Business promotion tips. How to promote a company at minimal cost: IKEA experience

Employment very rarely gives you the opportunity to afford something superfluous. Most often, such people live, saving their money on the most necessary things. To raise income, there is one way - entrepreneurial activity.

Your business is an ever-increasing income

Goal definition

First of all, you need to decide what kind of activity is best to do. So let's start with an analysis. We analyze the situation in the economy, in the market, what can surprise and please your potential client, what is currently used in great demand. The decision is made based on your research.

Set a goal - what you want to get as a result. And this goal, like a beam, will show you specific actions.

A person makes the decision to promote his business primarily because of dissatisfaction with his life. He wants to improve, be financially independent, change his life and those of his loved ones for the better. And your own business can provide such an opportunity.

Required knowledge

Promotion of a business from scratch will require certain knowledge and determination from you. You can not be afraid of failure, you will doom any of your undertakings from the very beginning to failure. Let mistakes happen, no one is safe from this, but you need to move towards your goal, and move firmly and confidently. You must be confident in your abilities, you must be an optimist.

If you feel that fear is present in you, talk to people who have experience in entrepreneurial activity, use the literature on psychology. Many people benefit from special training. With a lack of knowledge, you can enroll in courses where you will be given the basics of business for beginners.

Choice of activity

Why do many of us dream of starting our own business and remains a dream? Because they could not choose what specifically to do, what area of activity to define for themselves. And they spend the rest of their lives thinking about it. Think about what you personally like to do most of all, what you can do. Think about the options where you can apply your knowledge, in what area. From all the options, choose the best, and make the decision that will be right and the only one for you. In what areas of activity can you choose options for ideas for your business?

Choose your business option

Trade. The method is simple. Everyone is trading today. What will be required of you? Choose what you want to trade. Be smart about your business. Plan all your actions carefully. And then everything will work out for you.

Services sector. Minimum costs, only your sincere desire. How to promote a business in the service sector and where to start? Most likely, these are the questions that concern you? Select certain kind services. You can start without renting an office space. Applications will be accepted at first home phone. And with an increase in profits, you can think about rented office space and staff recruitment. Of course, before registering officially.

Production. One of the promising directions, but also more expensive. Here you need to carefully consider the choice of products. If it is in demand, you are guaranteed to receive high profits. You will need funds to purchase equipment and Supplies, find a room for the workshop. But within a few years, your costs will pay off, and the business will help get closer to your goal.

Registering your business

It is best to legalize your business. This means registration is required. You need to decide as whom to register, IP or LLC. Yes, registration, especially for beginners, takes a lot of time. But you can turn to specialists who will quickly and competently draw up Required documents. But you can do everything yourself. You have a choice. You will have to pay for the help of specialists, but you will save time. Doing everything yourself will save you money, but it will take you a lot of time. So decide what is more important to you.

We do not recommend starting work without a business plan. It is with its help that you can determine all your expenses and calculate the expected profit. Tune in to the fact that the first steps of a business are difficult and difficult, but all this can be endured. You have a goal - do not forget about it.

Solving financial issues

Many people have the desire to start their own business, but how to do it if there is a catastrophic lack of money to start? You are not the first who thought about how to promote a business from scratch. There are options from which you can choose the most suitable for you.

Own funds. If your decision to become an entrepreneur is firm, you will have to set aside a certain amount every month. A reliable way, but a long one.
Duty. You can take this step only if you are absolutely sure that your business will become profitable. Otherwise, you will not be able to repay the debt in a timely manner, and relations with loved ones will deteriorate.
Investments. A well-written business plan and a good business idea will surely interest people who have free money. You are guaranteed to promote your business, and investors receive a share of your profits.
Credit. For a newbie in business, this is a risky move, as banks charge high interest. For a start-up business, this is costly.
Franchising. You buy from famous company the right to work under their name. From her you get help in opening a case, professional advice, and, if necessary, special production equipment. But before taking this step, you need to carefully study the market. Is there a demand for your product or service, the level of competition. And then make a decision. A franchise will never give a 100% guarantee of success - be on the alert!

