What's the secret weapon of the giant household industry names we all know?
What's the driving force of the businesses who take over their sectors by storm?
What's the trick of businesses who never fall into survival mode and have a steady stream of clients and profits?
It all boils down to this: A clear Marketing Strategy that delivers what the clients/ customers want.A marketing strategy is not just plain old marketing tactics such as ordinary advertising, creating a website or tweeting about your services to the general public. The word "strategy" is defined as an elaborate and systematic plan of action by the Advanced English Dictionary.
So, therefore, when marketing strategy is mentioned here, it involves planning an approach to marketing that will create awareness for your product and or services, attract and generate interest in your targeted audience, drive in revenue and keep customers interested in you. Most importantly, your marketing strategy should be one that strongly projects the businesses philosophy and message to the audience.
Usually, most businesses go for the traditional forms of marketing like using billboard or magazine advertising, going through word of mouth advertising channels, developing loyalty programs or offering discount pricing collectively known as offline marketing.
While these are all very effective marketing strategies to employ for your business, they are not recommended for every kind of business especially the startups because they are quite expensive. For this reason, many businesses use a blend of the traditional offline marketing strategy with other forms including relationship marketing, differential marketing, and online marketing so as to balance costs.
The Effective Marketing Strategy for New Businesses
For new businesses who have a tight budget, a mix of marketing strategies is best suited for the long term. What is needed is one strong marketing strategy that can help the business build a brand whiles generating sales leads and profits at the same time being easy on the pocket. Fortunately, there is one like that for new businesses which delivers all these and more.
Which is it? Online Marketing Strategy.
How Online Marketing Can Help Grow Your Business
What goes on online is pretty much a copy and more of the real world since virtually almost everyone has an online presence. If they are not to be found on Facebook, they should be on Twitter, Instagram or on Forums. Internet statistics currently are that there are 3.74 billion internet users as at March 2017. That's almost a half of the world's population. Whoa 3.74 billion is a huge number and these are the people you will be reaching out to with your online marketing strategy. Isn't it looking profitable already?
Since we are all aware that a successful business needs to survive the marketing battle with others that are already on the run, here are 5 online marketing strategies to employ to boost sales, to build a business brand and generate a loyal client/ customer base.
Before delving into this, these are some areas to brainstorm over that will ensure that your online marketing strategy becomes a success.
- Define your target clients/customers
- Your competitors
- The unique aspect of your business
- Your business niche
Once you figure these out, you are good to hit the ground running with these online marketing strategies.
It has been estimated that a third of the world's population will be on social media platforms by 2020. With three years to go, starting now is even better. By 2020, you will be an expert in all the tricks involved in online marketing to reap the full benefits of this huge number.
Use these steps to get you started on social media marketing.
- Identify the platform where your target clients/ customers can be found
- Create a profile that best fits your target audience
- Start building a relationship and engaging with your audience
This is very effective in targeting your local audience. If your business is located on Google maps, local consumers who find you get to trust your business thus building your business' brand awareness.
The trend now is that shoppers browse the internet to find out where their products can be found before actually taking the step to purchase. Hence, if your business pops up and happens to be easy to locate, there goes a rise in your sales.
All you have to do is to optimize your Google My business listing so that Google can easily establish prominence of your business.
To encourage your client/customers to keep coming back to you, constantly sending them periodic emails of new products, special sales and the like does the trick of keeping them interested in your business.
Although it takes quite a while to build a substantial email list, it is worth it. Moreover, emails can be easily forwarded to create a ripple effect. Email marketing shouldn't be overdone though as people do not like flooded inboxes which might lead to a totally opposite effect.
With the rave in smartphones, more and more people are using their mobile phones to browse. For businesses who have optimized their websites for mobile phones, it is likely that individuals will prefer to constantly check them out and use their services than those who haven't.
Encourage Clients/ Customers to write Online Reviews
You can already figure out exactly what this will achieve. Most people rely on third party information about products and services before trying them out themselves. Also, a prospective customer will head online for reviews about a business to get information on how it is like to do deal with them beforehand.
With this mind, encourage your clients/customers to write good things about your business. Keep in mind that you will only get positive comments if you are doing the right thing.
NoteThese 5 online marketing strategies will propel your new business forward but without your own efforts and diligence, the success of your business will be shortlived.
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