5 Ways to Market Your Business
Marketing is one of the key elements to running a business therefore it is important to know how to. Without marketing you would not have a business! I have listed below five ways in which to market your business successfully and explain why they are so important.
1. Don’t waste time on ineffective marketing
Many business owners don’t think they have the time for marketing, although the truth is they wouldn’t have a business to own if it wasn’t for marketing. This means when spending money on marketing that does not work they do not think to change to something else. It takes time to market correctly; the first time very rarely works. This means you need to spend time on marketing, when one way doesn’t work; you change it and change again and again until you find what works for your business. You should always keep track on your marketing so you can see how well it is doing. Never assume that people will come just because the marketing techniques you are using are just “OK” and “will do”.
2. Increase your online sales
Make a website, or if you already have one make sure it appeals to the public. Time needs to be spent on this as the smallest error can make someone turn their nose up at it. You want everyone who looks at your website to remember you! Remember when going on to a search engine there are hundreds sometimes thousands of results, why should they pick yours? Also you need to be highly rated on the search engine, most people pick the fist few they see. So to do this you need to put yourself in the potential customer’s shoes, think about what they are typing into the search engine. These are the key words that NEED to be repeated over and over in your website.
3. Offer a guarantee
People like to trust people, its human nature. By offering a guarantee you are taking some weight off their shoulders and putting it on your own. Businesses don’t like doing this because they can only see the money they could loose out on. Well if you think about, you get an extra 100 customers and one is not happy you’ve still technically profited and if you act appropriately when they act of their guarantee they will usually come back again. Most people don’t even ring up on the guarantee when they are entitled to!
4. Always follow up!
Following up on contact with potential customers is essential. Businesses, a lot of the time, think “well if they want it, they’ll ring back”. NO! This is not the way to think. Her are some statistics that may shock and even scare you:
48% of businesses never follow up with a prospect
25% of businesses make a second contact and stop
12% of business only make three contacts and stop
This means 10% of businesses make more than three contacts. Now I’ll show you why this is so important:
2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
I hope these statistics give you the incentive to start following up!
5. Raise your prices
Less than 20% of the population make their buying decisions on a price. Although many will say they do. There is an 80/20 rule that applies to this. Let me explain, you sell a product or service for £100, within the customers that purchase this 20% would have been willing to spend, say, £400 or £500. That is if you gave them the option. Then if you go onto the “high-spenders” you could find that 20% of them would have been prepared to pay up to £1,000 and sometimes more! But the problem is if you don’t ask, the chances of them offering are a zero. The best way to do this is to create a “de-luxe” offer which will cost you nothing to advertise and you can ask for a higher price without loosing the customers who want the lower price.