Business Ideas

Food

Great idea if you live in countryside. For example, grow vegetables and sell them in bulk. And if you set up production? Frozen fruits and berries, compotes and jams, spices. All of these are in high demand.

Automotive Services

This type of business can be opened both in a metropolis and in a small town. Invest in your own car wash, open an auto parts store. The service station will always find its customer, because cars are available in almost every family today.

Dispatch services

A good option to open a taxi service is dispatch services. You do not need to buy cars for this, but only conclude agreements with car owners who want to work. Dispatchers need a small office to work. For the first time, you can arrange an office at home or rent it. Of the equipment you will need phone line, it is desirable that the number was memorable. You need a computer, you need internet, necessary furniture. Here is the answer to the question of how to build a business from scratch and grow.

Cloth

You can be engaged in tailoring or its trade. People want to look beautiful. Play with this idea. Most recently, we have the new kind activities - dropshipping. What does it mean? Direct deliveries of the necessary goods. In this type of business, Chinese manufacturers are attractive. Their prices are low and the quality is good.

The benefit is that you buy products from the manufacturer at wholesale price, and add a good price increase to your customers. What attracts entrepreneurs to dropshipping? You don't need to buy in bulk. Through the online store, your customers place an order and pay for it. And then you buy this product. You need to find a way to a Chinese supplier and agree on cooperation. You transfer money to him, he sends the goods. This type of business brings a very decent profit to many businessmen.

It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people, TV 13. Facebook gained 200 million users in less than a year.

More than 82% of Internet users have accounts in in social networks and sit in them for (at least) two hours a day. Russia ranks first in Europe in terms of the popularity of social networks.

There is a growing number of users who come to social networks not for communication, but for information, as well as businessmen who understand that social media is an effective marketing channel. If you want to promote a project through social networks, then get acquainted with four effective ways to promote it.

Content is the main promotion factor

Any SMM specialist will confirm that promotion tools are useless without quality content. If the page of your brand is boring, you should not count on the growth of the audience and its loyalty.

Three ingredients of good content:

Uniqueness. The information you post should be relevant and engaging. Do not copy materials from other resources. The exception is cross-posting between the company's blog and its page on the social network.
Regularity. Articles should be published systematically. Two, three, four or seven times a week - depends on the specifics of the business and its target audience. So, two or three updates will be enough for people from the business environment, and this is clearly not enough for the beauty community. It is necessary to adhere to the chosen content strategy, regardless of the number of subscribers.
Virality. Publications should be lively, causing an emotional response in the form of a burning desire to tell friends about them. Avoid overt promotional posts.

Facebook in Russia- "social sphere is not for everyone." It is used by marketers, programmers and other IT-savvy people. They are not afraid of a “complicated interface”, but in their area of interest are gadgets, the Internet, travel, education, books and business in all its manifestations. They willingly like and share materials on these topics, as well as motivating articles that set you up for positive. Most of the active Facebook audience uses mobile application- posts are recommended to be illustrated with pictures sized 800 × 600.

"In contact with"- the largest social network of Runet (more than 230 million registered users). Her audience is younger; the focus of users' interests is mainly entertainment (communication, games, music, films, etc.). VK users do not like text content (it is desirable that the length of the post does not exceed 500 characters), but they love photos and videos.

Among photo hosting sites in Russia, the most popular Instagram. At the same time, while maintaining a brand page on Instagram, it is recommended to adhere to a single style in design (use not only standard filters, but also third-party photo editors), as well as place objects in the photo on 2/3 of the screen (this makes the picture visually more attractive).

Targeting

The possibility of placing targeted advertising is available in almost all social networks: VKontakte, Facebook, Odnoklassniki and others. At the same time, it is believed that targeted advertising in social networks is more suitable for the B2C sector. However, there are companies in B2B that effectively solve business problems through targeted advertising.

