Focusing on Organic Growth | The Monday Marketing Tip

tips on small business marketing with Renzie Baluyut.

Welcome to The Monday Marketing Tip. Starting today and for the next several Mondays, I will be sharing insights and little notes on marketing communications- little bits of advice for small business owners, entrepreneurs and online professionals.

Marketing, I believe, is something every digital entrepreneur and freelancer should get into. How else do you suppose could people learn about your expertise, products and services? You don't need a large budget to run with the big dogs- all you need is some creativity, some diligence, and ruthless efficiency.

Focusing on Organic Growth

Marketing a small business is totally different from planning and executing a marketing plan for a much larger corporation.

For starters, most small businesses operate on a much smaller marketing budget, or sometimes even no budget at all. And while there are a number of low- to no-cost ways available out there, the objectives remain essentially the same.

Remember: the end goal of marketing is to increase business for the company. This can be achieved by putting together a suitable marketing plan and simply following it through. You might be amazed- many organizations out there don't give marketing and business development any serious thought.

In fact, putting together a marketing plan for any small business isn't too difficult. All you have to do really, is focus on organic growth- increasing your customer base, increasing your output, and increasing your sales. This is by far, the most effective way to grow and expand your business.

How do you achieve increased organic growth? Laura Lake of About.com shares with us four ways to get it done:

1. Acquire more customers
2. Persuade each customer to buy more products
3. Persuade each customer to buy more expensive products or up selling each customer
4. Persuade each customer to buy more profitable products

These four basic tasks only serve to increase your company's revenue and profit. Of the four, it is recommended that the first-- acquiring more customers- should be the focus of any small business. More customers only mean a larger customer base, and having a larger customer base translates to a higher potential revenue.

So for this week, ask yourself: How can I acquire more customers? In your case, you can even be as specific as possible: How can I get more people to know about, and actually get to try our products and services?

There are several ways you can achieve this. Just to rattle off a few low-cost suggestions:

• Harness the power of the internet, social media and social networking tools. Facebook, Twitter, Multiply are all effective marketing tools when used correctly.
• Have a website. Update it regularly and keep it relevant for your target market.
• Even better: have a blog, and allow your target market a means to interact with you.
• Look within your personal network. Know someone who writes for a newspaper? Or works for a radio station? Find out how you can get free plugging, in exchange for a few modest media values.
• Join conventions, trade shows, workshops and seminars. Scope out potential customers here and get your calling cards, flyers and other handouts passed around.
• Collaborate with other small businesses that hit your target market. Remember that there's power in synergy.
• Tap into communities and organizations that would find your services relevant. You can find them online, or among the people in your neighborhood.

All you need is a little imagination really, and the will to follow your plan through. Be creative, be diligent and be efficient. Give yourself challenging yet realistic and achievable goals-- I will bring in ten new customers this week, or I will join three new communities this month and spread the word about the company. Hold yourself accountable, and you can see your business grow slowly, but steadily.

The best part is, you just grew your business without a huge marketing budget-- by working hard and working smart- and you did it all by yourself.

Special thanks to Laura Lake of About.com for inspiring this blog post.

Cheers, everyone.

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Keyboard Monkeys, with Renzie Baluyut

about this blog, and the blog author- Renzie Baluyut.

Hello, and welcome to my latest project, Keyboard Monkeys: Tips, Tricks and Advice for the digital entrepreneur.

The concept for Keyboard Monkeys first came about almost two years ago, when I was working as a copy writer/ researcher and SEO peon for an Australian-based e-commerce company.

I was part of the content development team (that's the rest of them, shown above). Search Engine Optimization was (at the time) a brand new concept for us all, and all these new and exciting concepts in Search Marketing and Social Media were definitely on the rise.

I had just left the local FM radio scene at the time (after seeing some 14 years of action), and I felt like I stumbled upon a completely new passion. Blogging, since then, has been my life.

I was a casual blogger at first- wrote about pretty much whatever I felt like and posted them all online without any system or regularity. Then after putting together a blogging workshop, I realized that blogging can be a legitimate money-making opportunity. Meeting several other local professional bloggers later on only made a bigger impact on me later on.

It was then that I found out that being a professional blogger also meant several things.

• You have to be exceptional at developing content, no matter what your blog is all about. Copy writing and editing, podcasting, even the production of viral videos all make for great content if executed well.
  
• You have to know how to market your blog, which means you need to know at the very least, some search engine optimization, how to use all kinds of social networks, etc.
• A knowledge of digital photography and blogging goes hand-in-hand.
  
• Even better: you add more market value to yourself if you actually know some programming.

• Serious bloggers are also knowledgeable about technology: at the very least, laptops, PCs and mobile devices, as well as removable storage media, peripherals and accessories- whatever helps with their blogging pursuits.
  
• A professional blogger actually knows how to make money online, or at least use his skills to make money off the internet, balancing their blogging efforts with work, or even working from home.

• Even more serious bloggers synergize their blogging and internet marketing savvy with other entrepreneurial endeavors- online or otherwise.
• Being an entrepreneur, in turn, entails a familiarity in running your own business, and so small business management and personal finance comes into play as well.
  

With those realizations came this blog. What I actually did at first was compile most of my entrepreneurial-related content from all my other earlier (read: amateurish) blogs, and put them all here.

While I would need to re-tag and re-categorize most of these earlier posts, new content will definitely be the priority. I have figured out that topics for KeyboardMonkeys.com will play around the following subject matters:

• Building a Better Blog.
  
• Buzz Marketing.
  
• Copy Writing.
  
• Digital Photography.
• Freelancing.
• Guerilla Marketing.
• Guides and How-To's.
• Internet Marketing.
• Making Money Online.
• Online Entrepreneurship.
• Personal Finance.
• Small Business Management.
• Social Media.
• Tech for Entrepreneurs and Small Business.
• The Business of Blogging.
• Working from Home.
• Writing Guides and Tips.

With that, I bid you all welcome to KeyboardMonkeys.com. I hope you find something useful within these pages, and I urge you to share what you can and even drop a comment, or join a discussion or two.

Cheers, everyone.

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