Before you jump feet first into marketing your business, you need a plan or strategy. Don't go in blind, because you will get overwhelmed very quickly trying to figure out the best marketing practices for your business. Implementing too many tactics at one time can yield disappointing results, or none at all and also get add up fast. The same goes for implementing too little. So how do you even begin creating a marketing strategy and what goes into it?
Finding the Best Strategies
Whether online or offline, there are several different strategies you can use to better market your business. Here are a few things to consider: What's currently contributing the most amount of sales, profit margin and what's growing sales the fastest?
As we mentioned above, not all companies can afford to implement all marketing strategies at once, so you should start with a basis of the most important contributing factors in your business. For example, maybe the largest amount of sales comes from online shoppers. You would want to consider advertising in a digital presence, possibly with Google ads, or SEO.
Start With a Strong Storyline
Your marketing strategy should begin with what your business stands for. What are your goals, your story, what does your business stand for? That should be the foundation for your strategy. Think about what you want consumers to know about your brand, what would make your business the ideal place for consumers to give their business to? Everything about your marketing should stem from your story.
Consider Multiple Channels and Platforms
As mentioned above, too much or too little can give you less than promising results. You need to create a mix of channels and platforms, online or offline, to market your products and services to different audiences. For example, if you're only running Google Adwords, that might not be enough if your target audience is on Facebook or Instagram. Consider a social media presence to bring in business from different audiences and consumers.
You might learn that running Facebook or social media ads yields more results than Google Ads. It all depends on understanding your audience, where they are, and what they're searching for.
Start Small
While trying to figure out what ad platform works best for you, start small. Don't throw large amounts of money at ads that you aren't sure will yield any results. You'll realize very quickly that you're wasting money on ads that potentially nobody is seeing, or aren't bringing in leads. To avoid this, start by running ads with a small budget on multiple platforms and see which is performing the best, before launching a larger ad campaign. The same goes for other marketing strategies. Give yourself time for a 'trial and error' phase, and closely document the pros and cons for each practice to find the one (or two or three) that work best for you!
Creating a marketing strategy can be murky waters to navigate. But with the right message, budget and consistency, you will find one that works for you! Need help creating a strategic plan? Check out Zellus Marketing of Huntsville here.