Marketing is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful business. If it is done correctly, it can greatly increase your net income but if it is done wrong, it’s like throwing away your well earned money. A business owner will have to adapt to whatever their business needs and that’s especially true for small business owners but the sales and marketing aspect of a company can be quite tricky,. Don’t you worry, we can help you out! Here are 9 marketing tips that can help your startup company make more sales, market more efficiently, and reduce the waste of investment.
- Sell the benefit, not a comparison.
When marketing your company, your focus should be in highlighting what sets you apart from the competition.
There are three major ways to do that.
- Cost (you have prices that are better compared to your competition)
- Quality (your products and/or services have better quality compared to others)
- A combination of both (you offer the best value)
Take note that how you sell yourself is different from how you market yourself. You may be able to provide a product or service that is relatively cheaper compared to the competition but that doesn’t tell them how much they will be benefiting from choosing you.
Selling is about the benefit. By making a comparison between you and the competition you will be able to highlight the features that you offer but you should also be telling them how they will benefit from choosing you.
- Listen to your customer.
There was a prevalent business ideal saying that a mass retailer would only achieve success when operating in city with a concentrated population and would fail when operating in a rural environment, since it was believe that in order to move a massive quantity of goods, you will need a massive quantity of people. But that isn’t exactly the case. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart was able to achieve such success by listening to his customers firsthand and this was the reason why he became aware that people living in rural and suburban areas often bought larger quantities of goods in order to keep their small businesses stocked or for their larger families. Listening to his customers was one of the reasons why he was able to become one of the most successful men in the United States.
- Market your product before it’s ready.
Some business owners wait until their product is finished before they start doing any marketing campaigns to raise awareness for their products, which can be a costly mistake for you in the long run. If no one knows about your new product, then the demand for it will need to start from zero until you are able to raise awareness through marketing campaigns.
The efficient way is to do an awareness campaign even before the product hits the market, so you will be able to notify potential clients that your product is coming, so when the product is finally ready, you will also have customers that are ready.
- Think outside the box.
As time passes by, the marketing landscape also changes. In the old days there weren’t any search engine or social media platforms, and even no internet that has now become a part of everyday life. Today, startup companies can utilize a wide array of online marketing techniques that are both effective and creative. Utilize online marketing techniques such as social media, content marketing, online video marketing, blog influencers, crowdsourcing, thought leadership and more.
- Test fast. Fail fast.
When you are utilizing an online marketing campaign, you should be able to measure the results. We don’t need to tell you that spending money on a campaign that isn’t providing any positive results is just a waste of money. For example, you might have implemented a new advertisement and during the time you have implemented it you might have noticed a slight rise in sales, but how can you be so sure that it was because of the new ads? Maybe it was due to something else entirely, and may be only a season uptick which will again go back to normal in a month.
If you are going to invest your time and money to a marketing campaign, it is absolutely essential that you will be able to measure the results. Be sure to set up a way to track the conversion correlating to each marketing campaign, and run multiple marketing campaigns in distinct and small batches so it can be easily monitored and measured. By doing this you will be able to compare each marketing channel and find out which of them performs the best, so you can discontinue the ones that don’t provide good results and keep the ones that do.
- Advertise from multiple angles.
As we mentioned earlier, for the best results you should test out multiple marketing channels and ideas to find out what works the best for you. More often than not, it is combination of marketing channels that will provide the best results. If your prospective clients see your brand in many different forms of marketing platforms, they will accept that your brand is well-established, dependable entity, and may choose your brand instead of your competitor’s when they need it.
- There’s always time for PR.
Traditional advertising is based on your marketing material helping sell your product or services. PR is brand building and endorsement where the media covers your company in an industry talk about your brand.
If your company has been featured in something as big as The Wall Street Journal, then just by putting it on the front page of your company’s website will build credibility and provide astounding results. Even little PR such as being featured in the local newspaper or blogs can help out a lot as it adds up. Unlike traditional marketing, PR is effective even far beyond the dates of the marketing campaign and can help out a lot in building credibility and brand awareness.
- Give customers a space to talk to / about you.
Provide a way for your customers to connect with you to either praise your or even complain, so it will feel that you listen to their thoughts and opinions. Even if a customers come to you angry, it is a great way to publicly show that you willing to listen to them and right a wrong, which in turn will make them feel valued.
- We look forward to seeing you again.
Be sure that you provide your loyal customers. Satisfied customers are the best way to help build brand awareness, and are far better than any marketing strategy that a sales team can come up with. So it’s essential that you reward your customers with competitive pricing, good customer service and support, and automatic software updates to better enhance the experience.
This guide provide you with 9 basic marketing tips which a startup company, can use to help improve the company’s marketing efforts, but hiring expert services can provide even better results. The Fields Agency is a digital marketing agency that can help you and your company reach even greater heights. You can greatly benefit from our vast knowledge and experience of all aspects of digital marketing. We will make sure that you will be a part every step of the way, and we can guarantee to you that it will be worth every single penny. Help us help you become the best you can be.