Three Easy Smart Marketing Tips
It’s easier than ever to market your organization these days. With the evolution of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, word-of-mouth marketing can travel longer distances faster. You can easily hire someone to make a website to promote your business. And with easy-to-use design software, even a novice can make sharp-looking brochures and business cards.
But if you’re able to market through all of these various outlets, remember that everyone else can too. So how do you make your floor scrubbers outshine the thousands of cleaning equipment options out there or help your brand of coffee stand out against all the other cups of Joe?
Smart marketing is key.
Know your Audience
Marketing and advertising can get expensive. Know where to allocate your resources to pack the biggest punch for your business. If you’re looking to appeal to a younger audience, social media will be your best friend.
Twenty-somethings aren’t looking to newspaper advertisements and commercial spots on the evening news for information on what products to buy. Half the generation has probably never needed to pick up a phone book, so advertising in the Yellow Pages is a lost cause.
And if a twenty-something can’t Google your business and find some sort of a website that offers information about what your business offers, when it’s open and where it’s located, they’ll probably just move on to their next option.
Small Investment, Big Impact
Getting your name out there can be as simple as reaching out to unlikely customers with your website and social media information in hand. A struggling coffee shop might pull in new business if it offers a few free pounds of beans along with business cards that include this website and social media information to small businesses in the area, such as law firms and banks.
It would get the name of the coffee shop out into the community and snag potential customers who may have never had the opportunity to sample the product otherwise (plus there’s a chance those local businesses would purchase bulk orders when their samples run out). The same can be done if that same coffee shop pairs up with local restaurants to be the chosen coffee they serve with dessert.
Use Email Lists Carefully
Businesses often have email lists that they use to keep customers up-to-date on the latest happenings at their business. But it is easy to get carried away. Customers probably gave you their email address to get a coupon or upon checkout after their first purchase.
Spam them with daily deals and specials and you could drive them away. Offer email server participants options for how often they’d like to be contacted and with what information. Or, if your email service doesn’t offer options, keep the emails short, sweet and to the point – and at a rate of no more than once a week. To encourage people to stay on your email lists, offer coupons from time to time to keep them opening your emails so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.
After reading about how to market your cleaning equipment business, you’re probably interested in learning more about how to craft a good marketing email. Guest post written by Shane Jones.