Congratulations. Finally, after all the months of hard work putting together your business plan, you’ve started your business. Perhaps you’ve done a bit of advertising, maybe a bit of networking. You can sit back and wait for the customers to knock on your door, right?
Well, maybe if luck is on your side, you can. Unfortunately, for most of us though, it will probably take a bit more effort to get a steady stream of customers that come back time and time again. So, how can you ensure that your marketing and promotion is effective and receives the desired result for your business?
Know Your Market
The best starting point to make sure your marketing is successful is to know your market. This means clearly defining who your ideal customer would be and building up a profile of them. For example, if you are targeting middle class women, you would want to know as much information as possible about their likes and dislikes, where they are likely to go to buy your product or service as well as general information such as likely age and ethnicity, location and potential numbers.
Much of this sort of research can be found on the internet, particularly on statistical websites devised by the Government or by typing your criteria into a search engine. Other useful sources are your local library and generally talking to your target customer.
As well as your target customers, it is worth looking at your competition to build up a similar sort of profile. This can work well to identify the methods they’re using to market their services. If it’s working for them, chances are that adopting these methods will work for you.
A Mix and Match Approach
But, why should you know your market? Well, using promotional techniques in conjunction with your knowledge of your market will enable you to directly target your efforts to meet your customers.
If you then use a mix and match approach to marketing; that is, using a combination of five or six different techniques at any one time, you will build momentum for your business while keeping your marketing activities manageable. And, believe it or not, most of them won’t cost you a penny.
Marketing methods
So what methods can you use? The great thing about marketing is that once you know the most common methods, you can then adapt them to suit your needs. Often when you’re doing this, you come up with new and sometimes improved ideas.
For instance, if you want to get personally acquainted with people, you can use activities such as direct solicitation (approaching people by mail or phone), free consultations, networking, providing speeches and seminars, volunteering or simply walking around the neighbourhood letting people know what you do.
To get people talking about you, how about using gift certificates and coupons; letters of reference and testimonials; approaching newspapers and magazines to get features written about you; referrals or sponsorships, donations and charity events.
You can tell people about you by using advertising, writing articles and columns, preparing brochures and flyers, websites, newsletters, catalogs, sales letters or proposals or even by writing your own book.
Why not show people what you can do by using audiotapes, business cards as samples, CD’s, demonstrations, displays, house parties, media appearances, samples and giveaways, trade shows, video brochures or how about your own radio or television show.
Can you ever stop marketing?
Marketing is a bit like riding a bike. The more peddling that you do, the greater the momentum and sooner or later, you’ll be able to coast for a little while without peddling. Eventually though, you’ll need to peddle again to build up more momentum.
The moral of the story is that even if you have all the customers you need at the moment, continuing with your marketing efforts all the time, will mean that you will constantly bring in new business. It’s only when you stop promoting that all the hard peddling begins again.
Exceptional Thinking can be found at www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk or by called +44 (0) 845 644 9371.
Marketing your business effectively - To learn more about this author, visit Helen Dowling's Website.
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