Marketing is undoubtedly one of the best ways to promote a product or service. I’m always amazed at how many people spend money on setting up a company, registering it, branding it, getting a logo design, building a website, setting up social media channels and then end up spending absolutely nothing on driving traffic to any of it. It’s as if they think the website will be the answer to all their business problems.The ‘build it and they will come’ theory is not true when it comes to attracting potential customers and often new business owners do not set budget aside for finding customers (leads). Which is slightly odd, considering if you have no customers you can kiss your business goodbye.One of the reasons you cannot simply build it and hope, is because you are competing against over 1 billion active sites. That’s how many other websites are on the internet. Ok, now perhaps they aren’t all marketing what you have to sell, but it’s very likely they are creating a lot of noise and confusion. Which is ultimately a distraction for your future customer.In fact, distracting your customer is their main motivation, and you can guarantee they will be spending just as much time and money on pop-ups, catchy titles, re-targeting ads (SEM Management) that follow consumers about and distracting images or videos, all with the aim to draw them to their own website (and away from yours). For example, how many times have you gone online to search for a place to have dinner and ended up on some random website checking out the ‘funniest kitten meows of all time’? It happens. It’s easy to be distracted.
Reasons to market
So, what are you to do? How do you stand out from the crowd? How do you make sure the customers you attract, want what you are trying to sell? The below 5 tips, will help you to get started. Start with a large budget or small one it’s up to you, but be warned, if you spend nothing at all, you are likely to stay undiscovered.Marketing spend will:- Save you money in the long run – Sounds strange I know. That old adage ‘you’ve got to spend money to make money’, in this case, is true. If you don’t have a budget strategy, you’ll likely throw money at any hawker offering to get you on the front page of Google or at the next advertiser promising they’ll get you prime position ad space for inflated prices. If you operate on the thought that your product is good enough and people will eventually find you, you’ll likely go out of business. Spending in the beginning on well thought out measurable tactics, will save you dollars later.
- Help you to attract targeted customers – The prime word being, targeted. A targeted ad spend with focus on areas such as demographic, age, gender, interests and income which will help you to attract clients who want what you have. It’s a more specific approach and your odds will be lower and the chance to attract the right lead, higher. Believe it or not, it is possible to track every cent you spend and it’s something we make sure to measure with every campaign we manage.
- Provide a customer base – If you’re a new business this is super important. With an active database you can market your product using email marketing, build a loyal customer base and nurture your customer towards a sale. Basically, you can get things going. You can also advertise to this same database through social media marketing (e.g. Facebook) which will help your retention strategy. For example, if you are an online shop selling women’s clothing to 18-35yr olds, Facebook with it’s targeting options would be a great site to place an ad and market.
- Provide opportunities – With a large active database you are suddenly more attractive to other businesses for partnering or affiliate marketing opportunities. This is a synergistic tactic that can help to grow your business exponentially by exposing a new audience to your product/service and for building brand awareness.
- Help you be found – Initial spending on SEO will help position you well in search engines and time on Search Engine Marketing Management will help you attract traffic to your website. You may struggle with outlaying the money at first, but in time, it should pay dividends with targeted customers. Start big or small, but make sure every campaign you set up has a Google Analytics conversion URL so you can track if your ads convert. This will help you to know if your ad is working, or if it needs tweaking.
