"New Marketing System Gives Small Business an Edge"

October 1, 2004 Las Vegas, NV - CustoMores is a small Marketing and Consulting Firm with a very large vision - that of supplying small retail businesses and service professionals with a much needed marketing edge. They call their new approach the 12X12 Intelligent Marketing System. (12 months, 12 blocks, 12 steps). The philosophy behind the 12X12 system is simple - brand locally and consistently and use the best information and presentation to achieve the most impact.

With the average man-on-the-street being exposed to nearly 3000 advertising messages a day, at a time when nearly 89 percent of every piece of advertising you see and hear is forgotten after 72 hours, getting attention for any business owner becomes a very difficult task. Customores accomplishes this feat in two steps. First, they create a powerful business identity package with a talent pool of top-notch artists. The goal is to start with stunning graphics for instant impact. The philosophy behind this is simple - if they notice you the first time out, you are way ahead of the pack.

The next step is to target local residents within a five-mile radius of the business with a new marketing technique called "Info-Marketing". This technique is basically the repackaging of advertising as information. Says Owner, Daniel Sage, "We are truly living in the “information age” where the hunger for information should be not be ignored but rather embraced as the direction advertising needs to go. I see the explosive growth of the Internet, as a powerful wake up call to the fact that content really is king. Simply put, people will tend to ignore advertising but continually seek news and knowledge.”

The intention of “info-advertising” is to increase the effectiveness of every business promotion item by giving the consumer an advertising piece that is not disposable. That “piece” is information. CustoMores is currently one of the only Marketing Firms in the nation incorporating this insight into all aspects of its’ promotional campaigns. Top of Page

As far as regional and neighborhood advertising methodology, the fact is, some 90% of consumer purchases are now made within 3 to 5 miles of home. (Think about your own buying habits) The entire success of Chain Stores and Franchises is built upon the science of “market saturation and consumer convenience". By setting up a shop on every corner of urban and rural America (based on the growth rate) the chain stores have fine-tuned the term “close to home” and made it Americas’ reality.

CustoMores is simply utilizing the same data and strategies and incorporating this inside knowledge to benefit the small, single store retailers to help them compete with the big boys. Says Sage, "These techniques and insights will allow us to accomplish in a single campaign what many other ad agencies and direct mail co-ops do in five. We use a combination of guerilla promotional techniques offline and integrate those it with the web to make our client stand out in the neighborhood he or she calls home."

As far as the web, Overture, including Yahoo, is targeting small businesses with the launch of Local Match, a new pay per click service enabling half mile radius precision targeting in the US. Anxious to secure some of the $22 - $94 billion local advertising market, Overture developed Local Match in response to the growth of online directories such as yellow and white pages. The new service is available for Yahoo, Microsoft MSN, some InfoSpace websites, and MyCity.com. Google recently launched a similar regional marketing program.

According to marketing research experts the Kelsey Group, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) will spend $50 billion on GeoCommerce by 2006. The study also reveals that approximately 10 million U.S. small businesses spend an average of $4700 each year on advertising and marketing across all media. In 2000, this translated into a local media market of $33 billion dollars spent by small businesses on print Yellow Pages, newspapers, Web sites, banners, direct mail, coupons and other locally targeted advertising and promotional media.

CustoMores is a one-stop shop for logos, tag lines, print materials, website design and promotion, direct mail campaigns and lead lists, local media placement and print advertising, ad rates, internet yellow page and search engine placement, and above all -12 months of consultation on what works and what doesn't.

Currently Featured on the Entrepreneur Magazine website, they can be reached at www.CustoMores.com

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LOCAL Marketing OR "Selling in Your Own Back Yard" (Where it Really Counts!) by Daniel Sage Top of Page

This Article is Currently Featured on the Entrpereneur Magazine Website. See Link

Here's the breakdown. You have a business. You have a business location. You have a  neighborhood where that business is located. You provide a service or product that's truly valuable to the right people. Great, now how do you find them? Or, maybe the Question should be - Where? How Will the Customers you Need EVER find You? Welcome to Business  Marketing 101...  

FACT "But Most Consumer Purchases are Made Within 12 City Blocks."  

Think about it! Most Chains and Franchises (Burger King, Starbucks, Target, Wal-mart etc...there are now thousands!) can be found wherever there is enough Market Saturation. Most National Chains, Franchises, Grocery Outlets and Even Local Banks have figured this Equation out and are using it to reap HUGE sales by Region Count. (Census Tracts) They know the 12-Block Rule and apply it vigorously in all of their Sales and Marketing Strategies!

They also know that Market Share is the most Important Term in the Advertising Game.

Let's review a few things about the world of Business Advertising.

There are more than 2 Million new businesses started every year. (Most are these are home based; this doesn't include MLM's or Affiliate programs)

Over 500,000 of these will fail within 2 years. Top of Page

• The average Successful ad campaign costs about $250,000 dollars.
• The average TV commercial is $10,000 for 60 seconds.
• The average radio commercial is $100.00 for 60 seconds. ($5000 to Produce!)
• To rent a Cab top billboard is about $300 a week.
• The average Freeway Billboard is between $2500-$5000 a month.

All of these fall under the category of Blanket Advertising. (Expensive and mostly ineffective in the short run, especially for small businesses. It works for Chains and Franchises simply because of the number and convenience of locations.)

  Can you even hope to compete with their Advertising Budgets or Reach?

So, now that you know how local buying habits directly affect you - how many of these people does your advertising strategy currently reach? Do you even know how many residents there are in the 12 blocks surrounding you? Let's expand our marketing radius to 2 or 3 miles or a single zip code. Do you know anything about those residents? More importantly, do THEY know about YOU? These are questions you will need to answer if you are making your business succeed locally or at all.

The 12 Block Rule is the Secret Ingredient to Franchise and Chain Store Success.

As a small enterpriser will never beat them at this game unless you engage the customer on a more personal level. They are the big corporations but you have one Serious Ad- vantage. You don't need 300 customers a day to meet your bottom line. This gives you the upper hand in targeting your market. You might only need 20 a day or 20 a month to meet yours and this means you can be a little more accurate in pinpointing your potential market. Smaller overhead means less mass-marketing is needed. Better to build than slowly and gradually and treat each customer as the precious commodity he or she is. You can spend less on "blanket type" advertising and be more direct in your marketing. Top of Page

This also requires some degree of "intelligence" on your part to determine who the best prospects are for your business. Start by determining who is a perfect candidate for what you sell. Is it something everybody can use - or is it something that everybody needs? There is a very Big difference when it comes to marketing. Direct marketing is not just removing the middle-man from the buyer-seller equation. It's also a more hands on approach to reaching the consumer on his home turf. This means you'll need a deeper understanding of your customers and why they buy from you. Examine your business sales to date- who's been buying from you and why? Determine as much as you can about your current client or customer and you will have the basic profile of who your next one will be. Where in your own neighborhood do they live? Is there an overall demographic similarity between most of them and can you reach more of the same kind of individuals somehow? This is called Clustering and this kind of Market Research information you'll need to create a plan for of your own business marketing.

Local Marketing makes sense only because CONVENIENCE has changed ALL of our Buying Habits forever. You Must now play the game by the new rules or lose by the new Rules!

Daniel Sage is a Marketing Consultant and Entrepreneur living in Las Vegas . More info on Local/Neighborhood Marketing can be found on his site at  http://www.customores.com