Some types of targeting:

Geographical (geotargeting) - displaying advertising to residents of a certain region / city / district, etc. For example, you want to promote a beauty salon located in Khimki, Moscow Region. Your targeted ad will be displayed to the residents of this city.
Socio-demographic - showing ads based on gender, age, marital status and others social criteria. Thus, advertising for children's goods and household goods is recommended to be placed on the pages of married women over 25, and advertising for an art store - on the pages of designers, architects, decorators.
Contextual - displaying ads in accordance with the interests of the user. Membership in groups such as "Fashion", Fashion, "Shopping", etc. clearly demonstrates the interests of the user. He will be interested in relevant advertising.
Behavioral - displaying ads depending on specific user actions (travel routes, favorite places, frequent search terms etc.). Let's say a person is fond of Latin American dances, goes to a salsa club, looks for relevant videos - it is likely that he will be attracted by an advertisement for a last-minute tour to Cuba.

Despite its apparent simplicity, targeting is a tool that requires serious preparatory work. First, you need to analyze the target audience of the brand. Second, create an ad.

Community advertising

Advertising in communities (on professional language SMMs - sowing) is the purchase of posting or reposting in popular communities. In the first case (buying a post), the advertiser's goal is to increase traffic on the company's website; in the second (buying a repost) - attracting users to a company group on a social network. At the same time, the more subscribers the community in which you buy a post has, the more expensive the advertising campaign will cost.

You can negotiate directly with community owners or use the services of a special exchange. In 2013, the VKontakte social network (an office for an advertiser) opened one. Advertising is placed by the community administration in its feed and, according to the conditions, must remain there for a day.

Professional promotion in social media

Services are meant to provide paid services promotion in social networks. As a rule, they independently create high-quality content, launch a targeting mechanism and negotiate advertising in communities. These conditionally include Plibber. Why conditionally? Because the possibilities of this service are much wider.

register;
decide on the format of work on the site (you can advertise your brand yourself or contact the Plibber team to organize an outrageous advertising campaign);
prepare an advertising post;
select the most suitable sites from the target audience and start sowing.

After preliminary moderation, your task will be available, and you can start attracting fans of your brand.

How to get organic loyal traffic? With this question, which is of interest to all advertisers, we turned to the founder of the Plibber project, Oleg Ratunin.

Oleg Ratunin

CEO and ideological inspirer Plibber.ru. Knows everything about social media and even more.

To attract potential fans to your brand, you should:

use quizzes (quizzes), infographics, illustrations, viral videos, advertising games, etc.;
place a link within the visible zone of the announcement of the post (first-second lines);
embed a call to action in the content;
add a provocative poll;
work with the associative content format and its adaptation to the brand;
launch creative, vibrant and unique contests.

If you've managed to find the content your audience is craving, you can count on over 600 clicks per post.

Also, do not forget to analyze the communication of large brands with their subscribers, now a good result is being detected in the community

For a business to be successful, an entrepreneur must take care of advertising his product or service. To do this, there are many methods that allow you not to think about how to promote a business from scratch without having a large start-up capital. But not every newbie will be able to independently promote their business using these tools, since advertising in any form has its own nuances and must comply with certain rules.

How to promote your business - promotion methods and tools

The first step an entrepreneur must take is to define the boundaries of their financial investments. A businessman must clearly know the amount that he can spend on business promotion and advertising without going beyond the established limits.

A large business, as a rule, requires significant investments and expensive advertising. If there is sufficient start-up capital, a novice entrepreneur can apply to advertising agencies, which will help to place information about the client's product on all available platforms - in the media, on stands and banners, on transport and in it, and so on.

Small businesses most often do not have money for expensive advertising, since the start-up capital is limited. Businessmen have to look for alternative ways to promote their project on their own. There are a lot of such budget methods of promotion, and most of them bear fruit, you just need to use them wisely.

Website/blog creation

Today, not a single profitable project can do without the Internet, since it is there that a large audience gathers potential clients. Business development on the Internet begins with the creation of a company website. Every entrepreneur who wants to succeed in business must understand that an attractive website is the same as business card, the face of the firm.

