Where do you get good marketing advice for the small business?

So you’re a small business and you need to do some marketing. You can’t afford to go to a professional marketing company that will bill you hundreds of dollars just for a few hours of consultation; and honestly you might not need that degree of marketing anyway. What you’re looking for is solutions that you can implement yourself, with a minimal amount of time and cost. So let’s look at the different sources for ‘do it yourself’ marketing.

Naturally we will put ourselves at Copy Express as the first source for Do It Yourself marketing advice. We are just a phone call, email, or drop in and have a chat source of all kinds of marketing information. Of course if it takes more than a few minutes we will have to bill you for the time, but sometimes spending to get a few hours of advice spread over a few weeks is all you need to help sort through the different plans and ideas to pick the right tools to promote your business. 

Marketing Books

Oh there are a lot of books about marketing out there. It is it’s own sub genre of business books, the problem is most of them won’t be useful for you. Firstly you have to realise that a lot of the books are written by people who either work in the multi million dollar end of the marketing profession or by academics who focus on the business theory more than the day to day stuff needed to make it work. On top of that, there’s nothing less useful than out of date marketing advice, and most of the marketing books are pretty much out of date within a year or two of printing. Don’t worry though, there are several great books written by people who ran their own small business, and which their advice is both kept up to date or is timeless. Surprising enough we can recommend sets of them to you depending on the type of business you run.

Newsletters, Blogs, Feeds, & Websites

For more uptodate, easier to digest parcels of marketing information, it’s hard to go past online sources. It doesn’t matter the source, as long as the information is timely and of relevance to you, then it’s a good tool to have in your marketing toolkit. You do have to take what they say with a pinch of salt, for it’s a business for the content provider and they want you to spend money with them (buying books, doing courses or events, signing up to be ‘resellers’ in a multi level marketing scheme) in return for all the stuff they give you for free. Yes we know the irony of saying this when we are using this article to help drive business to our company, but at least we are up front about it, and we don’t keep the whole article behind a paywall with just a teaser that is free to read. 

Sign up for training at your local Chamber of Commerce

Here at Copy Express, we are members of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, and I myself have sat down to take some of the many courses they run. Every city has a form of a Chamber of Commerce or business buro where business’ can share their skills to help each other do better. The courses being run depend on who are the members, so you might have to join up to more than one of them to find everything you need. Now bear in mind that all of these courses will cost you in one form or another. If you aren’t paying for the course itself, then you can bet it’s being used as a tool to market their business/product to you. It doesn’t stop them from being useful, and all it will cost you is some time so sign up to everyone of them that you think will help.

One-on-one coaching

Sometimes you just need to sit face to face with an expert and discuss marketing ideas. Working with a independent person is a powerful tool in getting you focused on what matters in your marketing. Even the act of just explaining what you want to achieve can be all that is needed to crystallize the plans in your head. Having someone explain them back, offering feedback will refine it and help spot problems you might have missed, make this another great tool in your toolbox. If you go to the next level and spend your money with a expert, they can guide you, avoid common mistakes, and help find what will make you unique in the crowded marketplace. A bit of common sense is required with dealing with coaches too, the good ones are focused on getting you sorted in a efficient fashion so that you’ll come back to them again for more advice in the future, the bad ones just want to squeeze as many billable hours out of you as they can.

Where to go from here?

I could be trite and say ‘Go straight to Copy Express and we will sort you out.’ Truthfully, we are happy to be just one of the tools in your marketing toolbox. Copy Express along with Fuel Accountants operate with the mindset that we are here to help you make your business successful, giving you as little or as much hand holding as you need. After all, the more business you do, the more business you will pass on to us.

Need marketing advice? Want to pick the brains of people who deal with marketing on a daily basis. Then why not give us at Copy Express a call and book an appointment for in depth support, or for just a quick question and answer session. We are always there to help you and your business.