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Marketing on Main Street
Lacking big-company ad budgets, local small businesses find they must be crafty guerilla-marketers to get ahead - and stay there
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Business New Haven
9/4/2001
By: Anne-Marie Brungard
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The name of the game is making a connection. Small companies have the disadvantage of smaller marketing budgets; they generally do not have access to marketing gurus or consultants to guide them along the way. Amid the everyday routines of their businesses, they must also add marketing to their list of things that they must learn to do. But if they want to create a buzz, pull in new customers and grow the business, they have be creative.
Feel-Good Marketing
In the feel-good business of massage and yoga, cementing the mind-body connection is essential. This symbiotic relationship-building is the same approach that Dwight Johnson of Creative Body Therapies uses when marketing his business as well.
Donating services to community organizations or non-profit groups is considered a win-win by Johnson. “Everybody is helping each other,” he says. Gift certificates to churches, synagogues and agencies such as AIDS Project New Haven help with exposure, but its much more than that.
“In the best case a $60 massage can make $100 for the organization,” explains Johnson, while “The [recipient] still gets an one-hour massage.” It's a way of combining doing good and feeling good.
The timing for the array of services offered by Creative Body Therapies couldn't be better. There has been an explosion in consumer spending on scented lotions, candles, self-help books and the like - anything to make us feel good. From aromatherapy to energy healers, feng shui and art therapy, today there thrives a multitude of companies and specialists to lead you in your quest to simplify and balance your life.
While some are still sorting out the snake-oil salesmen from the healing practitioners, Johnson addresses the underlying fears in his approach to marketing.
“People have past abuses, there are negative associations with inappropriate touch,” explains Johnson. “It is very sad, but the truth is that we also have to [battle] the stigma of negative sexual connotations to massage therapy.”
The best approach, of course, is anything that gets someone to experience it personally. To this end, time is spent in the community participating in local fairs, store openings and special events. A free five-minute chair massage (fully clothed) helps to introduce newcomers to the benefits of the service. The mini-sessions are successful in getting a person overcome their initial fears or just try something new and different.
More traditional approaches to marketing have been tried and tested by Johnson, and mainly found wanting. Newspaper advertising to mass markets did not have the desired effect. “It's possible that maybe longer advertising, or more years investing to get the message across [may have proven successful],” says Johnson. But many companies can't afford to “wait and see” when their cash is at risk and the returns uncertain.
The other consideration, of course, is the very nature of the business. “The type of service [offered by Creative Body Therapies] is personal and intimate to a degree there has to be some self-interest,” says Johnson. “We are looking for someone already looking for some change, wanting to help make themselves better.” The marketing approach, therefore, must be direct and personal.
That doesn't mean it's a one-to-one sell. Johnson buys Yellow Pages advertising, making sure that his ad is just a little bigger than the competition's, to draw attention. Even though Johnson says the cost of his Yellow Pages ad has practically doubled this year, due to extended market coverage, it didn't make sense to reduce the size of the advertisement, he says.
The standard newsletters and on-site workshops are bolstered by Johnson's community-service approach to marketing. In a corporate setting, he will offer to give a mini-seminar, at no cost to the company, while wooing the audience with a chair massage right there for one lucky (and probably grateful) participant.
Still, Johnson knows that his time is best invested touching people directly - no pun intended.
Keeping the Doctor Away
Capitalizing on your company name is an approach that Chris Walker of Applegate Mortgage of Madison is trying to perfect. Using gifts is hardly a new approach to marketing, but Walker has devised a way to get the potential customer's attention and deliver his business card and materials in a distinctive way.
Upon receiving a hot referral or making an initial contact, the company will quickly deliver a fresh, shiny red apple in a gift box with collateral materials. “We have to pay special attention to staying in touch with the customer,” says Walker. Making that connection - even with fruit - can pay off.
“An apple is good for you,” Walker says. “We want our customers to make that association, and know that we [the company] is good for you, too.”
