Big Business Marketing For Small Business Owners
Saturday, January 10, 2015, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
Whenever you start a business you are faced with a promotional headache. It doesn’t matter how good, how fresh and original, or how needed your service is – you just have to get the word out, quickly and effectively. You might think that your work will speak for itself, but how can it do that when it has no one to address?
Let’s face it: in order for you to attract any business you’re going to have to put together a strong and thorough promotional effort.
However, if you believe that reaching out to a marketing specialist and paying big money to get your message across is your only option when it comes to promotion, you should think again.
In its core, marketing is just common sense and experience raised to the level of a science. Supposing you are armed with a healthy amount of common sense, there are many things you can do on your own to bypass marketing agencies and save considerable means. Let’s walk you through it, shall we?
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Formulate your message
The biggest tricks marketing agencies have pulled off is convincing you that they know you and your business better than you do, when, in fact, you were the one who thought long and hard about it and invested all your smarts, skills, and experience in making it the best it can be.
When putting together a marketing strategy, the first question you need to ask yourself is how you wish the public to perceive you and your business.
What is the message you are trying to send out to the world? Take a good look at your business and focus on what you feel is its biggest quality.
Maybe you pride yourself on the quality of your service, or the modern, cutting edge nature of your service. Whatever it may be, that should be the focus of your promotional campaign.
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Know your audience
Most businesses start off on a smaller scale, usually within their own community. That gives you a bit of a marketing advantage, because you know your community as its active member.
You should know the basic values your target group holds in the highest regard and tailor your message to address those values.
Another thing to consider is the very nature of your business, since that should also dictate your promotional approach.
For instance, if your service is aimed towards the younger population, or if you deal in modern technologies, your marketing efforts should focus heavily on the online community.
Vice versa, if you’re in a more traditional line of work or if your service caters to the older generations (or if you don’t have a specific target group in mind), you should probably emphasize the more traditional means of marketing.
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Maximize what comes for free
Regardless of whether you decide to focus heavily on internet marketing, you should be aware that we are in the 21st century and that it’s simply foolish to ignore internet altogether – especially since it costs you almost nothing but your time.
Build a website, utilize the social media and give your potential clients a platform to reach out and let you know if you’re doing things right or if there are things you could improve.
You wouldn’t believe how many good ideas you can catch just by listening to the public, so be present, be active and be forthcoming.
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Brand yourself
You can not overemphasize the value of a strong visual brand.
While the usual way to brand recognition leads through a graphics design agency, you could choose to rely on your own talents or the talents of your friends.
When you have a logo that you’re happy with, put it on everything! Your logo should be ever present, or as close to that as it can be. Most of all, you want it in people’s homes.
Spend some money on promotional items branded with your logo. You can’t go wrong with time tested items like notebooks, pens, lighters, etc, but you can also get creative with it.
If you’re organizing an event, make sure your brand is everywhere, from banners and posters to custom printed labels for water and drink bottles.
Your goal is for your brand to become commonplace, so familiar that it seems it was always there.
Keep in mind that, even if avoiding marketing agencies, your promotional campaign is going to cost you some money, whether for paid ads or promotional items.
You need to spend money to make money, but if you choose to rely on yourself and your judgment you can save a decent penny.
Throw us a like at Facebook.com/doable.financeAuthor bio:
Jenny Hahn is a marketing consultant from Sydney, Australia who enjoys sharing tips and advice with free thinking entrepreneurs. You can find Jenny on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
