Marketing Your Business is an Investment Not a Cost – 9 Top Tips

Marketing Your Business is an Investment Not a Cost – 9 Top Tips:from Business 2 Community by Rosalind Henshell
No matter how good a sales force your business has there are always benefits to Marketing your business. If you still see marketing as a luxury that your business can’t afford to invest in then you’re probably not going about your marketing efforts the right way. Whatever the size of your business, these 9 Marketing tips should ensure your marketing campaigns don’t go to waste.

9 Straight Forward Marketing Tips for Your Business

1. Have a budget.

Marketing needs to be seen as an investment in your business, it’s not an expense you can do without. That being said you shouldn’t blindly spend money that you can’t afford. Start off with a budget for each campaign and forecast what you expect to make as a return. Monitor your spend closely and if you are way behind on forecast it might be wise to change the campaign or pull it entirely. On the other hand, if you’re making far more than expected then think about investing more.

2. Have a goal.

Do you want to get 30 new customers? Do you want to increase sales? Do you want to grow interest in future projects by collecting people’s names? Whatever you aim to get from each campaign, be specific about it, otherwise it’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important and you could end up either overspending, or advertising your business in the wrong areas. Give each campaign an end date or have a timeline to check progress.

3. Do your analysis.

Measure the success of each campaign as accurately as you can. This could mean asking customers where they saw your advert, or asking them to provide you with a code. Many online marketers can set up a unique funnel for each online campaign, so anyone who clicks through a certain advert will be tracked. You could even set up a phone number for important campaigns so that you can see exactly how many people have called as a result of seeing a particular advert. Be honest with your analysis. It might appear that your marketing budget is being well spent if you see a sudden increase in business, but is that increase directly down to your marketing expertise, or is it a seasonal peak, the sales team working harder, or is it an old campaign finally paying off? Make sure you understand where your customers come from!

4. Build your Brand’s personality!

Use your marketing to build up your brand image, so that there is a recognisable trend, face or logo across everything you do. This means that people who come across your business in different areas, such as on Facebook, or in a newspaper advert recognise your business and grow to trust you. For many small businesses this brand personality may be very closely tied to the owner’s own image or personality. If this is the case, make sure that the person that your customers find when they get in touch matches up to the image that your marketing has projected.

5. Understand what your customers want to see.

To run a successful campaign, you need to understand who you are trying to reach. Build a “straw Man” of who your typical customer is. What does this person like? How do they want to consume information? How do they like to interact with others? Once you know this you can tailor your campaigns to target your ideal customers, for example although you might prefer to interact with customers via your blog, you might realise that you’ll get a better response by marketing through LinkedIn or Twitter.

6. Make Your Point.

People are busy. Even if a potential customer is looking for the type of services you provide they probably don’t have all day to do it. So, make sure that you don’t leave people guessing or searching for clues. Spell out what you offer, make it obvious how they can get in touch with you, or how they can find out more information.

7. Find your own niche

No-one can excel at absolutely everything, so don’t try to. If you spread yourself too thinly your message will be diluted and have less impact in each area. If you find that you are good at communicating with people on Facebook, then keep that as your main platform for updates, don’t try to replicate your Facebook personality on Google Plus just because you think you have to.

8. Make sure you deliver what you promise

Anyone can offer the best product or the most amazing service, or the greatest discount, very few can actually do it all. Nothing will ruin your reputation faster than letting down customers who have fallen for your marketing hype. If you want to make outrageous claims as part of your marketing campaigns then great, as long as you know that you will beat the expectations of the customers who come looking for you.

9. Get help when you need it.

Spending money on marketing campaigns that you don’t know how to get the best results from can be a disaster. Likewise, having money to spend but not knowing where to start could send you down the wrong road. There are plenty of agencies who can offer advice, or help you set up campaigns either online or offline.
What are your “must know” marketing rules? Let us know by leaving a comment below!