Marketing Your Business
The most important key to effective marketing
of your business is consistency and repetition. Before you plan your
markteting campaign, there several things you need to keep in mind.
Who are your competitors?
Why is your service/product better than theirs?
What are your competitors strengths and weaknesses?
What are yours?
Who are your target buyers?
What problem does your business solve for your target buyers?
There are many ways to promote a business but the most effective is of course, word of mouth. Word of mouth includes not only referrals from prior customers, but also your employees. Every business gets word of mouth advertising, but what we don't always know, is if it is good or bad.
Your employees will be your best salespeople. Sell yourself and your vision to them first. Train them to promote your business with awesome customer service, common courtesy and in a professional manner. They are the people who deal directly with your clients a good majority of the time.
Other common types of business marketing include local print ads, telephone irectories, websites, direct mailing peices, company brochures, business cards/letterhead, newsletters, giveaways, vehicle graphics, press releases. While these formats are used everyday, there is nothing set in stone for any type of business or any particular area where one works better than the other. This is simply a matter of doing some research on the type of customers you want to attract to your business and building your campaign around those findings. Trial and error, keep what works, throw out the rest.
One thing that many businesses overlook, is their existing client base. Statistics show that it costs 12-15 times more to get a new customer, than it does to retain an existing one. Customer retention, customer retention, customer retention, this is a huge part of marketing your business. It brings us full circle, back to word of mouth. How do you retain your existing customers? Customer service, quality, pride in what you do and what you have to offer. Know your customers!
Use the SOAR to success method:
Solicit customer ideas and suggestions.
Open the communication channels
Act on what you hear, good or bad
Reward employees who gather customer comments
Serve your best customers better!
Can you improve on any of the following items in
the list?
*The manner in which your products/services are sold?
*The manner in which your order is obtained by the customer?
*The manner in which the order is processed?
*The time it takes for the order to be processed and delivered to the
customer?
*Customer relationship manners with any employee who has direct contact
with your customer?
*Reviewing product/service satisfaction with customer on a periodic
basis?
Practice what you preach....
Make sure that your product/service is in reality
the same as
the image you are projecting in your marketing. If it is not, customers
will try you, they will be dissatisfied and the word
will be passed
on.
