While all marketing programs following the same marketing process the similarities between large and small business marketing ends there. Staffing, budgets, creative approach and communications vary enormously between a corporate giant such as Coca-Cola, and the small business like you.

Budget differences.

Every small business already knows the biggest difference between your marketing programme and that of the large companies that are already in the marketplace. These companies seem to loom over you in all directions; they can talk in thousands, while you talk in hundreds.

Staffing differences.

If you take a look at the organisation chart of any major company you’ll find a marketing manager. Under that position perhaps a whole group of other professionals; advertising directors, customer service specialists, research directors, sales managers etc. By contrast, the small business organisation chart puts the responsibility of marketing right in the first box – along with the owner. This is the best possible place for marketing.

Creative differences.

The large companies routinely spend hundreds of thousands of pounds just on building their name; think Ariston, they spent a great deal on television advertisements just to raise awareness of their brand, not even mentioning a product or price until later in their advertising strategy.

Small businesses have a different approach; you want to build name recognition just like the biggest advertisers, but your advertisements usually have to perform double duty by also promoting your service or product at the same time. You already know that every marketing investment has to deliver a measurable response. Every effort has to generate enough purchasing to offset the cost of investment in the advertisement in the first place. By creating a consistent set of marketing communications you’ll help build a clear brand identity whilst inspiring your potential customers into action – and deliver more sales.

Strategic differences.

Big businesses have bound copies of their marketing plans gracing their bookshelves – whereas for small businesses usually the very mention of marketing plan can send a shiver down the spine. Truth is, a marketing plan is really one those pay-a-little-now or pay-a-lot-more-later propositions. With an annual marketing plan behind you the implementation of it becomes the easy part. You’ll be better informed to respond to changes in the market conditions, competitor actions, and take advantage of any media opportunities that fit with your business needs.

Small business marketing advantage.

You may envy the budgets, people and organisations of your big business competitors, but you have some advantages that they’d love to have.

The large businesses allocate huge budgets to fund research into getting to know and understand their customers. While you already know your customers, perhaps even by name, you can talk with your customers face to face, day after day, at practically no cost.

Marketing is all about building and maintaining customer relations, so it makes sense that the very small business is ideally placed to excel in marketing

Make a commitment to marketing and gain an edge over many of your competitors.