Many small business owners think marketing equals expensive advertising. Some advertising is costly, but marketing also includes less costly ways to engage prospective customers, thanks to the internet. With some research, planning and execution, business owners can market successfully without enormous spending.
Be sure to include some marketing in your budget, but it have to be a major amount.
Here in brief are four main insights that can lead to marketing success:
Who are you trying to reach? What is their age, their gender, their marriage status, their income level, their spending history and where do they get what you are selling from now?
Second: Create a brand identity
You have to have a way to hook your customer quickly. Your companys name, logo, website, and social media are your branding tools. You want to stand out from your competition. If you develop a strong brand, you have a strong foundation for your marketing strategy.
Third: What are you going to charge?
This is an eternal question. There is no easy answer. What is the quality of your product or service, the cost to provide it, your location, the market rate others charge, your expected profit and lots more questions.
Pricing is as much art as science. Too low and you lose profits. Too high and no one walks into your establishment. A common mistake newbies make is to lower prices to encourage traffic. People resent it when the costs go up.
In the past relating to your customers was nice, but not that important. Things have changed now that we are in the Internet generation. Adding to traditional marketing are email marketing, Facebook pages and ads, Twitter and blogs.
Relating to your customers via computer gives you a chance to learn about that person so you are offering that person what he needs at the right price. You also have the opportunity of teaching your customer what to do with your product or service.
How would you rate yourself using these four criteria? Where is your weakest area? Think of some ways to improve in this area. What did you come up with?
Jaco Grobbelaar, owner of BroadVision Marketing, helps business owners and business professionals put marketing strategies in place that consistently secure new clients. He can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.799.1238. You can Like him at www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing or connect with him on www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.
Related articles
- Social media marketing - The search for meaning, definition and success (marketing.yell.com)
- How to Promote a Brand-New Small Business (noobpreneur.com)
