Business owners are often so busy that they never have time to think about what they want to achieve and to make specific plans. Unfortunately, a lack of planning can result in missed opportunities, wasted expenditure and time being spend doing the wrong things.
Marketing is esential for most businesses if they are to attract new clients, but it can be a waste of money if it isn't targetted at the right audience, delivered through the appropriate channel, monitored and of course, any leads generated followed up effectively.
For example how many businesses advertise in well known paper directories because they always have done so yet they don't really know whether it is cost effective. It may be that it is generating sufficient new quality enquiries but it is important that this is known by having suitable monitoring in place.
Marketing should be a part of a strategy and time needs to be spent thinking about the aims of the business so an appropriate strategy can be arrived at:
Who are your target and existing customers?
What product or service are you trying to sell?
How do you service and retain existing customers? (it costs more to get a new customer than retain an existing one)
How are enquiries monitored and followed up?
Is there an effective system for monitoring the source of new client enquiries?
Marketing should be an ongoing process not a knee jerk reaction when orders fall. Once you know what sales you want or need to achieve, you can create a marketing plan which sets out clear goals, strategies to achieve those goals (including the cost of the initiative) and includes how success will be monitored.
Any marketing plan can be changed and adapted to ensure it is as effective as possible. By ensuring that any advertising or marketing initiatives are monitored to establish their return on investment, ineffective initiatives can be dropped and resources transferred to more profitable initiatives.
There are many ways to promote a business, a combination of several may be appropriate:
TV, Radio, newspaper and magazine (industry specific) advertising.
PR articles,
Internet, email campaigns,
Outdoor media including banners and posters.
Sponsorship
Networking events
Door drops/ flyers
Mail shots
Strategic alliances
Business or trade shows and exhibitions............
Whatever marketing initiatives you adopt, to be fully effective you need to:
Have a marketing plan, monitor its effectiveness and most importantly follow up on all enquiries.