Marketing is a crucial part of establishing and growing any business. Regardless of what age, stage or industry your business is in, it’s vital to define who your ideal customer is and figure out how to reach them. No matter how great your product or service, it’s your marketing (and sales) processes that will determine your success. And with the strong competition of today’s market, it’s even more critical to get it spot on.
So I thought now, as we go into the back half of the year (aka – the serious part of the business year), might be a good time to look at some simple, but effective tips to market your business.
1.Define your ideal customer –
Without knowing who your ideal customer is, how can you know how to reach the right customer? To find out more on how to do this, you might want to read one of our previous blogs on fishing where the fish are. This will allow you to create a strong foundation for your brilliant marketing ideas.
2. Make your customer your number one priority –
So many businesses tend to forget about their customers and make everything they do all about themselves, their brand or their product – blasting the customer with how great their business is. Except the customer isn’t interested. They’re only interested in what’s in it (ie: whatever you’re selling) for themselves. So, once you’ve got your ideal customer fixed firmly in your mind, make every message about them and how they can benefit from using your service or product.
3. Use emotion –
Businesses tend to focus all their energy on how fantastic, superior or affordable their products and services are – it’s not the facts or the features that set you apart from the crowd. Your competitive pricing isn’t going to build a relationship with your customers. All customers buy based on emotion – yes, even the business ones. So make it all about how good they’ll feel when they save money, make money, have more time, can show off to their friends or whatever it is that your product or service will do for them at the end of the day.
4. Prove yourself –
It’s one thing to make a claim but it’s another to back it up. Any business can go to market and claim they’re the best there is – but these days, many customers are savvy enough to check for proof of whatever you’ve claimed. One of the quickest ways to gain ‘proof’ is to gather testimonials from your most loved customers or clients for inclusion on your linkedin profile or your website. Even better, you could have them video it and post it to YouTube.
5. Develop a strong call to action –
Whenever you’re developing marketing or sales materials or you’re in a sales call – figure out what it is that you want your customer to do next. AND then ask them to do that. So many business owners forget this most important of steps. Calls to action are what motivate and direct your customers to take action. It should be really simple – ie: call us now, click here, book a meeting, take a test drive, take a 30 day free trial. Otherwise it’s just nice chitty chat – which is lovely, but it’s not marketing, nor does it progress the customer down the sales path – which is really what your business needs your materials to do.
Come back next time when we look at what not to do when marketing your business.
If we can help give you back some of your time to focus on new business, marketing and sales, by taking away some of your administrative tasks or you’d like to have access to professional CBD meeting rooms when you need them, we’d be delighted to talk to you. You can call us on 9994 8000 or drop us a note.
