The key to any business generating significant profit is exposure. You can have a genius concept, high-quality products, and perfect customer service, but if nobody knows that your brand exists, you aren’t going to make any sales. So, it’s time to get your brand out there! But remember, successful marketing campaigns rely on so much more than exposure alone. You need to know and understand your target audience and ensure that these individuals, in particular, are persistently exposed to your brand. This involves having your finger in every pie. Read on for everything you need to know about running a successful marketing campaign.
Conducting Effective Market Research
Market research is the most effective way to gain an understanding of the marketplace and your consumers. You can come to know the demographic you’re dealing with: their age, gender, interests and perhaps most importantly, their disposable income. This will allow you to price your products accordingly, making them affordable to those you are intending to sell to. It also allows you to know what products could prove profitable in the future, allowing you to develop products for your future inventory. Market research can also be used to scope out your competition. It will show where your target audience is currently spending its money and allows you to undercut the competitor in these areas, bringing their customer base over to your brand. If you haven’t conducted market research before, there are four main methods that most businesses tend to favor: interviews, surveys, questionnaires and focus groups. Surveys and questionnaires will be able to gather information easily from a large sample of people. They can be distributed by post or email to hundreds or even thousands of individuals. Focus groups, however, will give you the most in-depth information and findings, as you can engage with those participating as individuals, gaining further insight into their perspectives and views of what you are offering.
Corporate PR
A corporate PR firm aims to maximize their client’s potential for growth through their specialized services. They expose your brand to the right people at the right time. Once you know who your goods and services are catering to, a corporate PR agency will be able to land you product placements in shows that these people watch, interviews in the publications that they read and to set up events in the places that they frequent. Essentially, they will ensure that your brand is making an appearance wherever your potential customers are. Companies such as AMW Group use a dedicated publicist to start the conversation between you and those who plan to buy from you. All you need to do from this point on is to provide them with what they are looking for and provide brilliant customer service. Perfect!
Collaboration
Collaborate with influencers. Influencers are people who hold high esteem or a predominant position amongst those who your products are catering to. They may be minor celebrities or individuals with a large follower base on social media. Strike deals with these people. You can often receive advertising on their feeds or public appearances in exchange for free goods or a small payment. If you have a clothes label, request that they wear a branded product in their next interview. If you have a food chain, encourage them to upload a picture of your products on their Instagram feeds. If people see influential and inspiring individuals enjoying your brand, they’re likely to follow suit. Remember to ensure that your staff are supplied with branded t shirts or jackets (depending on the weather), so everyone knows who they are representing. You may also have to apply for permits or passes to engage with members of the public in busy areas.
Hire Professional Promotional Staff
Instead of leaving leaflets lying around, hire promotional staff to hand them directly to potential customers. These individuals can create a real stir around your brand, enthusiastically engaging with the public. The key to making a name for your brand is being proactive. So choose bright, engaging individuals and supply them with a brief that includes information on your brand and specific details of products that they should promote fervently. Alternatively, use these staff members to hand out free samples or vouchers and money off codes to the public. This way, the public can learn about your goods while trying them out for themselves. Once they have a taste of good customer service and high-quality products, they’re bound to come back for more.
Making the Most of Online Advertising
People are spending more and more time online. We use the internet for work, social purposes and to shop. So capitalize on this. Targeted advertising is perhaps easier online than anywhere else thanks to cookies. Try to get your listings as high on search engine results as possible. People are unlikely to go much further than three pages into any search, so you want your site and products to appear as high in the list as possible. You can sponsor posts or you can use services like Google Ads to get your items in the most noticeable and prominent advertising spots online.
Employing Effective Web Design
Use effective design on your business’ web page. These can be easily added by an experienced web designer for an affordable price but will make all the difference to your exposure to customers. Have a pop up on your home page, allowing users to sign up to your mailing list. This means that you can keep in touch with them, alerting them to special offers, discounts, sales, and events, bringing them back to make more purchases in the future. If you don’t get many sign ups, entice users to join by offering a small discount on their first purchase.
If you follow all of these steps, your brand will quickly become recognized among the people who are likely to buy from you and you will see the profits come rolling in. All of this will only take a matter of time and a small investment, but it will be worth every second and penny.
Nice article that covers the basics … the nitty gritty details make it complex, but this will give the dorm room entrepreneur off and running.