Marketing is your outlet to the rest of the world. It is what people will judge you by, quite often making their decision within a matter of minutes. Your marketing needs to be eye catching, informative and emotion stirring. If it is all these 3 things, you can be sure that the customer will be left wanting to know more about what you can offer them. Here’s 8 ideas to get you started:
- Stay Current – Marketing, as with everything else, is constantly evolving. Where many years ago you would see a poster stapled to a lamp post you now see advertisements on a big screen TV on the outside of a building. I’m not saying that this is how you need to market yourself but you should definitely keep your ideas up to date in order to catch peoples attention. If you are an antique store then aged sepia posters could work fantastically just as a graffiti written logo is eye catching to the younger generation. It is about finding what fits your business and the message you want to convey.
- Be Individual – Think about how you want to be remembered by your customers. Will it be for the indirect website or the catchy tune that will stick in their heads all day long? You decide what services you are offering, in what way they are unique to you and then how you want to stand out from the crowd. Making yourself memorable by adding an individual twist to your marketing campaign can create brand recognition and can also be the key to that brand being firmly embedded in everyones minds for years to come.
- Keep It Fast – No one likes to be sat waiting for a webpage to load so making sure that your website is fast, is an absolute must. It should be user friendly with an easy to follow lay out so that customers enjoy the experience of visiting the site. They want to be able to get in and get out without any delays or issues. I have come across several businesses that are yet to set up a website and it fills me with dread every time. Think of all that marketing potential that they are missing out on! Get a website up and running and ensure that it runs fast. Websites likes these, people will return to time and time again.
- Stay Motivated – Keeping your marketing team motivated is as important as keeping the customer motivated. By running special offers such as discounts or buy one get one free offers, the customer perceives that they are getting a special treat. It doesn’t register that they might actually be spending more money than they had originally planned because they are feeling the value of the product. The same goes for your marketing team. By offering them a reward of some kind for their hard work it gives them more motivation to succeed in what they are doing.
- Have Goals – When creating your marketing plan you should specify what goals you are aiming for. In putting these in place not only will it help keep you driven, it will also help when you want to measure how successful the marketing has been. This can also help you avoid your marketing becoming old and stale because once you’ve hit that goal of 100 customers, you know it’s time to adapt the approach and try something a bit different that could possibly gain you 200 new customers instead.
- Do Your Research – Know your market inside out by doing extensive research before you begin and then continuing to stay on top of that research as time progresses. The last thing you want to do is offer a free car wash if the garage down the road is offering a free car wash AND a free air freshener. It’s all about knowing your competition and like I mentioned in point 2, being individual.
- Create Emotions – Creating catchy emotion stirring marketing can be difficult so take your time and testing run it a few times first. Look at what it is you are marketing and decide the exact emotions that you are aiming for. Will it be excitement, happiness, relief or something that will simply tug at your heart strings? Being able to associate your marketing with an emotion is a great way to engage the customers compulsive side and their subconscious reaction.
- Be Attentive – Being attentive to your customers needs is important because without them, you haven’t got a business. Pay attention to feedback, complaints and ideas that customers give because these are the areas in which you are able to grow and develop. For example, a few years ago Dominos pizza was rocked by a scandal where customers stated that they thought the product was disgusting and the recipe out dated. Dominos took a head on approach by listening to what the customers were saying and allowing them (and the food critics) to publicly test and judge their new reinvented recipe. By allowing public opinions to flow and by showing that they were taking the matter seriously, Dominos was able to successfully regain its customer base and is still going strong to this day. Don’t discard what your customers think all because you have a plan in place that you don’t want to differ from. Be flexible and adapt!