Digging deeper into the LCM data, the marketing behaviors of newer businesses and younger business owners is strikingly different from more well established and older business owners. BIA/Kelsey says younger businesses are a leading indicator of where the SMB media and marketing world is headed – more digital, more engagement, more use of digital tools and cloud-based applications.

Within this in mind, BIA/Kelsey is hosting a conference next month focused on the latest tools and technologies for small business marketing. DMS ’11: The Summit for Small Business Advertising Solutions, which takes placed Sept. 20-22, in Denver, will bring together top executives from companies like AT&T Advertising Solutions, Facebook, Infogroup, MerchantCircle, Microsoft, Urbanspoon and Yellowbook, to break down the components of modern SMB marketing and analyze where the biggest opportunities are for players in the local-social-mobile ecosystem.

Exclusive Offer for BIG Marketing Readers
As a sponsor of DMS’ 11, BIG Marketing for Small Business readers and subscribers can receive a $200 discount on the cost of conference registration when signing up with promo code DMS11BIG. More information is available on the conference website at http://www.biakelsey.com/DMS2011.

Go Guerilla
Many brands, ranging from clothing brands to software companies, use guerilla marketing and other basic direct mail tactics to publicize their services. For instance take the case study done by Honest Tea. According to Bill Dugan, Host Tea set up a bunch of unmanned kiosks filled with Honest Tea products in seven major cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Payment was based on the honor system, with hidden cameras set up to capture the action. The media reported on the findings of the “experiment,” ranking cities by the percentage of customers who had paid for their bottle of tea. And in case you’re wondering, Boston came in first place with 93.3% of consumers paying for their tea. Using sales promotions like offering ridiculous discounts to generate buzz can be highly effective.

Direct Mail, Print and Online
If you are trying to reach a local audience, direct mail campaigns can be effective in getting locals to pay attention to your location. As a new business entity, getting your name out there should be a priority and using mailing services for sales flyers and time sensitive coupons can help generate interest quickly and with a reasonable budget. If you’re trying to go green and don’t want to spend the money on printing services, use email marketing. Just make sure you use an opt-in list and not one that’s purchased. You risk have your email and company being blacklisted as a spammer. Not a great first impression for a new business just getting out of the gates.

Hire True, Sales Professionals
Outsourcing a call center might be a good idea if you don’t want to hire a sales staff right away. Telemarketing services can help identify, segment and reach your target audience with your value proposition. If you are putting together a sales team, make sure to hire experienced sales professionals based on talent, past successes and personality. Any good sales professional can learn your industry (or almost any industry for that matter) and apply their skill to be successful.

By understanding your brand’s engagement, and pinpointing your business goals for the next 3 to 5 years, you’ll be able to develop a strong marketing plan to execute against. Being vigilant and deliberant in managing your brand will have a positive impact on how your customers perceive you.

Image Credit: Prime Media Center

Guest Author – Matt Krautstrunk is an expert writer on VoIP phone systems based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as IP phone systems at Resource Nation.

Up to 30 California-based companies will be selected by May 1 to participate in a series of classes, workshops, mentorships and networking led by Santa Clara business faculty and augmented by the School’s unique connections with Silicon Valley. Selection will be based on the following criteria: a well-developed business idea (or business in startup mode), guided by experienced leaders, and with a high potential to make economic contributions within a year of completing the program.

“By the end of this year, we will have provided California with 50 new job-creating organizations,” said Daniel Aguiar, executive director of the business school’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and a former entrepreneur. “This program is leading the way to prosperity for communities around California.”

Emerging entrepreneurs are invited to apply for admission to the program by May 1. The online application includes several exercises to assess potential for a successful launch. Applications will be screened by a committee of veteran entrepreneurs, funders, and faculty.

Starting in June, CAPE participants will start virtual exercises, work with faculty coaches, and join colleagues in two weekend onsite sessions. In September, the cohort will come to the Santa Clara campus for an intensive, week-long workshop, after which they will prepare a business ‘pitch’ under the mentorship of individually matched Silicon Valley executives. Two post-workshop weekend sessions will prepare group members to compete in a $5,000 business plan contest in November.

“This curriculum equips the emerging entrepreneur with marketing, finance, and operations expertise essential to success in the marketplace,” said Aguiar. “The program also provides skills to navigate organizational dynamics, strategic management, and communication.”

“Members of last year’s CAPE cohort saw their products fast-tracked to major retailers and national distributors,” said Drew Starbird, dean of the business school and co-creator of the program. “We are eager to see what this fresh group of new business people will add to our economy.”

