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Top Ten Small Business Marketing Environments

By Linda P. Morton

Small business marketing environments can affect your business more than by what your do and say in your marketing.

By including these marketing environments in your marketing and business plans, you open many opportunities for your business.

The following small business marketing environments affect your marketing in ways that you may have not considered before.

Small Business Marketing Environment 1: Your Employees and Business

Everyone working in your business enhances or diminishes your marketing. If your employees make positive comments about your business to others, that's good marketing. If they make negative comments, it hurts your ability to market.

Small Business Marketing Environment 2: The Businesses That Serve You

The businesses that you purchase from determine how efficiently you make your product and conduct your business. Some even provide cooperative advertising and promotion opportunities.

Small Business Marketing Environment 3: The People Who Distribute Your Products

People who deliver your product to your customers influence your marketing because they determine how well you effectively and efficiently distribute your product to your customers. In addition, they will talk about your business to other businesses that they serve. If what they say is positive, that's good marketing. If not, your marketing has to work double to overcome their negative statements.

Small Business Marketing Environment 4: Businesses That Carry Your Product

Which retailers carry your product, the type of customers they attract, and whether they feature your products in their advertising all affect your marketing. In addition, how well they display your product in their stores or whether they will even give you shelf space influences your marketing.

Small Business Marketing Environment 5: Businesses That Sell Competing Products

Businesses that sell competitive products, unwillingly influence your marketing. They may not want to help you, but knowing their strengths and weaknesses can be a great asset to your marketing. When competitors are weak but you are strong, you have a distinguishing characteristic that you can market.

Small Business Marketing Environment 6: External Publics

People external to your business still have an influence on it. For example, government officials can help or hurt your marketing, business and industry with regulations.

Small Business Marketing Environment 7: Target Market

Many small business owners think primarily of present and potential customers when they think of marketing - marketing to them. But who your customers are and whether they are individuals or businesses influences how you market to them.

Small Business Marketing Environment 8: Factual Characteristics

Whether your customers are people or businesses, knowing facts about them can reveal many characteristics that helps your marketing. For businesses, these facts are called firmographics. For people, they're called demographics. Whatever, you call them they help you discover the best appeals to use in your marketing.

Small Business Marketing Environment 9: Economic Situations

Economic situations influence what sells and how much of those products sell. During recessionary economies, people often eliminate unnecessary expenses. During inflationary economies people spend more and on more luxury products. Thus, different economic situations call for different marketing strategies and tactics.

Small Business Marketing Environment 10: Natural Resources

Nature is limited. It can provide us with only so many resources before the supply diminishes and costs go up. If demand for a resource exceeds the supply, it's price goes up. This in turn forces prices to go up for all products that require that resource for production or distribution. So nature influences the marketing mix.

Small Business Marketing Environment: Summary

Marketing is much more than what you say and do to attract potential customers. It includes a mix of product, price, promotion, distribution and other elements that are influenced by different small business marketing environments.

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