Business owners have hundreds of tactics to attract new customers/clients. These tactics break down into eight high-level approaches:  

One: Guerilla/Street Marketing. Jay Conrad Levinson pioneered the term Guerilla Marketing to describe the low-cost, high impact marketing strategies that smaller businesses can use to compete with the “big boys.” If you haven’t already read his classic book and series, you should be sure to do so. Local “Main Street” businesses should all be using guerilla marketing techniques. 

Two: Educational/Expert Marketing. Any business owner can benefit by positioning him or herself as an expert by educating prospects about the problems they face and how to solve them. Professional service firms (e.g. lawyers, accountants, consultants, real estate agents, insurance salespeople, investment advisors, architects, engineers) especially benefit from this approach. Tactics range from speaking and writing to doing research on your target market and publicizing your findings.

 Three: Relationship and Referral Marketing. EVERY single business should strive to make relationship and referral marketing a key part of their lead generation system. Nothing is more powerful than an endorsement from a trusted third party. Many business owners rely on word of mouth, but word of mouth relies on chance and the good will of strangers. It is not a proactive referral system.

 Four: Online Marketing. Every business should have an online presence and work to generate leads over the Internet. There are a number of tactics to succeed in online marketing, from a clean website that captures visitor information to following up with prospects.

Five: Direct Marketing. Direct marketing has been around for over 150 years now. Unfortunately, the prevalence of junk mail makes it harder and harder to cut through the clutter. Your clients should be careful to test results of any direct marketing campaign carefully and only repeat campaigns that work. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, and too many businesses continue to mail out letters and postcards that do nothing for them.

Six: Channel Marketing. Distribution partners and strategic alliances are a fantastic way for many businesses to generate leads. Some companies (like Tupperware) have thrived through unique relationships with distribution partners. Others, like Microsoft, became successful by developing an exclusive distribution relationship (in Microsoft’s case, they became the exclusive supplier to IBM of Windows for PCs).

Seven: Sales Force Marketing. A sales force can be challenging to manage, but is an excellent way to generate leverage and leads. You need to provide a detailed sales methodology and process for your salespeople to follow, along with a motivating compensation scheme, ongoing training, and the willingness to remove non-performers from the sales team.

Eight: Advertising. Using traditional media is expensive and should only be done after all of the above tactics have been tested…and even then with careful test marketing at a manageable cost. Fortunately, thanks to cable television and other niche advertising opportunities, there are ways to reach a targeted prospect group at a relatively affordable rate.