Small Business Marketing
March 3, 2006Return to blog homepage
My name is Katie Gunderson and I work for Creative Arc, a Minneapolis Web design company. I have worked at Creative Arc since August 2005 and decided to blog some of my experiences since starting.
Creative Arc began to really commit itself to marketing last summer. It had already decided on a target market—construction companies in the Minneapolis area. Now, we had to reach that market. Our idea was an informative postcard. We wanted to set ourselves apart from most Web companies in Minneapolis by advertising and promoting ourselves, which is uncommon among smaller Web companies.
Our first postcard needed to be visually interesting as well as informative. We had a photographer take a picture of a construction client on site with a quoted testimonial for the front of our postcard. The back contained informational text about Creative Arc. We had difficulty tracking the results of that postcard, but decided to do another one.
After learning the mistakes of our first postcard, we were able to make the second more effective. We used a picture and testimonial again, but held a contest for NHL™ hockey tickets. Contestants could fill out a survey and be put in a drawing for the tickets. Now, we had a way of tracking our results. The contest has been a success and we draw the winner next week.
The point I want to make is the importance of advertising and promotions for any small business. Clients can be fickle and their referrals can only take a business so far. Advertising and promotions are a way of actively seeking new clients. It does not have to be expensive.