CAPE cohort members will participate in all classes, workshops, and events and no cost. Books, in-class materials, onsite meals, and housing for those who live outside driving distance to the University are also free of charge. Travel expenses to and from each session are not included in the program. The CAPE program is underwritten by the Leavey School of Business Executive Development Center and members of the School’s Advisory Board.

I was sent some information about a business series on CNNmoney.com that uncovers unique stories of entrepreneurial spirit and the risk and passion that accompany them. The series is called Cadillac Business Unusual, hosted by Chris Hardwick with the newest episode (no.2 of 12 scheduled) telling the story of CrushPad, a unique winery all about personal expression founded by software engineer turned entrepreneur Michael Brill. CrushPad has made a business of flying in the face of convention, building new technologies and engaging people interested in producing their own branded barrels. Watch the video story.

I’ve become a true red wine snob over the last fews years, so I found this quite fascinating.

Yes, the 2 inch x 1 inch logo appearing at the top left of your chest – that’s the one! I have received so many over the years, and almost never wear them. Usually I pass them along to my dad or they end up in the graveyard that’s my bottom drawer. Why companies keep spending money turning out boring swag that very few customers or prospects will ever wear is insanity. If your customers won’t wear it, save your money and spend it on something else. Or, better yet, create fun swag they want to wear.

I think good swag when done right, can be a powerful way to get your customers to connect with your brand. Particularly, if the swag you choose and the designs you create reflect your culture, values, differentiation, and sense of fun. And if customers like it, they’ll wear it as intended, and let everyone around them know who they got it from. Advertising and advocacy.

I work for PEER 1 Hosting and sister company, ServerBeach. We dole out a lot of swag at tradeshows and customer events across North America. I make it a mandate to come up with fun designs that we think our audience would want to wear, not just us. Last year, we introduced a ServerBeach I [heart] Geeks ladies Tee at South By Southwest (SXSW) that paid homage to the iconic I [heart] NY. Our version featured a red motherboard in the shape of a heart. The tshirt was a massive hit. And the fact that we were one of the only exhibitors to have Tees specifically designed for the female population, made us an even bigger draw. Most of our customers are male and wear the geek label proudly. Having a fun swag item they could give their wife or girlfriend, made the Tee a show standout. Plus, there are many self-described lady geeks ready to wear the Tee, loud and proud. A customer sent in the video below of his wife wearing her I [heart] Geeks Tee during a Valentines Fun Run this past week (1:10 mark). We’re told everyone on the run was asking about it.

Back in 2005, we introduced a “Latency Kills” Tshirt as a giveaway to the online gaming crowd. Latency is an issue for online gamers, making the game slow, jittery or crash. One of the core benefits of PEER 1 Hosting is our fast network with very low latency. The tshirt feature a buffed up gaming character being shot from a first-person point-of-view through crosshairs. Violent yes, but the tshirt has found a following that continues to this day.

This past year, we ventured to come up with a more premium giveaway. Being a Canadian company, we decided to show off our heritage through the country’s favorite past-time, hockey. We redesigned our PEER 1 Hosting and ServerBeach logos in a sports-logo style, and had them embroidered onto high quality, NHL replica pro hockey jerseys made by Reebok. Another hit. The jersey, in fact, received an award for “best swag” at the Magento Imagine 2011 conference in Los Angeles.

Swag can be useful if you don’t get stuck in the mindset of turning out the same boring stuff just because everyone else does. If your intention is to have people wear your gear and connect with your brand, then give them a reason to wear it. And if they truly like it, they will tell others all about you.

They say experience is the best teacher, but in entrepreneurship, making your own mistakes could mean financial and emotional ruin. If you’re just starting out in the world of business, it pays to learn from the mistakes of others so that you can focus on achievement and progress rather than re-living the failure of those before you. Today we explore the 7 most common mistakes made young entrepreneurs, and offer advice on how to avoid making them at your new start up.

Trying to do it All
When many young entrepreneurs start out, they assume that because they are good at the one central function of the company (such as developing mobile apps, or performing marketing consulting), they are well-qualified to run an entire business. As these entrepreneurs soon learn, a business is a multifaceted machine consisting of much more than a particular skill. An especially gifted designer may not know the first thing about accounting, marketing, networking, or any of the other crucial tasks needed to keep a business afloat.

Partly because of a lack of resources and partly because of pride, many new business owners charge forward and attempt to shoulder all corporate responsibility themselves. This is a mistake that entrepreneurial resources like BusinessKnowHow.com cautions against. “New business owners frequently lack relevant business and management expertise in areas such as finance, purchasing, selling…” they remind us. “Unless they recognize what they don’t do well, and seek help, business owners may soon face disaster.”

