When running a business, one of the most important areas that you need to focus on, is marketing. You can’t possibly expect anyone to know who you are – let alone buy from you – if you aren’t doing all that you can to market yourself and your business to the max. Owning a business, in general, isn’t going to be easy. Many people have this preconceived idea that an easy way to make money is to run a business. They assume that as long as they have a good idea to start with, everything else will be a breeze and they’ll become an overnight success. Well, unfortunately, this isn’t how the game goes.
There are so many ups and downs that you will be faced with throughout your journey, and just when you think that you’re past all of the downs and you’re really beginning to get somewhere – you’ll be hit with a ton of complications that you need to get through. This isn’t said to put you off, but it’s important that you know the downside before you think that this is for you. It IS hard, you WILL be faced with struggles, you WILL want to quit many times. And because of all of that, you will need to be determined, motivated, driven, focused, mentally strong, hardworking, and positive. Then and only then, will you truly be able to do what needs to be done. That of course, and the help of good ol’ marketing.
Marketing can be as intricate or as simple as you make it, there really are no rules, and that’s what makes it even better. As long as you have a little creativity stored away inside, there is no reason that you won’t be able to think of endless ways to promote your business and shine a positive light on what you’re doing, that then creates a buzz and a stir, and people can’t help but get in touch and do business with you.
Customers are so crucial to every business, and one wrong move could ruin you forever. You see, these are the people that judge you and scrutinize and decide on whether your business is good enough for them. That’s just how things work. So you want to make sure that you do all you can to look your best and give the people what they want. The same goes for the kind of service you’re giving them. If for any reason you find yourself in a disagreement with a customer and they aren’t happy with the service they have received, they have every right to speak negatively about you online. This is the worst possible thing that could happen to you that you will want to avoid at all costs.
Feedback is what makes or breaks you, so if you have negative comments plastered around on the web about you, it’s going to be extremely hard to salvage any kind of customer relationship because people will be put off. Don’t give customers a reason to talk about a bad experience they’ve had with you. If ever there is an issue, your job is to solve it as soon as possible and give the customer what they want, or the closest thing to that. Things can’t always go perfectly, but as long as you are able to make up for them afterward, you will remain in people’s good books.
The amount of marketing strategies that are out there is never-ending, but it’s all down to you to decide what road you want to take, and how many.
Here are some ideas to get you started.
Social Media
Social media is one of the biggest platforms out there in our current society. So when owning a business, if you get yourself a decent following – people will want to know who you are. Of course, when you first start out, it will take a little time to get your bearings and reach out to your selected audience, but once you have an idea of the best way to do that, you can end up with a wide array of loyal followers. Take Instagram for example, this is a platform that is centered around photographs and videos, so as long as they are enticing and get people excited, you will do well. You want to think about what kind of message you’re trying to put out there, and also what kind of audience you want to accumulate.
Hashtags are another important aspect of ensuring you are placed in the necessary categories. For example, if you are a female clothing store, you will want to include hashtags like “#ootd, #fashion, #girls” in your posts. If you’re struggling with producing a successful video that you want to properly reflect what you do as a business, you could always request the help from top professionals like Zip In Media Productions LLC to get you where you need to be. Once you begin to post regular good content, you will begin to see your number of followers increase, and that’s when you know you’re doing something right.
Blogging
Blogging is a way of putting your business out there through the art of text. You see, blogs are very useful because they often tell us how to do things that we can’t. People merely type in a question through their search engine and then get the answer, and most of the time, those answers are from blogs. You have two options here, you can either partner up with a very successful blog already, and they can purposely include you in some articles with a link back to your website or page. This works well because you don’t need to do any real work for this, and yet you reap the benefits.
Or you can start your own blog yourself, but know that this isn’t something that just happens overnight, and you will need to direct any followers that you already have to it, and then have them grow from there, because if no one is reading what you’re writing about, there’s just no point bothering. Although this is an alternative that requires quite a bit of time, effort, and of course patience, it does have it’s advantages because you have complete free range over what you talk about, and how you talk about it. And once you do make a name for yourself and your blog, this can really bring in new customers.
Sponsored
Getting yourself sponsored for free is an absolute privilege because that means that a very public figure or influencer genuinely likes what you’re selling and is a real customer of yours already, so if ever you are blessed with the moment someone promotes your business without even speaking to them – well done you. If you’re just starting out though, you can’t expect for this to happen right away, and so you may choose to pay for a feature instead. The price of this all depends on who you contact – the more of an influence they have, the more money you will most likely have to pay. This can really do wonders for a business though so it’s definitely worth the money if you are able to afford it.
People like to know what their role models like, it’s almost a way of feeling closer to them if they use the same clothing brand as them or even the same hygiene products. If the person you contact agrees, you will then decide how you would like them to promote your business, but this will most likely be via social media, be it Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, or YouTube. Sometimes, if you already have an extremely good following, you may even be contacted first to be asked to collaborate with a brand or company, and this can also help you a lot. Essentially it works as a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ agreement.
Now you have some ideas, you can begin to think of other ways to pick your business up off the ground and go running with it. Remember that you will want to think about all of these strategies like a trial and error process. While some things will work amazingly well for some businesses, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will work for you, so rather than spending so much time trying to force things to work, it may just be better to stop with your efforts and move onto something else. As long as you have a team behind you that knows exactly what your customers want and how you can all – as a business – fill that void for them, you shouldn’t have any problems making sales and getting the success that you all deserve. Just know that it will take time, and as frustrating as that may be at times, it will all pay off in the long run if you give it your all and the rest of your team does the same thing.