There's more to marketing than advertising and mailers...

When people think of marketing a small business, they consider just the typical strategies like advertising, internet marketing, networking, mailers, and email. What most business owners fail to recognize is that marketing encompasses all of who you are and what you do... from the way the phones are answered and your employees respond to questions to your production and accounting policies.

Because every aspect of your business has an impact on how well you do business, it's important to review business practices every now and then. When doing so, business owners should consider each part of their business from a marketing perspective (keeping your corporate image in mind) and ask some of the following questions:

1. When customers call are they greeted with a "smile" and quickly directed to the appropriate person or do they get lost in the sea of voice mail?
2. When there's a problem, is the customer passed around from department to department or is there a set policy and person(s) who handle and resolve all complaints?
3. Are all your employees valued for their knowledge, input and skills?
   
4. Does your sales team work with your production team?
5. Are your proposals/estimates easy to understand?
6. How quickly do your employees return phone calls?
7. Are your invoices easy to understand?
8. Do you pay your vendors on-time?
9. Do you make any claims in your products/services that you really don't deliver on?
10. How quickly do you respond when someone places an order?

There are so many more questions you can ask. The key is to periodically ask and evaluate how your company is doing. Remember, your corporate image doesn't stop with a nice looking logo, fancy website, and creative marketing pieces. If there's one aspect of your business that doesn't fit with the corporate image you want to portray, it's time to get down to business and fix it.