Marketing Your Business
Marketing your business is incredibly important, especially during a recession. Firstly, people are more careful with their money. They don’t want to spend and if they do part with their cash, they want the best deal and be sure about their purchase.
This is when marketing your business is absolutely crucial. Most importantly, you need to be proactive in keeping your business services and products in the minds of your target market so that when they are ready to buy, they think of you.
As a business, you may also be cutting back on costs and spending your money more wisely. So, how can you get the best value for money out of your marketing?
When marketing your business, you have to consider which is the best marketing method to reach your target market. There are so many options to choose from so you have to pick the techniques that have the best possible chance of getting to your target market.
Some marketing techniques to consider include:
- Networking
- E-marketing
- Video
- Social Media
- Presentations
- Guest Speaking
- Flyers/ local magazines
- Industry publication advertising
How to stand out
So, how can you really grab your audiences’ attention? You have to stand out from the crowd when you market your business. It’s important to differentiate yourself from your competitors. You could consider the following;
- Make them laugh – this works well with video for viral marketing or with a snappy tagline or photograph.
- Show that you’re an expert – be a guest writer for a newspaper column, speak at an event or make a ‘how to’ video.
- Connect with customers – ask for their feedback. Use social media to interact with them and ask for opinions.
- Share good news – send out a press release when something good happens that you want to share.
- Offer something for free – whether it’s free tips, a newsletter or a free consultation, it’s a good hook.
How to get the best results
There are many ways to stretch your marketing budget and reach a wide number of people. For now, I’ll concentrate on a few marketing methods that can get great results.
Business Videos are incredibly effective in engaging your target market. They can include moving images, still photos, motion graphics, music and voiceover so you’re really appealing to the senses and getting across your message.
The great thing about video is its shelf life and versatility. Once you have a video, there are many ways that you can use it to market your business. First of all, your website is a brilliant place to showcase it, as it adds interest to your site and encourages browsers to spend more time on your site.
You can also upload the video to YouTube and Google places which helps greatly with your search engine rankings. If you have a Facebook business page, you can put a link on your page so that users can watch the video directly in the page. You can also put a link to the video on LinkedIn, Twitter and even attach it to emails, if it’s small enough.
Your video will work for you 24/7, generating interest and traffic to your site. We’re in a digital age when customers are demanding more. They want to see that you’re innovative, proactive and current.
It’s really important to involve your target audience ad make your message as simple and easy to digest as possible. You want to give them a reason to get in touch. They’re only going to do this if you stand out from the competition, you offer something that appeals and show that you have credibility.
Social Media is a great way to increase your profile and online presence without spending any money. Also, it can take up a lot of time if you’re updating it all yourself but there are tools out there like Hootsuite that allow you to automate your posts.
Networking is also one of the best ways to market your business, as you’re actually meeting the people that you might do business with and building relationships with them. You’re far more likely to get work or be recommended if you know a person and they can trust you.
Overall, marketing doesn’t have to cost the earth. You just have to choose a mix that suits your business needs and will reach your target market.
Contact us if you want to talk more about how to utilise video marketing for your business.
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