The one overriding goal of your small business’s marketing efforts, especially during a start-up phase, is to be noticed, is to be memorable in the eyes of customers or potential customers. You achieve being memorable by finding something your customers or potential customers can identify with, an image that you can own. Then you deliver that image --- your marketing message --- in a unique and memorable way, that is, in a way that is different from your competitors.
One way you can present your marketing message in a unique way is to use an exclusive and recognizable professional spokesperson. For example, everyone recognizes the voice and look, if not necessarily the name, of the white-maned Menard’s guy. You don’t even have to hear the name of Menard’s to know what’s being advertised.
There are many professional spokespersons that by contract will agree to be your exclusive spokesperson in your marketplace. They include “characters” like down home country types, business suit / CEO types, cute ingénue types, sophisticated world-traveler types, motherly types, and so on. Yes, they will cost something. But how valuable is this investment in uniqueness over time, particularly if you’re a new business trying to establish yourself in an already crowded marketplace?
(Dave Ramacitti is co-founder and chief content developer for Marketing Over Easy, a new website dedicated to helping small businesses be smarter marketers. To receive a free copy of our special report "58 Free and Low Cost Ways to Promote Your New Small Business" visit us at www.marketingovereasy.com/signup © 2010 by David F. Ramacitti. Excerpted from The All-Important Stuff You Gotta Do First to Effectively Market Your Small Business © 2009 by David F. Ramacitti)