One of the most important aspects of building a successful business is being able to market your business. I will be showing marketing strategies which you can use to promote your business and grow it.
It is not enough for you to have a good business idea or produce a quality product, you also need to be able to put the product in front of your customers and your potential customers.
I will be sharing some online and offline marketing strategies that you can use to grow your business fast.
Online
Facebook is a social media platform which allows customers to follow you online and you can also promote your business to them as they follow you online.
You can also do paid advertising on Facebook and this seems very interesting because you can actually target the type of audience you want to reach by categorizing them based on their age, location, sex or interest.
Marketing your business on Facebook is something you should try as it is a going to have positive effect on your business.
Another social media platform where you can promote your business is Twitter because it is platform where you can reach a lot of audience.
You can promote your business on twitter by using hash tags in your tweets and when using hash tags you shouldn’t use more than two per post as posts with 1 or 2 hash tags performs better than those with more than 2 hash tags.
You can also do paid advertising on twitter which can be in three forms, the promoted tweets, promoted account and promoted trends. You can go for either of the first two as they seem to be more affordable and effective.
You can also use Instagram to market your business online as it has over 700million users. It is advisable you do a soft sell on a platform like Instagram as that is what works best.
You can use images and proper hash tags on Instagram to pass your message across to your audience and you can also sponsor your post so that more people can see it.
You can try this strategy to market your business and see how it woks.
You can use Whatsapp to promote your business by sending messages to your customers and the reason why Whatsapp is better than a normal SMS is because you can also send images and videos to your customers and prospects directly.
When promoting your business on Whatsapp make sure you don’t spam your audience with too much messages. The audience you should have on your Whatsapp group should be those that are interested in what you do. You can make audience join your group by performing an action which shows they are interested in joining your Whatsapp group.
LinkedIn is also a social media platform but with more of business content and activities. LinkedIn allows creation of groups where your customers can facilitate discussion about your business.
You can also do direct advertising on LinkedIn targeting audience based on their age, gender, industry, company size and geographical location.
YouTube
You can also use YouTube to market your business by creating a channel for your business where you can upload videos for promoting your business.
It is not just enough for you to upload videos as you can also share the videos on social media platforms and also email it to your customers. After the videos you should also use call to action so that your customers can take action after watching your videos.
Blogging
Blogging is one of the ways you can build audience in your niche through content writing. Blogging has to do with you sharing your experience and expertise about your business. As you begin do this you will build authority in your line of business.
The platforms you can use for blogging includes WordPress, Blogger, Wix, Tumblr and Medium.
Email marketing
Email marketing has to do with getting customers or prospects to sign up for an email list and after they signup you can start sending them emails about your business.
You can use email marketing to create awareness about new products, you can also use it to cross sell your products to customers and you can also use it as a form of reminder about products your customers are interested in buying already.
Email marketing is really effective if you use it well.
SEO marketing
SEO means search engine optimization and what SEO does is that it allows potential clients to see you on search engines such as Google and Bing when they are search for terms related to your business.
SEO marketing is really interesting if you can get it right because most people searching for product online are people who are willing to buy so if you can rank high on the search engines for the terms they are searching for then they are likely to transact business with you.
SEM
Search engine marketing is a form of marketing whereby you promote your business on search engines through adverts. That means when people search for keywords related to your business your business appears on the search engine page because you have paid them to advertise your business.
SEM can also be targeted towards the type of audience to want. It is less stressful and produces effective result but you need to pay for your adverts.
Ads display on top websites
One other way you can promote your business online is by buying advert space directly on popular websites. Let’s say you want to promote your business so what you will do is look for popular websites related to your line of business and you see if they offer space for advertisement.
When you see a popular website that offers space for advertisement then you can contact then to negotiate on the price you are going to pay for advertising on their website.
What that means is that the visitors of the website have a high chance of seeing your advert and this type of advert has good conversion rate because the visitors will be interested in your business.
Website
Having a website is also a good marketing strategy because a website is like an online location for your business where people can visit whenever they want to transact or get information about your business.
Your website is actually important for marketing because you can list all your products and services on your website which can be seen by potential customers and customers when they visit.
Another reason why a website is important is because it allows you to create sales pages about your products and services. What a sales page does is to make sales pitch to your customers and you only have to do it once when compared to direct selling where you might need to keep making speech every day of the week.
You can also embed videos in your sales pages and the customers have a feel of what it is like when you are speaking with them.
Ecommerce website
You can also market your business by registering with popular ecommerce websites where you can upload your products and customers can make purchases directly from theweb site.
The good thing about ecommerce websites is that they also advertise your products for you because they make their profit by selling products of their customers, so they need to advertise their customers product.
Offline
Bulk SMS
Sending bulk SMS to your prospects or customers is one of the ways you can promote your business offline. You need to look for a way to get phone numbers of people that will be interested in buying your product and you can send them bulk messages.
Sending bilk SMS is actually easy and it is also a cheap option of offline marketing because bulk SMS services are not expensive.
