How to surprise your customers

As a small business owner, do you think that "proper" marketing is something that only big corporations can afford?

If you do, you couldn't be more wrong.

There are hundreds of marketing strategies that any small business in any sector can implement, and most of them are child's-play simple and comparatively low-cost. Successful marketing doesn't have to mean paying a fortune to a marketing or PR firm for an expensive campaign that only achieves a fraction of the results you hoped it would.

One of the best ways to increase sales in your business is to get your customers to do your promotion for you, by recommending you to friends and colleagues and by returning to you time and again. So, what's the best way to get them so worked up about how fantastic your business is? Surprise them. Make sure their experience of buying from you is more memorable than with any other business.

Here are a few ideas for cheap or free ways to carry out stealth marketing by making sure your customers are so impressed that they can't help but recommend you to others.

1. Get to know your regular customers. Regulars are the bread and butter of any business, and you should make that extra effort to make them feel good about doing business with you. Learn their names and greet them when you see them, or make exceptions to your usual business policy to show your regulars how much you appreciate them.

2. Talk to your customers and get their opinions on how well you're doing. Give customers a personal call, or even a visit, to ask how they're getting on with the latest product or service they bought from you. If they've hit any problems, ask for their opinion on how these could be fixed - and listen to it.

3. Admit to, and apologise for, any mistakes that you make. No business is perfect, and the proof of the pudding is often not in the mistake itself, but in how you handle it. If you've made a mistake with a customer, always be prepared to go the extra mile and offer them a discount, waive their bill, or offer them another product for free to make up for the inconvenience to them.

4. Do things differently and make your business stand out from the crowd by providing a service that just isn't available elsewhere, such as immediate delivery following a purchase, providing a free buffet on Saturdays or having a longer guarantee on your products than any of your competitors.

5. Reward customers that give you referrals or agree to write testimonials for you. Make a big deal of your appreciation by sending a thank you card, gift voucher or free gift.

The UK Small Business Marketing Bible contains hundreds more tips and tactics for boosting your sales using proven marketing strategies that work no matter what product or service you sell.

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