Your brand is alive in places you never knew existed.

With the introduction of the Internet and in particular social media, your brand is coming up in places that sometimes you would prefer for it not to be.

That is the nature of today's marketing environment.

If I was to pick 3 things that you need to do as a small business to market your business today, I would say;

1. Make sure you have your best foot forward online: That means that at every touch point from the time someone opens the screen onto your website through to every single click through - that the same consistent experience with your brand occurs. If they click through to your twitter account, they STILL know it is your brand from the language you use to the visual aspects of your Twitter account. If you write a blog, showcase your brands personality in your writing and with pictures. Make sure that wherever your brand is online, that you are proud of how it is represented.
2. Don't discount the power of PR: Too many companies think they are too small to get a story in the newspaper or sometimes big companies just leave it off their marketing strategy. The power of a good story may mean that your company is elevated above your competitors, positioned as an industry leader and you as a commentator who knows their stuff. PR is not hard to do - all you have to do is read blogs like Marketing Eye's and the thousands of others that give instructions on just how to do it. Or alternatively, hire a PR consultant.
3. Put customers and service first: Today I said no to working with a company that was ready to engage Marketing Eye. They seemed like a great bunch of guys, but for some reason they had a terrible telephone system (they need to speak to someone like Next Telecom to fix it); the phone rings out, hangs up when it shouldn't and constantly hits voice mail. If we were not putting customers first, we would take their money. But no matter how much marketing we do for them, we cannot help them without them realising that it is a problem if you don't pick up the telephone or if you ring 3 times and the systems automatically hangs up on you. You have to answer the telephone.

Service needs to be first too. That means being responsive to clients' needs, giving them over and above what they expect and genuinely realising that without them, you don't have a business. If, heaven forbid, your service falls down on any given day, then you need to realise it, take responsibility and do whatever it takes to make it up to your clients. They deserve nothing but your best.