I was thinking about my first job out of college the other day. We were a 7 person team that didn’t put too much into marketing. (at least outside of paper print) We were a brick and mortar that had local connections and a number of repeat customers. It was great when we grew organically, but there were severe limitations and risks to that type of business. Large corporations, with buying power, could put the wraps on our profit margins pretty quickly, if they moved into town. Outside of the fact that, we relied heavily on the local economy being robust.  I think there are places for both large and small companies in any economy though. The point is you have to find out where the opportunities lie and figure out how to distinguish yourself!! For instance, how many days a week can you walk into a Wal-Mart and speak to the CEO???? This is not a knock on Wal-Mart, but I believe their headquarters are in Arkansas. Yet, a local reader can catch your blog of the week and actually walk in and talk to you …or email… or call…  
To me that is pretty useful customer service. Our job, as entrepreneurs and employees alike, is to be creative. We need to utilize our resources as much as possible and work lean. The last time I checked, blogs were free, Twitter is free, and Facebook is free. Email can be free,(I suggest against it) and websites can be extremely cheap to put up. Use them, try them, get familiar with them, or just call us. Our team will be happy to talk to you about them and help you get started. I still believe that paper print is useful, (such as OC Business Journal), but newspapers are struggling for readership and direct mail has less than a 1% capture rate. Therefore, you need to diversify and use any and all capable resources. Once you get comfortable with them, I suggest tying them in together and automating wherever possible.  

Also, good luck to the Virginia Cavalier wrestling team this weekend at the ACC’s!