup business allows information to circulate quickly, and even allow customer reviews which in turn can build trust.

• #18 by Devin Ramirez on 9/4/16 - 8:28 PM

  

  I can agree 100% to this blog post because I experienced all three steps personally while helping my mother build her business. Paring down expenses at startup and beyond can put your business on a firm foundation. Keeping startup costs to a minimum takes self-examination, resourcefulness and creativity (Sugars, 2007).
  
  As new business owners, my mother and I looked at other clothing stores and decided what marketing tactics we liked and which ones we did not (Step 1). We also became friends with our "competition" in the area. Strange right? Wrong! It worked out to our benefit; we constantly shared marketing advice to each other. We decided to do business with one of the first marketing companies that offered their services to us (Step 2 Part a). We ended up spending so much money and they were awful. In Step 2, Patricia mentioned that the website should constantly be updated, which I totally agree with. Well this wasn't the case for the marketing company we chose. They took FOREVER to update our photos and information. We decided to change our marketing tactics and send free clothes to someone with a large following on social media (Step 2 Part b). Although we did receive more traffic than before, most of our new followers were not our ideal customers. Once we decided that tactic wasn't working, we moved on to Step 2 Part c of Patricia's blog post. I decided to hire a photographer and be the face of our social media platform. This has worked amazingly! It also costs nothing because our photographer is a student, therefore we gave him an internship opportunity. Social media has really helped not only our business, but many other business owners that I know. Step 3 in Patricia's blog is very important because I believe that it is crucial to build a relationship with your customers. I believe that by me posting pictures of myself instead of an Instagram model, I have built trust with my customers. They know I am a "real person" and not just someone getting paid to sponsor a product. This blog post is very informative to anyone starting a business and also to anyone who is trying to find a new way to market their product.
  
  
  Sugars, B. (2007, April 16). Keeping Your Costs Down [Abstract]. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/177116.

• #19 by Meagan Aguilar on 9/4/16 - 10:23 PM

  

  I found this blog post to, first and foremost, be well organized and thought out. Now, this is not to say that I did not enjoy reading last blog post, but I feel this one offered a lot of value generating ideas. As a marketing major (undergraduate program), I am very familiar with the marketing techniques and strategies that were offered in the blog. I feel that there's a big shift towards consciousness in our society and I believe that is a great thing. That being said, small businesses are gaining a lot of spotlight these days because of the contribution they make in their local communities. It's no longer only the Fortune 500 making a splash! I really loved that the first step listed was to learn from others. One might think that this is common sense, but sometimes, in the midst of the brain storming and the creative juices flowing, a person or company tries to reinvent the wheel! I definitely agree that learning from others should be a focus. Pick apart both successful and less successful businesses layer by layer until you can understand what contributed to (or detracted from) their success. I also feel that blogging and SMNs are very important; I think every knows that by now or so I would hope! The one piece of information I would add to the blog would be to partner with blogs that are not owned by the company. Yes, it can work against you if your product or service is not great, but I have seen it work wonders for small businesses. More important, I, as a consumer, am constantly reading blog posts pertaining to products I am interested in, especially now that I am a mother! To me, it's all about the blog posts, Google reviews, promotions, etc. I rely heavily on the aforementioned means of information lately where a good chunk of the products I purchase are not in the brick-and-mortar type store, but in online shops. As an example, I am a huge supporter of Etsy. I think the concept and all of the small shop owners are great! I do so much business with them- both because I feel there is so much attention to detail provided by the small shop owners and because I could never be that crafty myself! Great blog post. I can definitely relate!

• #20 by Pierina Mejias Astaphan on 9/6/16 - 11:15 AM

  

  Coming across this blog was very coincidential and useful for me, since I am currently trying to help out a friend of mine who is trying to start a health and fitness blog. This is very useful and gives great advise for people who are just starting and do not have the amount of capital which is required to market a certain product or service. I agree completely that establishing trust is a key factor to capture attention, like the article mentioned anyone at this day can set up a blog, something extra is needed to capture come kind of attention or to stand out amongst the rest.

• #21 by Rishika joshi on 9/13/16 - 11:00 AM

  

  The author talks about several different ways of how small businesses can market their companies without having to spend alot of money. She talks what are the necessary steps which include having a good website, being able to blog daily. This keeps the consumers engaged with the company and them wanting to now more. Another marketing strategy that has seemed to work in our day is when companies allow consumers to be able to write reviews on products they have purchased and this tells the prospective customer how good or bad the product is. In my opinion this is a very effective marketing strategy as it has worked on myself as well.

• #22 by Michael Hernandez on 11/1/16 - 7:04 PM

  

  This article speaks on two important components of a successful business, those are Trust and Social media. In today's world social media can be utilized as a huge marketing tool, especially to the younger generation. The author also spoke about trust and how important it is. As soon as a business owner gets a customer to trust the company it has gained not only trust but loyalty. The key is how to keep the trust between the two.

• #23 by Valentina Messina on 11/2/16 - 9:19 AM

  

  I believe that the content of this article is very useful for everyone who wants to start their own business. We are living at a time were everything revolves around technology and this is not going to change anytime soon, so it is very important that businesses understand, learn how to take advantage and learn how to use these online tools.