by Michael Totten

Created on: August 26, 2008

A small business, especially a new one, cannot afford not to budget for marketing. If based on a new idea, word needs to be gotten out. If the good or service being offered is tried and true, the small business has to constantly try to position itself a little higher than all the rest, a few of whom will certainly be bigger dogs on the block, who have been around much longer. Yet most small businesses probably won't be in a position to spend millions to advertise itself, and perhaps not even thousands. This makes understanding of how the elements of a marketing campaign work all the more crucial.

The two parts of a successful marketing campaign are product recognition and positive product association. For a small business, product recognition means simply that what the small business does is sufficiently distinct from others that when the consumer needs that particular product, the name of the small business comes readily to mind. By itself, this does not guarantee that the consumer will consistently prefer one business over another, but without a distinct identity the business won't even be in the running. It is positive product association, which can be as simple as positive word of mouth, which builds the foundation allowing an informed consumer to choose one business over another.

Roto-Rooter and Fed-Ex are examples of small businesses which have accomplished these two goals so spectacularly that they are no longer small businesses. So pervasive is the awareness of Fed-Ex that the name has become very nearly synonymous with reliable, cross-country shipping, very nearly to the point of becoming a generic noun in the same way Xerox has. We may not know exactly what a Roto-Rooter is but we easily remember that it has something to do with plumbing; so when we have plumbing problems, odds are good that Roto-Rooter is one of the quickest names to come to mind. In both cases the recognition level of and associations built upon the name are so powerful that the occasional piece of negative feedback which happens to every business eventually is virtually drowned out.

Some parts of the marketing campaign, such flyers or as a website well positioned within search engine optimization, will accomplish both of these goals simultaneously. Others, such as business cards and logo, aim primarily to increase name recognition. How much emphasis a given business will place upon each part of the formula will depend in part on the degree and type of growth desired at that point

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