No business is an island. Competitive analysis is vital to the success of your small business. If you’re not able to read the competition, a lot of doors start closing. How can you find a niche, craft a strategy, compete on a global scale, or even understand your customers without Read more…
For many small business owners, finding a niche is a daunting task. For many of us, our small businesses are a form of self-expression, and focusing on small business marketing forces us to answer two deceptively complicated questions. Who is our target audience? How are we meeting their needs? If Read more…
Globalization is one of the defining forces of our era. As the world becomes more connected, we find our small businesses competing in a bigger arena than ten or twenty years ago. In some ways, this is thrilling. In others, it’s terrifying. No matter how you feel about globalization, it’s Read more…
Marketing philosophies change how we approach marketing as a whole. No matter which one you subscribe to, marketing is all about crafting the right experiences for the right people. This objective is deceptive in its simplicity, though, and raises many questions. How do you define the “right” experience? How about Read more…
As small business owners, we like to imagine ourselves immune to market forces. After all, we have the willpower to run the show. Why should we have to answer to anyone else? The truth, as always, is more complicated than that. We’re captains of ships in choppy waters, skilled and Read more…
Decision-making styles are different for every customer. Understanding why customers arrive at their decisions is crucial for your small business’s success. To know why someone makes a choice empowers you to create beautiful experiences for them. Crafting the right experiences for the right people, after all, is one of the Read more…
Consumer decisions can seem mysterious. Last week, I wrote at length about consumer behavior. How do we understand why consumers do what they do? Nowhere is consumer behavior more important than the decision-making process itself. After all, knowing how people make decisions will make your small business thrive! The very Read more…
Consumer behavior is the study of why and how people buy things. It’s a mix of psychology and economics, blown up on a massive scale. To understand it is the dream of prophets, wisemen, and hucksters. We’re going to focus on what consumer behavior is and why it is important Read more…
Learning small business marketing is hard. In fact, running a small business, in general, is hard. Oftentimes it takes years of hard work and dedication before you even seen a dime in profit. You’re constantly learning new skills. With rapid learning comes discomfort, especially in areas we know little about. Read more…