With David Koch as MC, two thought-provoking marketing presentations and choc tops at intermission, the launch of Small Business September proved a hit with the capacity crowd in attendance at Greater Union Cinemas in the Sydney CBD.

Beginning with the unveiling of the new small business website by the Minister for Small Business Steve Whan, the event explored one of the most problematic areas for many small businesses — marketing.

There was plenty for the audience to take home from the marketing strategies devised by Australian Business Marketing Services and Red Ark for, respectively, Pacdon and Your HRmanager, the winners of the Small Business September marketing makeover competition.

The recipe for success for Pacdon, makers of traditional English smallgoods from Australian Business Marketing Services was:

• create a two-tiered brand to appeal to the two different markets for Pacdon products — expats pining for traditional fare and lovers of fine food
  
• engage with your customers through the website by creating a competition for the best poster showing where they eat a Pacdon pork pie
  
• develop partnerships with other regional suppliers, for example with cheese, wine and smallgoods makers, so that you can tap in to their distribution networks and do joint marketing
  
• think about manufacturing smallgoods for other companies under their labels to absorb excess production capacity.

Red Ark looked at on practical solutions for Your HRmanager, which provides on-call support to small to midsized businesses lacking internal HR expertise. Their marketing solution focussed on determining what set the business apart from its competitors and putting the three elements identified — "expert", "guardian" and "personal" at the centre of all communication. Red Ark then incorporated these elements in a new website design which featured:

• an informative video from John Webster of Your HRmanager on a current people management issue, a feature which, in the digital age, is no longer prohibitively expensive
  
• clear statements on the benefits of doing business with the company
  
• customer feedback.

Red Ark reiterated the message that websites must engage and start a conversation with customers and also recommended expert search engine optimisation.

NSW Trade & Investment will track how Pacdon and Your HRmanager are utilising the marketing makeover ideas over the next few months.

There are many other marketing events running during Small Business September plus events on every other topic of interest.