When using this strategy do not spam your customers with unnecessary messages as that will turn your customers off instead of attracting them.
Flyers
A flyer is a small handbill that you can use to advertise your business by sharing it to people. The flyer usually consists of features of products.
The flyer can also consist of benefits your product has to offer to customers and also your contact information such as phone number, email address and website address.
It is not just about printing flyers you also need to share the flyers because if you do not share the flyers nobody is going to see it and it becomes a waste.
Business cards
Having a business card is also an important marketing strategy for your business because you will meet people every day and you will definitely need to exchange contact with them and one of the easiest ways to give people your contact is by giving them your business card.
Your business card should have your name on it, it should have your phone number, and it should also have your address and your website.
The reason why you give people your business card is for them to contact you at any time they need to contact you therefore it should carry all necessary information.
Branded items
The use of branded items is also a good marketing strategy that you can use for your business. Branded items that you can use include branded t-shirt, branded face cap, branded pen, branded key holder and other items that can be branded.
Some of these branded items are meant to be given to your customers who in turn will use it and by so doing will be promoting your business.
You can also use some of these branded items by yourself thereby using it to promote your business.
Appreciating your customers
Giving out gift to people is also an offline marketing strategy that works well.
You can appreciate your potential customers by giving them gifts because when you do this it makes them feel indebted to you and they want patronize your business.
You can also give your customers gift because when you do it will make them become loyal to you and they will keep patronizing your business.
Direct selling
Direct selling has to do with you going to strategic places where you can meet people and market your business to them.
Direct selling can also be inform of cold calls whereby you just go from house to house meeting new people and marketing your business to them.
Direct selling isn’t usually easy especially if you are the type that is not used to facing rejection because when you do direct selling you are going to face a lot of rejection.
The way it works is that when you talk to more people your chances of getting more customers increases.
Referral
This is one of the offline marketing strategies I love most because your customers do most of the work of marketing for you.
All you need to do is make sure you deliver quality products or services to your customers and ask them to refer their family and friends that might also be interested in buying your products also.
It is easier for your family and friends to convince you to try a product than a stranger trying to convince you. This happens because you trust your family and friends, so that is the same logic the referral marketing works with.
Radio ads
The way radio advertisement works is that you buy advert on popular radio programs. These adverts are played in between programs, at the beginning of programs or at the end of programs.
The advert could sometimes be in form of a song because most people listening to radio listen to it so at to hear their favorite music so you can actually take advantage of this by making your advert a music that people can relate with.
It is not compulsory you use music to advertise as you can also make it a speech. But you need to make it lively and interesting.
TV ads
The TV advert is also similar to the radio advert but it seems better because it is audiovisual and it has higher conversion rate than an audio advertisement.
One of the major tips for when running a TV advert is to avoid sending negative messages instead try as much as possible to send positive messages and vibes.
One other way you can also do TV advert is by featuring on popular programs on TV and using that avenue to promote your business.
Newspaper ads
Newspaper advert has been in use for a long time and it is effective for offline marketing also. When placing advert on newspapers make sure it is the ones that have lots of readers.
When placing advert on newspaper you should make sure you place your advert in the right category because most newspapers have different categories for different news.
One of the reasons you should also try newspaper advert is because newspaper advert is more affordable when compared to TV and radio advertisement.
Billboard ads
Billboard advertisement is a good way of marketing your business because a lot of people use the road daily which makes it possible for them to see the billboard avert since the billboards are usually on the road.
These days some billboards we have out there are digital billboards which make it possible for you to run a short or a long term campaign. The digital billboard also allows you to use more effect for your advert which makes it look more attractive.
The truth is that outdoor advertisement keeps increasing and it is advisable you take advantage of it since it is an effective form of advert.
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a form of direct marketing whereby you solicit prospective customers to buy a product over the phone.
Telemarketing makes it easy for you to reach out to customers as you do not need to see them face to face.
One thing you need to put into consideration when calling your customers is time. Some customers will find it convenient to speak with you in the morning while others might find it convenient to speak with you in the afternoon.
You need to know what works best for your customers as this will help you build a good relationship with them.
Community project
Taking part in community project is also a good marketing strategy because it is a form of giving back to the society and people will love you for it.
The way most companies do it is by doing a project and also inscribing their logo on the project they’ve done so that people can know that the project was done by them.
When people see the projects you’ve done they will start talking you and what they will say about you will definitely be good. With these projects people start spreading words about your business.
Conclusion
My advice to every business owner is to do both offline and online marketing because both when you only focus on one you might be losing the customers you are meant to get from the other, so my advice is that you use both offline and online marketing.
A lot of marketing strategies have been discussed in this post and I believe you would have seen the ones that you can try conveniently, so just go ahead and try it because it you don’t try it you will never find out if it is going work for your business or not.
The bottom line is that marketing is important to your business, so you should do it but if you cannot do it due to some reasons beyond your control then you should outsource it to someone else to help you with it. 0�[ڟm
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