Chicago is a competitive market for small and medium size businesses. Selecting the right sized marketing agency that understands your business can give you an advantage over your competitors. Here are 10 marketing tips guaranteed to make this year’s marketing plan a success.

1. Create a marketing budget that you can afford. If you’re only allowing a small budget to advertising, you wouldn’t want to put in all in one media basket.
2. Talk and listen to your customers Offer them incentives to repeat or increase their purchases.
3. Review what your competitors are doing. This is important for determining what type of advertising is best for you.
4. Make your Marketing plan scalable to leverage immediate results and long term goals.
5. Use local resources. Local shopping web sites , free local TV guides, newsletters, community papers. These are targeted toward a specific audience with relatively low ad rates.
6. Know who your customer is. If you are a retirement home, maybe online marketing isn’t the best place to spend your money.
7. Negotiate with vendors. Insist on reduced introductory rates or special rates for larger reach or frequency.
8. Pick a full-service marketing agency that is local and has an interest in your long-term success
9. Set up a blog to communicate with your customers. It is an inexpensive way to gain new customers and stay in touch with current customers.
10. Keep your messaging consistent. If you have a web site, print ads and a direct mail campaign, keep them consistent. Use an integrated marketing agency that understands your brand

Big Black Pencil is interested in your business. Tell us your concerns and we will offer recommendations to help your small business succeed. We will even answer your first marketing question for FREE.