Not Establishing Work Systems
The early days of a company are frantic and busy, and as a result very little time is spent creating work systems to govern how things get done. A work system is nothing more than a set of steps that are to be carried out verbatim every time a recurring task comes up. If you are a graphic design firm, as an example, a frequently recurring task might be to design a website for a new client. Having a system in place for this task tells your lead designer everything that is involved in completing it, including adding analytics code, uploading it to the correct server, etc.

When you don’t establish specific systems to govern how work gets done at your organization, you leave room for error. Without step by step instructions for how every important recurring task is to be completed, your partners and workers will improv — they will fill in the blanks that not having an explicit system creates. Forgetting to carry out any one of the crucial steps involved in successfully completing a job can create big problems down the line, costing the company time and money to track down and fix.

Expecting Too Much Right Away
There are plenty of good reasons for wanting to go into business, the most popular of which include professional acclaim and financial independence. It is vitally important to your morale as an entrepreneur that you realize these successes will not come fast. Often, the first year of a start up is a topsy-turvy roller coaster ride that can both delight and terrify those in the driver’s seat. Paul Graham, a venture capitalist for the seed funding group Y Combinator, has has had the chance to work with hundreds of young founders and found that many founders have a problem with this.

In an interview with one new team, Graham quotes the founder as saying, “The emotional ups and downs were the biggest surprise for me. One day, we’d think of ourselves as the next Google and dream of buying islands; the next, we’d be pondering how to let our loved ones know of our utter failure; and on and on…” It’s easy to get demoralized by the uncertainty of success in the early days, but try to keep a level head and realize that dreams like yours take time to build, and ages to sustain.

Spending Too Much
In the early days of your company, capital is king. Whatever financial resources you manage to pull together to fund the company are precious assets that are hard to get back once they are spent. Some new business owners who have little experience managing money unwittingly spend capital on unnecessary expenses, such as designer office furniture, cable TV for the break room, and other frivolous purchases. Remember, frugality is the winning mindset when you start out. Your capital is only to be spent on crucial business resources that have the potential to generate more revenue and build the business out.

Not Spending Enough
You might think this a curious mistake to include — after all, if capital is king and frugality is the winning mindset early on, how could not spending enough be a problem? Just as there are managers who are loose with the corporate checkbook, there are also those who are afraid to spend any money, even on things that truly matter. A $100/hour consulting fee might seem like a lot to pay, but if the advice this consultant gives has the potential to solve your most vexing business problems and set you on course to tripling your revenue next month, it is a worthwhile investment.

The key to not to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. If you’re going to spend a significant amount of money, you must evaluate how likely it is that your business will be better off for the investment. Hiring the programmer who will create your flagship product is an example of a time when it doesn’t pay to pinch pennies. You need top-notch talent, and if you’re serious about being the best out there, you’ll need to pay for it.

Not Defining Your Market
Your target market is the group of people who are most likely to buy what your company offers. You’ve got a great new product that “lots of people” will want to use — okay, great, but who are these “people?” Are they teenagers, middle-aged women, sports fans, doctors, college grads, auto mechanics, pilots, etc? Dig even deeper and determine what specific problems these people have that your product will solve. Knowing your target market allows you to spend your advertising money wisely and target only these people, rather than wasting money trying to appeal to “everyone.”

Though this is a common mistake for early entrepreneurs to make, it is amazing to see how many seasoned businessmen still disregard their precise target market. Take fast food chain White Castle, for example, who was recently seen advertising pork sandwiches on a jewish news website. Such an egregious oversight could only be made by a marketer struggling to reach absolutely everyone with his or her ads, which almost always a losing strategy.

Not Being Flexible
There are some dreams in life that you can attain by following a specific plan of action and refusing to deviate from it in any way. Success in sports is like this, because the goal is very clear and there are only a few known ways to attain it (training, diet, discipline, etc). Start ups are the opposite. In business, you must be willing to change, evolve, and even completely discard your plans at any time. It all depends on the demand for your product — simply because you think you have a revolutionary product in mind, and build it exactly as you envision it, does not mean you will become a success unless there is high demand for it.

Paul Graham, our venture capitalist from earlier, explains that inflexibility is one of the most poisonous mindsets a founder can have. “If you want a recipe for a startup that’s going to die, here it is: a couple of founders who have some great idea they know everyone is going to love, and that’s what they’re going to build, no matter what,” he explains. This is because success in business is not entirely dependent on you, you also must answer to your customers. If your market is demanding X and you give them Y, you won’t make it out of quarter 1.

Photo Credit

Guest Author – Carla Sanchez is a freelance writer for Omniture. Omniture is the world leader at website tracking and website search. Software that enables you to better understand your customers and increase your sales.

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