Marketing and advertising are not the same thing. Advertising is great, and it helps get the word out about your business. However, advertising costs a lot of money and you’re flooded with competition. So while advertising is a great strategy for your business, there’s plenty you can do to market your business that can be effective in driving in new customers and keeping existing customers. Here are a few tips on how to best market your business.
Come up with a plan
This is your first step. It doesn’t need be an enormous, stringent document! But you do need to sketch out the channels on how you want to market your business. This could be tapping into social media, pushing blog content, updating your website, attending networking events through your local chamber of commerce or being a sponsor of a community event once a quarter or once a year. Plan out how to you want to push out the word on your business, communicate it with your employees and then get to work!
Create a brand
This is key for continuity. Think about your business and how you want people to think about your products or services. Are you aiming to be fun and laid back? Highly professional? Reliable? Speedy? Figure out your brand concept and then apply it to the ways you market yourself – on social media, on your website, your business cards and email campaigns. This can apply to your advertising, too, whether it’s billboards, radio, TV spots or printed ads.
Have an elevator pitch
Imagine the time it takes to travel a few floors on an elevator. How long is that, 30 seconds? Maybe a minute at the longest? This is how quickly you want to be able to convey what you do to someone who asks. Come up with a quick, punchy, informative way to explain what your business does. This keeps your message succinct and concise and the short amount of time means the person who asks what you do remains engaged. Any longer, and you’ve lost their focus and attention.
Make sure your product or service is on point.
Do a little market research. Make sure you’re targeting your key audience as best as you can. There’s no point providing a product or service that no one, or a very small percentage of people, are interested in. This is as simple as going through your orders or service requests and seeing what most people are after. Then streamline your products and services. Customers don’t want to be inundated with choices. And you don’t want to waste money and resources on things people aren’t buying. Corner your market, then market your top products and services.
Offer discounts and promotions.
This is simple, yet effective. Once you realize what your top products and services are, you can offer discounts or promotions to new customers. Something like 20 percent off your first purchase, or another type of discount if you ask people to sign a contract for a service. But don’t forget about your existing customers! You want them to keep coming back, so offering a promotion is a great way to do that. Whether it’s a reduced price after a certain period of time (in the case of a contract) or a 2 for 1 deal when purchasing a product, customers love a good deal.
Consider a live answering service
One of the best ways you can market your business is by being present for your existing customers and also never missing any leads. And what’s the best way to do both? By never missing a call. However, that’s not always possible, especially when you’re busy running and marketing your business. When you sign up with an answering service, you’re guaranteed to never miss another call. Live operators will answer your calls, take messages and send them to you right away. Most customers want to speak to someone immediately when they call. And potential customers are likely to not leave a voicemail and call the next business.
VoiceNation is the live answering service you need
When you sign up for a plan with VoiceNation, you’re getting so much more than just call answering. Our U.S.-based operators are trained specifically on your account and you provide them with a custom script so they’re answering your calls your way. We’ll take your messages and send them to you immediately through email, text, our online dashboard and mobile app. We can even help you with your marketing efforts by providing detailed call reports and analytics. That’s just the beginning. Check out all our features! All our plans are simple and transparent, and at such a great value, you’ll wonder why it took you so long to sign up. Want to learn more? Give us a call! 877.679.3777.