Soft sell

Entrepreneur, Sept, 1998 by Mark Henricks

It seems that small businesses fall short of almost every marketing ideal, from seeking international business (13 percent) and creating strategic marketing plans (21 percent) to providing outside training or compensating sales people. Still, some small-business marketing practices are on the mark.

Small-business standbys such as referrals and word-of-mouth, for instance, were named by many survey respondents as some of the most economical, effective marketing tools. In-house sales training can also be both effective and inexpensive, adds Tudor. And nearly two out of three small businesses surveyed measure customer satisfaction - another smart move.

Meanwhile, Weinberger says he's running his marketing effort like a "pie-litical campaign," complete with grass-roots efforts and lots of photo opportunities with the media. "We even have ambassadors who are in the supermarkets promoting our products."

EYE TO THE FUTURE

Fortunately for entrepreneurs, the future may hold better news for improved marketing efforts. Tudor says many small-business owners he works with exhibit more sophistication over time. He says many entrepreneurs are beginning to recognize their weaknesses and are coming to him for help with such tasks as market research and strategic planning.

That doesn't mean they'll gain an edge on more advanced competitors who are continually refining their marketing tools. "The trend now is away from marketing to the masses and toward marketing to niches," Urban says. "That's something that's lost on a lot of small-business owners."

Some experts still insist small-business marketing isn't noticeably improving. "If anything, it's the opposite," says Gioia. "There's a lot of ignorance, a lot of waiting for the phone to ring and orders to come in."

It's likely small businesses will continue to be limited by time, money and knowledge to marketing efforts improvised on the fly. Still, while it may not be textbook, for many, it's all they have.

NEXT STEP

* The Fast forward MBA in Marketing by Dallas Murphy (Wiley) is a compact reference book packed with definitions, explanations, applications and limitations of both basic and advanced modern marketing techniques.

* Guerilla Marketing by Entrepreneur columnist Jay Conrad Levinson (Houghton Mifflin) is the classic how-to marketing handbook for the resource-strapped small-business owner.

RELATED ARTICLE: Know Your Limits

Maria Hartrich, 39, doesn't market her services through direct mail, sales calls, telemarketing or even the Web. "It's almost exclusively through word-of-mouth," says the president of Strategic Business Intelligence Inc., a Chicago competitive analysis and market research firm started in 1993.

Word-of-mouth fits her needs, Hartrich says, because she focuses on a small niche-financial information services. By limiting her marketing efforts, she avoids getting more business than her one-person company can handle.

"By growing, you take on the responsibility of managing employees, and you need to have more space," she says. "I want to work out of my home and be able to take off when I want to."