You could be offering the best service in your industry or the best product in the market, but it’s worthless unless your customers know about you. In the current landscape, you still need a good marketing strategy to stand out.
Some entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on tactics rather than strategy. Your strategy is the overall plan that gives all your marketing activities a definite direction. Tactics such as business listings, Facebook ads, flyers, and collaborations are the marketing activities you execute in line with your strategy—they are the steps you take to act out your strategy.
Getting started with a strategy
Before coming up with marketing activities, you will first need to chart out your overall strategy and goals. Revisiting your business plan, market research and SWOT analysis will help you outline this. Once you study all your data, you need to clearly pinpoint three key pieces of the puzzle.
1. The details of your target audience
Which demographic is most likely to buy your product or sign up for your service? This isn’t saying that you can’t sell to others, but it is most beneficial to first target those who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer. It helps to understand demographic data, their habits or what a typical day in the life of such an individual looks like to plan your marketing activities.
2. The channels/platforms they prefer
There are many different mediums that you can use to promote your business but placing ads on all of them will just drain your budget. Instead, think about which platforms your target audience visits for news or entertainment. Which platform gets a lot of their attention? What kind of places do they visit? This will tell you where your promotions are likely to get the most attention from your target audience.
3. What can you offer them?
Once you study your target group’s lifestyle and understand what makes them tick, you can highlight the aspects of your product or service that are likely to appeal to them the most. This can help you create more targeted marketing activities with messages that are more likely to make an impression on them.
6 popular ways to promote your business
It can be very tempting to go all out with your marketing activities and try avenues that seem to be working well for others in your industry. But this could lead to you (and your budget) burning out without getting substantial returns.
Instead, have a brainstorming session where you can let ideas fly fast and free. List all these ideas down so you can come back to them in the future but, for now, rein in temptation and focus on just one or two at a time. Assess their performance after a given period, and make the call to expand on it or to scrap it. Quantity doesn’t necessarily lead to success—using a few marketing tactics well can be very beneficial. Here are a few popular methods:
Build a social media presence: Social media platforms have proven to be very valuable in building brand identities and connecting with customers. Through these platforms, you can not only showcase your products but also provide related content like your expertise on relevant issues, offer advice, or set up webinars to give your audience more value. This can help set your brand apart from the rest.
Create a Google My Business listing and ask customers to leave reviews: Googling a company or service that you’ve just been told about happens almost as a reflex. In fact, BrightLocal conducted a consumer survey and found that 90% of customers find local businesses through an internet search. Nearly 82% of consumers also look at reviews before deciding to give it a try. So having satisfied customers leave a star rating or a review will work in your favour.
Give your website a boost with SEO: Optimise your website to help it rank higher on search engine results and reach more people. Search Engine Optimisation involves more than just a few keywords; consult with an expert to put together a strategy that is in line with the latest search engine updates.
Ads: Advertisements are a versatile marketing tool. They can appear on billboards, print newspapers and magazines, on vehicles like buses, on social media, radio and online. Depending on your target audience, you can buy ad space that your target market will see.
Feature articles: Getting your story in the local paper or magazine is a great way to promote your business. It’s the perfect way to introduce your company and what it stands for. Journalists are always looking for interesting articles, so reach out to them.
Emails: Newsletters that offer valuable information and that are not showing up in inboxes too often are a very useful marketing opportunity. It is a way to connect with your customers routinely and open an excellent channel of communication.
Spend time promoting your business and appreciating your customers
If you have a small team, it may be difficult to find time to promote your company. But this is key to your company’s growth, so do spend some time every day carrying out a part of your marketing plan.
Promoting your company helps get new customers to the door, but don’t forget about your existing customers. Build a loyal customer base by letting your current customers know that they are valued. Happy customers will automatically recommend your business when the opportunity arises. Word of mouth is still the best marketing tool—and the cheapest.
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