You can make such a website or blog on your own, having previously studied a mountain of information on design and SEO promotion, or order it from professionals, because competently optimizing a website is a difficult task.

It is in the interests of a businessman to ensure that the site attracts the attention of new customers and looks solid, inspiring confidence.

Advertising in the media, on TV and radio, marketplaces

Advertising on TV and in printed publications- the main means of attracting potential customers who rarely use the Internet, or do not go to it at all and cannot see your site. However, when buying such advertising, the entrepreneur spends a lot of money in vain, as he pays for impressions to all viewers, who are not always his target audience. The same goes for advertisements in the media and on the radio.

Reputation management. More than half of consumers trust advertising on TV more than similar advertising on the Internet or other sources.
Maximum audience coverage. It is difficult to find a person who never turns on the TV. According to TNS Russia, 70% of Russians watch TV every day, and 99% turn it on at least once a month.
The video ad format allows you to show consumers a product from all sides and tell a mini story about it, lasting a few seconds.

Marketplaces are places where people come to choose goods and purchase them. That is, it is here that the target audience gathers, which must be attracted to your product or service. There is usually very high competition, but the flow of visitors is strong enough for every business to get its own client.

Social media promotion

The easiest and least expensive way to promote a business on the Internet is to create a company page or community on popular social networks. All investments in such advertising will only be paid to the administrator - a person who will update information daily and communicate with subscribers. Communication is the main moment for the promotion of a group in social networks, because it is for him that they were created. The first comments under the posts should indicate the right path and promotion tactics.

She won't start working on the first day. It can take months and years to create an image, and everything can be ruined in one moment. This is one of the pitfalls of such advertising that await aspiring entrepreneurs. In order not to make an irreparable mistake in developing a business in social networks, you need to find a real professional who has successful experience in running such communities.

Promotion on the Internet

Advertising on the Internet costs much less than in the media or on TV. This is especially noticeable for start-up entrepreneurs who have only recently entered the open market with your product. It is easy to customize it for a specific target audience, and it is just as easy to analyze and calculate the effectiveness after its release. There are several types of advertising on the Internet, with which you can promote your business and find the first and regular customers without having a website:

contextual advertising - appears to the user when a specific request is entered into the browser's search engine;
banner advertising - an ad and an image displayed on specific sites;
teaser advertising - also placed on narrowly targeted sites in the form of an advertising block designed to intrigue and direct the visitor to the advertiser's website;
targeted advertising - displayed for users of social networks related to a specific target audience.

Obviously, advertising on the Internet has many advantages, but, nevertheless, there are also disadvantages. In order not to waste money on promotion on the Internet, you should be aware of the following points in order to take timely measures to eliminate possible errors:

Before launching advertising on the Internet, it is necessary to find out in advance from which sources the target audience takes information about the purchased products.
The Internet is highly competitive, so before advertising, you need to make sure that your business is unique in order to convince customers to buy your product.

Banners and billboards

This type of advertising is used both online and offline. A banner is a rubberized fabric with advertising that is placed on the walls of residential buildings or shopping malls to attract customers. A billboard is a stand-alone structure on which large advertisements are placed. Most often, such advertising can be found on roadsides in large cities or along highways with a stream of cars. Such advertising can be seen from afar, so it easily attracts the attention of not only the target audience, but other potential customers.

Internet banner is a static and animated advertisement with a slogan and a picture, which is placed on popular sites with high traffic. When you click on such a banner, the user instantly goes to the advertiser's website. To get more attention. New types are constantly being developed:

streamers are placed at the top of the site page;
rich media containing interactive and multimedia elements;
pop-unders that partially cover the site page when developing;
expandable banners that are placed anywhere on the page and increase when you hover over the mouse;
imitation banners that pop up at the bottom of the page and imitate messages in instant messengers.

PR company - articles and press releases

You need to properly promote your business, as this can attract new customers and help promote the company. This is done by special PR agencies, whose activities are aimed at improving the image of the client company.

