Small Businesses are Wasting Money By Copying Their Neighbors

Prior to closings, they had deep discount coupons for months and months. Essentially every time a coupon is offered the restaurant gets a little bit of money and that gives them cash on hand, so they keep the business open while making zero profit. But that eventually that catches up with you. Businesses are in business to make money and that is the bottom line. If you cannot succeed at doing that, giving away all your stuff at no profit margin is not going to turn things around.

Nitsan:  So tell me how have you brought an innovation to this problem?

Bob Salvas: I actually disagree with some of my fellow marketing consultants in that I do not recommend big advertising expenses or huge discounts as a lure to get people in the door. If you are Nike or Coke, you probably should spend money on mass advertising and you probably have the deep pockets to do so. But there are simply too many advertising channels today and the small business person simply does not have the resources to make it work. And in the same vein, small businesses also cannot afford to give away all their profits for no real long-term benefit. What I recommend for small business marketing is a combination of three things. I sometimes refer to it as POW!: 1-a strong Presence online (including social media, review sites and your own website), 2- direct One-to-one communication with customers and prospects, and 3-a strong retention program that rewards and retains customers while also spreading positive Word of mouth to future customers. The way I see it, it all comes back to your existing customers as an absolute critical piece to your long-term business success. Everything else is window dressing.

Nitsan:  So tell me how have you brought an innovation to this problem?

Bob Salvas: in my consulting I have taken on, some people will say some controversial stands. I talk about the fact that number one deep discounting as I mention is the wrong way to go ,instead you should put the money into  a qualified retention program and number two  I also kind of bash advertising  general mass market advertising today , because in addition to deep discounting fever that seems to be spreading everywhere , people spend exorbitant amounts of money on advertising that does not work and we have thousands of marketing messages, think  about the number of channels  on TV and number of websites it just crazy how much advertising we are expose to. So people who are buying and paying monies for advertising are losing the battle. 

Nitsan: So what you’re saying is: a shift in investments to what works. And it works, actually, in areas where most people don’t expect it. 

Bob Salvas: Right! This is exactly what I tell my clients .There is three areas you need to focus on. My business model focuses on the three things: 

1. Online presence.  Every business must have an online presence which includes SEO website as well as the presence on social media. That is number one.

That is today advertising venture if you will, social media that has replaced traditional advertising. 

2. Is that need to communicate ultimately to their prospects and especially to their current clients, so that requires one to one communication which I recommend email and direct mail predominately in that model. 

3. To have a qualified retention program. 

Businesses that have taken this type of approach, this 123 approach have seen most success than others, and I think this is the new wave of looking at things. Social media is big and retention. Those two things are really the direction that business growth and business development is heading towards.

You can find more resources to develop an effective marketing approach to retain your clients’ business on Bob Salvas’s website, bob@bobsalvas.com.

 

 

Nitsan Gaibel

Author of 12 innovative books that market executives and professionals, Nitsan Gaibel is a business writer and speaker. He also partners with executives to turn around under-performing teams in corporations.