When you first set up your small business, you have so much to bear mind in order to successfully launch and establish both your company and its brand. Most small business owners will feel like that there is a never ending checklist of areas to focus on and things to do – and marketing can constitute a large part of this. However, marketing is extremely important and it’s important that you give it ongoing attention rather than treating it as a task to complete and throw aside once your first marketing campaign has been launched. Marketing ensures that customers are aware of your brand, that they are aware of new product lines and product launches, and to guarantee that your brand image is in the back of their mind at all times, encouraging them to come back to your store time and time again. So, let’s take a little look at marketing to really get to grips with the basics!
What Actually Is Marketing?
The term “marketing” gets thrown around a whole lot and while many of us have a vague idea of what marketing is, few of us are familiar with its process and aims. Put simply, marketing is a business practice that aims to get consumers to purchase your products instead of spending their disposable income elsewhere. Sure, this may sound simple. But it is actually pretty complex when it comes down to it. The average consumer is unlikely to spend any money anywhere without being encouraged to do so. But consumers also don’t like feeling pushed into making purchases – they want to feel in full control of every transaction they carry out as opposed to feeling like a pawn that has been manipulated by a company into buying something that they probably don’t need. The first step of marketing is generally to conduct marketing research. This will allow you to understand your target demographic and know how to cater to their wants and needs. You will then have to pull together a marketing campaign which will expose your products to the consumer market (your target demographic, in particular) and encourage them to buy your goods. If this is successful, you should then focus on content marketing growth hacks, which will help to further improve your marketing strategy.
Social Media Marketing
We are living in an age where the average person spends thirty two minutes a day checking Facebook, fifty three minutes a day on Instagram, and one minute on Twitter. This all really mounts up and means that we direct a whole lot of our attention to these platforms. These platforms also have huge numbers of users (Facebook has one billion active users, Instagram has one hundred million users on a monthly basis, and Twitter has three hundred and thirty million logins a month). Sure, we may associate them with personal use, entertainment, procrastination, and time wasting. But social media is consequently becoming an increasingly powerful tool for small businesses. If consumers are directing their attention to social media, you need to market your products there. You can do this in a couple of different ways.
Set Up a Business Profile
The first step you should take towards marketing your business on social media is to set up a professional page. This should be solely used for the purpose of marketing your brand. You can then post images of your products. This will ensure that any followers see these images and are aware of what is on offer. Make sure that all of your content is extremely high quality. Sure, smartphone camera quality is on the rise. But you are generally best engaging with a professional product photographer who will be able to get the best shot possible. Not only will they have better quality equipment, but they will have an eye for style and detail and an ability to edit images appropriately – the end result will be some seriously impressive images.
Collaborate with Social Media Influencers
Social media influencers are individuals who have a huge following. Sometimes they can have hundreds of thousands or even millions of people following them. If they post a recommendation of one of your products, you can experience spikes in your sales, as their following will try your products out too! Just make sure that the individuals you are collaborating with have followers for the right reasons, rather than due to scandal and notoriety that could reflect badly on your brand.
Face-to-Face Marketing
Sure, the web may be extremely popular. But that’s not to say that face-to-face marketing no longer works. Face-to-face marketing gives people the opportunity to actually talk to somebody about your brand and products, to try them out for themselves, and you may be able to result an immediate and direct sale at the end. Your best bet at creating a ten out of ten face-to-face marketing campaign is to collaborate with promotions agencies. They will be able to hook you up with promotional staff from their books who can carry out work such as:
- Product Demonstrations
- Sampling
- Leafleting and Flyering
- Data Capture
- Entering Potential Customers Into Competitions
Marketing really is a major part of running any small business and you will need to engage with it regularly in order to encourage your business’ success. Hopefully, the above information has helped you to get to grips with the basics of marketing and has provided you with a couple of different ideas that can help to get the ball rolling in the right direction!