You can do PR on your own. To do this, you will have to take care of issuing press releases about the activities of your company. You need to do this regularly, in accordance with the schedule, for example, every Tuesday or Thursday. Releases should not be large in order to focus the attention of customers on the company's key offerings.

News articles in major media and online publications will also improve the company's image.

To do this, you can use other communication channels - the company's website, corporate newspaper, newsletter or announcements in the trading floor or reception area.

How to promote from scratch, develop a business and make it profitable - Internet solutions for promotion and development

The advice to advance among competitors on your own can be disastrous for newcomers to business. It is difficult to successfully unwind if there is a complete “zero” behind you, and only an idea sits in your head. IN modern society with advanced technology, it is much easier to do this than even 20 years ago. To spread the word about your business to a large number potential customers, just turn to the Internet. Modern man can no longer imagine my life without world wide web and spends a lot of time in it. This is what successful entrepreneurs use by using various tools to promote their business on the Internet.

SEO optimization for website promotion

Promoting a new site with the help of SEO optimization is a long-term business, as a tangible return on investment appears after several months, and sometimes even years. It's all about high competition, which operates in the Internet space and does not allow beginners to quickly take top positions in search engines. Nevertheless, the desire to get into the top ten rankings is not always justified. Not a single optimizer can guarantee a place in the TOP-3, since it can only indirectly influence the position of the site.

The search engine plays an important role in the ranking of sites for certain queries. It is she who changes the document ranking algorithm at her own discretion, and it is not always clear how this algorithm will be built. This means that despite the efforts of optimizers, promotion principles can change every minute and it is impossible to predict them.

SEO promotion is influenced by many parameters:

website;
technical settings;
page content;
mention of the company name;
business age;
conversion;
availability of goods on the site;
terms of delivery and prices;
presence of the company in the directories;
audience persistence.

The ability to understand the target audience and customize the resource for it is the main quality of a competent SEO specialist. He must not only have the knowledge of a marketer in order to be able to develop a website and stimulate repeat orders from regular customers, but also be technically savvy, since the profession is entirely related to programming, layout, linguistics, analytics and data processing.

To increase website traffic with SEO optimization, you need to take into account several points at once:

page relevance;
content uniqueness;
quality design;
registration in search engines and free directories;
social bookmarking and so on.

The main task is to make it clear to a potential client that the product you offer is better than that of competitors, and also to convince search engines of this. Besides, important role plays search engine optimization pages. It is necessary to adhere to the established rules and observe a certain structure of the material:

Title, i.e. page title;
H1-H6 - headings 1-6 levels;
Availability keywords in the text;
use of highlight tags in text;
availability of informative content.

It is necessary to take care of the external optimization of the site, but only after the above points are brought to the ideal. The more often a link to your site appears in various Internet resources, the better for promotion. Links can be distributed independently or use special exchanges, register in free directories that are suitable for the subject of your site.

most convenient and effective method promotion on the Internet - placement contextual advertising, which is shown only to people belonging to the target audience. It starts working when the user enters a question of interest into the search bar, and the browser, along with suitable sites, displays contextual search ads.

Context not only helps search engines make ads look like natural search results, but also solves a number of other problems:

The advertiser has the ability to independently control their costs and determine the cost of clicks.
With the help of the contextual advertising system, an entrepreneur has the opportunity to choose the regions of impressions, determine the demographic and behavioral interests of users.
Contextual advertising allows you to draw the attention of the audience to the site, a specific product and promotions.

The most popular contextual advertising services are Yandex.Direct, Begun and Google AdWords. To use their services, it is enough to register with them and, following the prompts, create your first business promotion campaign.

Greater return on target audience with minimal cost can be achieved by sending promotional emails. The distribution is made in as soon as possible, does not require a large budget, but at the same time allows you to win the attention of customers. The entrepreneur will only need a database with email addresses of potential customers, which can be developed in various ways. These can be contests that require online registration, or an offer to subscribe to site news if you post interesting and high-quality content. The subscription form should not contain many items so as not to scare off users. A name and email address is enough. If you regularly send out a newsletter, then in the future it may become a real marketing tool to create the image of the company and promote the product on the market.

