Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Use a Musical Signature to Make Your Small Business Memorable

By Dave Ramacitti

The single prevailing goal of your small business’s marketing efforts, especially when you are just getting started, is to be noticed, is to be unique and therefore memorable to your customers or potential customers. You achieve that uniqueness by delivering your marketing message in a way that is different from your competitors.

And one way you can present your marketing message in a unique way is to use a jingle or musical signature. Jingles for national products like Coca-Cola --- “I’d like to teach the world to sing” --- and Kodak --- “Memories” --- became so recognizable they even successfully made the transition into popular songdom. You can get a professional jingle written and produced for around a thousand dollars.

Now this might seem like a lot at first, but consider that you will likely use that jingle for several years --- five years, more likely 10 or more --- so the investment on a per year basis is really quite small.

And while having a unique jingle written just for your business is the ideal, there are some much less costly alternatives. For example, there are generic (non-copyrighted) music themes --- sort of like musical clipart --- that are available for no cost through various websites. They are suggestive of many musical styles --- hard rock, soft rock, jazz, big band --- so you should be able to find one that fits your business’s personality. They are usually only 15 or so seconds long, but that’s enough to provide a musical signature to your radio or TV ads.

The disadvantage is that others may also use these themes, since they are available to everyone. So it’s important to select one that is not being used in your marketplace by someone else (i.e., a competitor).

The real secret to the success of a jingle is to use it, and use it, and use it, time and again, over a long period --- think many years here. For example, I’d be willing to bet that most of you can easily fill in the rest of this very famous jingle: “Oh, I wish I was an…”

Indeed, now that I’ve gotten you singing it, I’ll bet that jingle is going to be knocking around in your head for the rest of the day. And that’s the point here: A well done jingle (A) becomes absolutely your unique musical signature; and even more importantly, (B) becomes embedded in the minds of your customers and potential customers (i.e., is unforgettable).

(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 Excerpted from The All-Important Stuff You Gotta Do First to Effectively Market Your Small Business © 2009 by David F. Ramacitti)