Marketing is simply the process of getting potential clients or customers interested in your products and services. It’s more than selling.
It involves many other things like product distribution, promotion, pricing, designing, creating websites and social media content, building customer experience, conducting market research, establishing target markets, and much more.
Some of the mistakes businesses make include not marketing their products consistently or even failing to dedicate time for marketing.
Other mistakes include not engaging someone to focus on the marketing function and for the bigger businesses, not hiring a marketing expert to provide direction on key messages and channels to explore and fully utilise.
I have seen many business owners lose sales because they do not engage with customers or respond to requests in a timely manner.
In today’s market, a serious business person can‘t afford not to develop their technical skills like photography, running ad campaigns, developing strategies and most importantly, making use of automated systems to simplify their marketing. Such systems include Hootsuite and Facebook Business Suite.
You might not have the funds to have a dedicated marketing team but there is always something you can do.
Start small by implementing cost-effective marketing strategies like social media marketing. Other strategies you can explore include email marketing, leveraging on referrals and word-of-mouth marketing, networking as well as pitching newsworthy stories to media outlets.
One of the most effective ways to reach potential leads and customers online is through marketing your products and services on social media.
With new features like Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Shop, businesses have the potential to reach millions of customers and sell products without a physical location.
Other effective ways include building a search engine optimisation (SEO) friendly website, listing your business on Google My Business, sending emails to your niche audience, running google ad words and running Facebook and Instagram adverts.
You can also explore Pay Per click, display banner ads, remarketing, leveraging on credible influencers, organising webinars and live events, video marketing, publishing blogs or sending articles to be published on online media outlets.
Successful marketing requires a solid understanding of the market, customers, products and competitors.
There are various tactics to implement to reach customers, build trust, outshine your competitors and make sales. Also, it is important to note that it takes a long time to build a brand.
You might not achieve your sales targets immediately. It also takes a long time to build trust and get consumer buy-in.
Entrepreneurs should take risks, be consistent, invest time and resources in building the visibility of the brand and really creating meaningful authentic customer experiences.
They should also closely monitor and heavily invest in marketing activities that are most effective. In addition to that, quality should not be compromised to save some dollars neither should marketing take a back-seat.