Promotion in social networks

Even if your company still does not have its own page or community in popular social networks, you should not ignore the possibility of such advertising. It is here that most of the target audience is gathered, which is easy to track. A popular way to advertise your business on social networks is to buy posts or reposts in popular communities. This allows you not only to increase traffic to the company's website, but also to attract users to the newly created group of your company. The more subscribers the community in which you are going to buy advertising has, the higher its cost will be, but also the greater the reach of the audience.

How to advertise and promote your business - additional ways

Correctly built marketing policy even from a loss-making business must be made profitable. If, for some reason, the main methods of advertising do not give the desired flow of customers, you can always find additional ways how to advertise your business.

Creating your own brand, logo and business cards

Corporate identity makes the company memorable for customers and distinguishes it from competitors. It includes a logo, slogan or slogan of the company, a certain color scheme, business cards. Everyone will understand which chain of restaurants fast food in question, if they see the characteristic yellow letter "M". Or three oblique stripes on clothes and sporting goods will immediately give out famous brand. Such seemingly trifles, but they work for the company's image and increase customer confidence in the product.

Corporate identity should be traced everywhere - from corporate clothing to official letterheads of the company.

A distinctive sign should also be on the business card, since every businessman should be able to leave contact information to a potential partner or client. The business card should not be overloaded. On it you can put the company logo, its slogan and contact details:

company address and telephone numbers;
description of the type of activity;
advantages over competitors.

If at the initial stage of business formation the development own brand is not so important, then for an already established company, the lack of hallmarks can cause suspicion and distrust of customers.

Promotions and bonus programs

Every year it becomes more and more difficult for stores to compete and fight for the attention of customers. The same applies to any other business that wants not only to stay afloat, but also to develop further. It is easiest to attract and retain customers with promotions and bonus programs that have a cumulative character. Consumers always pay attention to sales, and they are more willing to buy a product with a “yellow price tag”, even if the price on it remains unchanged.

Promotions allow you to stimulate sales and promote business, focusing on short-term demand.

With this tool, you can solve the following tasks:

short-term increase in sales volumes;
capturing market share for the long term;
attracting new consumers;
poaching customers from competitors;
encouraging consumers to buy more;
retention of loyal customers.

Bonus programs, in turn, also increase the number of repeat orders and purchases, as they are cumulative.

Partnerships with established companies

In Western countries, the concept of "B2B", that is, "business for business", is quite common. It is common when one company decides to develop another, providing it with accompanying services, additional equipment, goods intended for the production of other goods or for professional use. Is it beneficial or not Russian market? Of course, everywhere there are nuances and pitfalls, but in general, when planning to cooperate with established companies, an entrepreneur makes the right decision. The main thing is that this transaction benefits all participants and leads to the desired profit.

An example of such cooperation could be a simple situation where you are a small supplier who finds it difficult to break through the competition on his own in the market. But your services may be of interest to a large company that sells the same product or produces something based on it. In this case, cooperation benefits both parties to the transaction.

Congratulations and gifts for significant dates to partners and regular consumers / suppliers

Advertising your business and warming up interest in it can be achieved in such an unusual way. Significant dates are great way increase the trust of partners and customers. Not every company or manufacturer knows personal information about customers, and therefore will not wish them happy birthday, and you can stand out and increase sympathy for yourself and your business in this way. You can find out significant dates by means of a questionnaire at the time of registration discount card client or when drawing up a contract for the provision of services, add this item to the number required to be filled out.

Loyalty with customers

A good relationship with consumers plays a huge role in promoting a business. Grateful customers are the best advertisement your business and are more likely to come to you again and bring friends and acquaintances with them. It is on this principle that word of mouth works, which helped many at the initial stage of business development. Large companies develop reward systems for regular customers - loyalty programs. They help to cope with competitors by attracting consumers to their side.

