Maximize your Marketing 

Being in business for oneself is a challenging endeavor. Too many of us go it alone when we really don’t have to. You can maximize your marketing time – and dollars – by working cooperatively with other businesses in your area.

 There are three steps to this process:

            1. Identify who your potential members are

2. Identify who else in your area serves a similar clientele

3. Identify complimentary businesses and services that can aid in exposure to new members

Step 1

Think about who your members might come from and why they would come to your church. Is your clientele part of a distinct demographic group: elderly, teens, working moms, stay-at-home moms? Are they part of a distinct economic group: do they have a lot of disposable income or a little disposable income? Do they feel that a trip to worship is a luxury or a necessity? Lastly, consider whether they are part of a distinct geographic group: is your church downtown and therefore your clientele is mostly from the inner city. Or is your church in a rural town with a mix of clientele?

 Step 2

Once you undertake this simple analysis of your customers, you’re ready to look for other organizations in your area that serve the same group. You may find a other organizations that service the needy, or help in their support as service clubs like Rotary. 

Why do you want to identify other businesses with the same type of customer? Because their customers are your customers. How many distinct customers do you estimate you have? Five hundred? Twelve hundred? How many do you think the dry cleaner has? The natural food store? If 10% of their customers started to frequent your church, that would be quite an increase in business wouldn’t it?

Step 3

Once you’ve identified complementary businesses, approach them with the idea of marketing together. Why? It’s cheaper and it gives you exposure to customers who might not have normally considered you. There are a few ways that you can market together. You might put a flyer or coupon on each other’s counter offering special deals or an invitation to an event, as % K Run Sponsored by St. Jude church, and ABC Dry cleaning. When a member ask about the coupon and your Alternative Medical business, the Optomistrist  will enthusiastically tell them where you are located and why he is proud to be associated with you. A personal endorsement or recommendation is by far the best way to attract new clients. Even though you prompted the conversation with your coupon, the positive word-of-mouth the dry cleaner shares with his customer is an endorsement of your services.

Another way to market together would be to do a joint mailing. You can put up to four sheets of paper in an envelope before the postage price goes up. If you gather four similar business people together and share your customer lists, you can inexpensively do four mailings a year to not only your customers, but to your cooperating business partner’s customers as well. If each of you assumed the cost of assembling and paying the postage one time per year it wouldn’t be an overwhelming or expensive task. Similarly, you might do a joint newsletter and share the cost of printing. This would save you quite a bit of money and would increase the chance of your newsletter being read because there would be a wealth of information and advice.

Lastly, you may offer a free product from your cooperating business partner to your customers for utilizing your services a certain number of times. For instance, every third haircut “earns” your customer a free dry-cleaning. You would actually pay the cost of the dry cleaning (which, hopefully, your cooperating business partner will give you a price break on). Likewise, the dry cleaner might offer a free haircut for every 5th suit that is dry cleaned. At the end of each week or each month, you would tally up the coupons you received from his customers and submit them with a bill for the cost of the haircuts. He, similarly, would submit a bill to you for the cost of the dry cleaning coupons you issued. Neither of you should owe the other very much money because in all likelihood the two bills will “wash,” or cancel each other out. The benefits of this last marketing tactic are twofold: 1) you increase the frequency of seeing your customers because when people are “earning” something they are more serious and diligent about making and keeping appointments, and 2) you attract and grow a new group of customers from the referrals of your marketing partner(s).

The ideas offered in this article should get your creative juices flowing. Don’t limit your marketing ideas to your customers alone – think about who else’s customers one day might be yours – and go after them today. Good Marketing!

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