Effective Marketing Tips for Your Business
One of the most challenging questions for many businesses is… how do I find new prospects? If you’re good at what you do, converting those leads to sales is probably a little easier, but initially finding good, quality potential clients is a different challenge altogether.
In this article, we’ll present you with a few techniques you can implement to help extend your reach to quality and qualified potential clients.
1. Start a Search Engine Marketing Campaign
One of the first avenues a business can generate targeted leads to prequalified prospects is via a search engine marketing campaign.
A key advantage of a search engine marketing campaign is that potential clients follow a process that demonstrates their interest in your product, service, or your brand by following a sort of “funneled” experience:
- First, your prospect has to actively search for your product or service by using targeted keywords on a search engine
- Next, after they’ve submitted their search, they see your ad
- Then, your ad is effective in appealing to their needs and interests
- Your prospect then clicks on your ad, which leads them to a landing page designed specifically to correlate with your advertisement
- Finally, on that landing page, the prospect is driven to some sort of action… either ordering online, submitting an email contact request, or even simply calling a phone number to reach your business
Overall, a search engine marketing campaign is an excellent method to present your business, your products, or your services to prequalified potential clients and determine their level of interest right from the start.
2. Leverage Social Media
Social media is something that many businesses (especially small businesses) tend to shy away from, typically for one of three reasons:
- They don’t understand how to properly leverage it
- They’re intimidated by it
- Or, they simply don’t have the time
All valid concerns. But often, businesses need to explore new avenues to find new ways of discovering new business. At times, that meets moving outside of one’s comfort-zone in order to attempt new strategies.
The importance of social media is that it functions as another form of a potentially (large-scale) “networking group.”
In order to fully leverage and understand the idea of social media, it’s important to approach it from the standpoint of a community. Direct-response advertising via social media will not work, nor should it. That’s not what it’s intended to be. In fact, if you attempt a direct-response approach, more than likely any social media marketing efforts you pursue will fail… miserably.
The intent of social media is to build a thriving connection with others. It’s a platform where businesses can garner their experience and demonstrate the fact that they are a trusted advisor in their field.
That being said, it does also provide an avenue to extend special offers or promotions to those who are connected to your social network… which can, indeed, lead to sales.
Social media doesn’t guarantee sales overnight. What it does guarantee, however, is that it allows you the possibility of making valuable connections with people who view your experience, engagement, and knowledge as valuable assets. This, in turn can ultimately lead to new relationships with clients and ultimately lead to more sales.
3. Direct Mail Can Work
Without a doubt, many people and businesses receive a great deal of junk mail these days. So much so that we often throw away an entire stack of mail without looking through each individual piece.
If it looks like they’re selling something, it gets tossed.
But, direct mail can still work, when executed appropriately.
One method of executing a direct mail campaign may be by personally writing a handwritten note to a potential client, with a handwritten envelope. Typically, anything that looks a little more personal from the outside has a much higher chance of being opened than something more official.
You might consider including a special gift for this potential (or even current) client. Gifts are well-received and let your prospect or current client know that you really care about them, and not just because of the checks they write, either. It helps to build relationships with people, businesses, or prospects.
One of the largest motivating factors in today’s economy is that many consumers or businesses do not purchase what products or services you have to offer. Instead, they buy you. Who you are. What you’re about. They want to feel comfortable with who they partner with or who they purchase from.
So, find a way to connect with your potential clients in a way they can appreciate.
4. Be Informed About How Your Marketing Performs
No matter which avenue or avenues you pursue for marketing your business, it’s extremely important that you understand exactly where every dollar is being spent and that you know exactly how each investment is performing for you.
These days, it is very important and there are many methods for determining marketing and advertising performance.
A professional involved in working with clients day in and day out will have the tools necessary in demonstrating exactly how your campaigns perform, what works, what doesn’t work, and what sort of changes can be made to any of your businesses’ marketing and advertising efforts in the future.
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