Entrepreneurship is often considered profitable business among ordinary people who see only the "tip of the iceberg" and do not think about how much work was invested in this "brainchild". Business promotion through advertising makes it possible not only not to slow down the pace of the company's development, but also to increase it, attracting new customers and partners. Knowing all the existing ways to develop your business, you can begin to implement the most daring plans and conduct successful advertising campaigns.

In contact with

Anyone can start their own business, the main thing is to find the right approach and a worthy idea. A lot has been written about how to promote your business from scratch, but still there are nuances that are very important in this matter.

Many people ask themselves the answers to the question of how to build a business from scratch and unwind. The reason is that people, as a rule, think about business when they are already tired of working for their “uncle”. Many want to realize themselves and live a decent life as a free and independent person, and not constantly count pennies and be content with little.

We start and develop our business

Where to find? Where to begin? Of course, from the simplest, but very important stage - choosing an idea. There are a lot of options, no one will tell you what to do specifically for you. Since there are many important nuances, such as place of residence, competition, as well as the skills and abilities of a particular person.

Choosing a business to your liking

It is best, of course, to choose a business to your liking, it has a much greater chance of success than any other job. But not always a hobby can become a full-fledged way of earning. Consider the relevance of a particular idea to your area. If, for example, you live in a village, then opening a supermarket or a restaurant is initially an inappropriate undertaking for you.

Unleash your ready business, it is possible with the help of additional innovations. For example, well-designed advertising will help attract visitors. To do this, use the services of experienced professionals. Also, by changing the concept, you can achieve some success.

Now you know the ways to promote a business from scratch, be sure to use them to achieve a good result. Good luck to you.

Live training on how to build a business from scratch

The How to Grow Your Small Business series is for entrepreneurs looking to gain more control over probability. successful development your small business.

Control is a subjective concept. In this regard, our approach to reduce the level of subjectivity in the proposed recommendations is to have a strict scientific justification, resulting from marketing research recognized experts.

Small Business Development Methodology

“Consumption is the sole purpose of production; and attention to the manufacturer is conditioned only as long as it arouses the interest of the consumer.

On the commercial market offer likewise engine V vehicle development. Analogy demand closest to the role driver. The fact of entrepreneurship already tells about the level offers above zero. However, it (the fact) does not at all mean the automatic existence of demand. On the contrary, often the level of demand for small business products in the absence of targeted stimulation tends to zero, or even has a negative value (turns away customers). Due to this, the main task small business is primarily promotion of demand for Commercial offer .

The "How to Grow Your Small Business" series of articles aims to provide the entrepreneur with evidence-based advice relevant to various (but specific) types of business (e.g., retail store or beauty salon). If you do not find a list of approaches designed specifically for growing your type of business, please leave a comment with your interest below. Priority in the further publication of development techniques will be given to the most popular queries.

“Don’t turn things around, but the tongue of the hand is shorter.” folk saying

Any article that tells about the possibilities and technologies of business promotion can only serve stimulus to action. Knowledge itself is of no value if it is not put into practice. In this regard, we hope to form an active discussion among readers that encourages action, annoying the status quo.

Recommendations related to a particular type of business are developed using a full systems approach, which allows to analyze in detail and determine the role and significance of each element of the mechanism (process) of business development. This approach was developed and standardized by the collective efforts of several dozen American marketing professors under the leadership of Del I. Hawkins and David L. Mothersbaugh and is used by many advanced both academic and professional marketing institutions.

Before we look at this system, we are encouraged to extend the . Customer value is the difference between the benefit / benefit (both material and intangible) received from a product and the cost (financial, psychological, time) of its acquisition. In order to survive (and thereby develop) in the market, an entrepreneur needs to create or offer greatest value (from the consumer's point of view, of course) in their industry segment compared to competitors' offerings.

Since the relationship between cost and benefit of a product is usually directly proportional (i.e., the greater the benefit, the higher the cost), in order to maximize profit, the value proposition must be noticeably outperform that of competitors but no more than it needs to be convinced. It is for this that it is necessary to use a system that allows you to calculate and clearly direct limited resources entrepreneur for production noticeably competitive customer value.

