Every business needs customers and people to find out about you before they can turn into customers. Doing that is called marketing. So why has it got such a bad name? Possibly due to the abuse of the term by poorly trained sales people selling advertising claiming their particular method is the be-all-and-end-all of business generation. But advertising is only part of the marketing toolkit.
The majority of advertising for SMEs does not work. Plain and simple, it does not produce a positive return on investment.
However, do not blame the tools for the lack of craftsmanship. A car is faster than walking but only if you know how to drive!
Otherwise it’s just a very small and expensive rain shelter.
Market - > Message - > Media
This is the mantra of effective marketing. How can you make the decision on whether to use newspaper advertising, tradeshow exhibiting or Google adwords without knowing who you are targeting and what you need them know?
The first stage of defining your market is often the most difficult for business owners. In reality, you’d probably be happy to have any customer willing to pay and therefore don’t want to limit yourself to a particular sector. Unless your budget is comparable to Tesco’s or Coca Cola’s, then you probably need to get a little more specific. In truth, those big companies with seemingly unlimited budgets will still be targeting specific audiences with their campaigns.
To start you off, pick your best (most profitable) customers to date and look for the commonalities. You might compare location, age, sex, business sector, earning level, interest groups, education, peer group, family status etc.
Once you have found a target group, you need to decide on and effective message. The key point here is to stand out. If you are in a market with competition, then you need to be creative enough to clearly stand out. Will a prospect seeing or hearing your piece of marketing have a clear and compelling reason to choose you? Or are you just saying the same things as your competitors.
Give them the ‘wow’ factor or lose out to your competition.
Now you have your market and your message, the task of choosing the most appropriate media is far easier. Where are the places your market frequent, the publications they read, the people they listen to? Online marketing is becoming more and more powerful with the ability to target very specific groups with search engines, targeted banners and social media resources.
But all that takes time and effort and you’ve got a business to run!
Who wants more customers anyway…