The Madison office opened in early 1999, but Walker is not new to the business of residential financing. His past experiences taught him to focus his marketing efforts with a more direct, personal approach. His creativity is just one element in a plan that includes more traditional one-to-one marketing strategies like chamber of commerce events and participation in Business Networks International. “The personal networking really works for us,” he explains.
Applegate Mortgage doesn't enjoy the luxury of depending on customers for constant repeat sales (most mortgages have a 30-year term), so there is often just one opportunity to make that connection. It may lead not only to the initial mortgage, but the possibility of referrals of friends, family and co-workers.
Walker likens his company's business to the old style of banking by which customers enjoyed nearly cradle-to-grave relationships with a single banking entity. “Our customers see us, touch us and feel us in this small office right through to the closing,” says Walker. “We are not handing anyone off to another department or company; we see the whole process through.”
Trying to market that personal service is tricky and the competition is voracious. It is difficult to get the message across in some forms of print advertising. “That shotgun approach, when the potential customer is looking at your ad alongside 80 others, just doesn't really work for us,” explains Walker. So Applegate Mortgage is banking on its individual relationship approach to marketing. After all, one a day keeps the doctor away.
Navigating the Daily Grind
You may or may not be familiar with wakeboards or boogie boards, and perhaps only the more adventurous among us may have experienced in-line skates, snowboards or skateboards.
On the other hand, you may get completely stoked by that 13-year-old who just flipped a double kick flip to a nose grind on a quarter-pipe (accuracy alert: I just had my 15-year-old edit that sentence for me). This is the world according to Michael Blaskey, owner of B-17, a 7,000-square-foot skatepark and retail store.
Marketing his specialty business is no easy task, especially given the scattershot media usage of his target audience.
“It was very difficult when we first opened six years ago,” says Blaskey. B-17 attracted little to no free media exposure and the general public was not terribly familiar with the sports or the products. Trying to reach teenagers and Gen Xers, Blaskey relied heavily on word-of-mouth and a 5,000-customer mailing list in the early days. Standard marketing outlets like radio and print have worked to a point, he says, but it has taken time, trial and error to get the marketing mix to gel.
“We now know that we can hit the kids on WHCN-FM in the afternoons, the parents on WKCI-FM, and the upbeat college group with the [New Haven] Advocate,” explains Blaskey, “but it has to be consistent, two to three weeks of hits.”
B-17 can now reap some of the benefits of the popular, nationally aired X Games carried on ESPN and ESPN 2. Before recently, however, Blaskey says cable television advertising was not effective. In addition, he found it a challenge to target the right message to his very specific markets. So he developed what he calls a partnership model for marketing.
Blaskey's customers are probably quite familiar with product manufacturers, and when skaters, for example, visit manufacturers' Web sites for information, they are often re-directed back to local stores that carry the merchandise - such as B-17. Blaskey has developed several partnerships of this nature to provide national coverage, but with specific local results - customers come in to skate, and to buy.
Other partnerships include hosting professional skate tours that bring national stars to the store. Customers get to see live demonstrations, get autographs and, of course, free products. The favorite by far seems to be the “product toss,” where a new skateboard is hurled into the air and who ever gets it keeps it. The wholesale cost of the skateboard is worth the excitement and name recognition that comes from the promotion.
B-17's own skate team goes on the road to participate in special events such as WHCN's Radio 104 Fest. With live bands and a charged atmosphere, Blaskey will bring his mini half-pipe and the team demonstrates popular (and, to some adults' eyes, hair-raising) stunts. Pairing with radio stations and restaurants, such as Humphrey's East in New Haven, brings potential customers face-to-face with the company.
About three years ago Blaskey invested in his own Web site and is now giving the site a facelift to reflect the evolving style and culture of the business. What worked three years ago doesn't necessarily have the same impact today.
Blaskey is learning to regularly re-evaluate the results and has learned to be flexible with his marketing plan while maximizing his relationships with partners.
Small-business owners know that making a connection is important. Whatever that connection is, it must fit the company's personality, boosting visibility and ultimately sales.
Creativity combined with some traditional marketing channels seems to provide the best results. It appears that there is evolving a new, holistic approach to marketing, addressing the mind, body - and even fruit.
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