Let's take a look at the process of creating customer value that we use when recommending a typical entrepreneur in a series of articles. "How to grow a small business":

1) Market analysis. In the first step, we conduct a detailed study

a) small entrepreneur,
b) its competitors,
c) consumers,
d) conditions of market relations.

2) Market segmentation. At this stage

a) customer needs are identified,
b) consumers are grouped according to their needs,
c) the needs under consideration are prioritized,
d) the most attractive segment(s) for the entrepreneur is selected

3) Exploring the buying decision process. This step is to study the process by which

a) the consumer recognizes his problem/need,
b) finds information to solve this problem (product or service),
c) evaluates the alternatives available to him,
d) makes a purchase,
e) uses the product (or result of the service) in practice,
f) forms the final evaluation of the product.

4) Marketing strategy. Here, based on the information from the previous analysis, a targeted policy is being developed regarding

a) commercial product positioning,
b) its properties,
c) its prices,
d) consumer access to the product,
e) stimulation of consumer interest in the product,
f) pre- and post-sales customer service issues.

In other words, the answer to the question is formed - How an entrepreneur will create competitive customer value.

5) results. The final stage evaluates the achieved performance

a) the consumer,
b) small business and
c) society as a whole.

Final marketing strategy for the promotion of demand is to bring the concepts of marketing activities in the most productive correspondence with.

core models consumer behavior serves Lifestyle And consumer identity(in our case, those that we segment in the second stage of the customer value creation process). In the model for Lifestyle are influenced by:

1. External influences which include

a) Public culture/mentality(where it is sometimes necessary to go deeper and identify subculture). This is expressed in traditions, concepts, values, skills, habits formed in society.
b) Demographic characteristics, which are expressed in the size, dispersion and structure of both the segment itself and its public "container";
c) social status, which is expressed in the hierarchical division of society regarding the way of life, values and relations of its "members";
d) "Reference" group(stimulating individual attitudes towards something), which has informational, normative And identification impact on members of the segment in question;
e) family environment, which is similar to the "reference" group, but with additional motivations and a level of commitment;
f) Various marketing events (influence of all present marketing messages).

2. Internal influences which include

a) Features of perception(how the stimulation of the consumer's senses is transformed into information for him);
b) Features of the process of obtaining knowledge(consumer behavior is primarily due not to innate, but to "accumulated" knowledge, and therefore, it is important for us to understand how they are formed);
c) Memory(how detailed and for how long the consumer retains the information transmitted by the marketing campaign);
d) motives(goals and directions of consumer behavior);
e) Character features(in other words, type consumer behavior, tuned to achieve goals);
f) Emotions(whose nature is explained by the interaction motives And personality traits with external factors);
g) Personal relationships to objects / objects (long-term organization emotions, motivations, perception And accumulated knowledge in relation to certain aspects of the environment).

Further, Lifestyle And consumer identity causes needs and desires, which in turn initiate The process by which a consumer makes a purchasing decision. This process can be ordered into the following stages:

situational circumstances(impact of factors related to time And place, and are not constant for the consumer);
Problem/need/wish recognition(result of discrepancy desired consumer state with reality, which is sufficient to activate the process of developing a consumer decision);
Finding Information to Solve a Problem(depending on the perceived importance of the decision, the consumer resorts to either nominal, limited, or extended searching for information);
Evaluation of alternatives(depending on the type of information search, the consumer may resort to or avoid considering alternatives);
Final Choice(analysis of preferences in the process of solving a problem, which consists in prioritizing the characteristics, sizes, usefulness of the product in question);
Making a purchase(analysis of the choice of sales channel (retail, Internet, ads, catalogs, or other channels);
Post-sales experience(analysis of post-sales satisfaction, brand loyalty, disillusionment).

Obviously, the outcome of the purchasing decision process generates consumer experience. Obtained in this way experience closes the model of consumer behavior under consideration by the fact that it affects, in turn, the initial external And internal factors.