The Marketing Minefield
As traditional forms of marketing & advertising continue to lose ground to interactive media trends, the question of how best to market your product/service is becoming evermore pertinent.
It's a potential minefield for most small businesses who typically have limited experience of marketing &, almost certainly, no marketing plan. Throwing money at a marketing budget is certainly no guarantee of success. It's vital that small businesses invest time & thought into developing some kind of marketing strategy. Simply put: without a plan, you're going nowhere.
Here are 3 basic strategies to consider:
Be consistent
Research suggests that it takes 8 impressions of the same message to reach a customer who's never heard of your business. It takes 3 impressions of the same message to reach an existing customer who knows you & may currently be using your service. Consistency & repetition are therefore crucial. Have a clear message & get it out there - over & over again!
Be remarkable
In the Seth Godin school of thought, the best strategy is to make your business remarkable (i.e.: worthy of being remarked upon). In the past, marketing has often been used to dress up unremarkable ideas or products but this is increasingly difficult to do as Web 2.0-generation customers are developing an immunity to old media influences.
The solution then is to identify something remarkable about your business, something that's worth shouting about. Word-of-mouth marketing is the Holy Grail of marketing: if you have a marketing message that's truly worth talking about, it'll spread itself like a virus (& with a minimum of investment).
Be talked about positively
It's one thing to be remarkable but it's quite another to be remarked upon in a positive way. Dissatisfied customers allegedly relate their experiences to 7 or 8 people whereas satisfied customers only relate their experiences to 2 or 3 people. On the other hand, good customer service is apparently so rare that outstanding examples can have significant impact (as illustrated in this I heart Zappos post).
Being unorthodox is by no means a bad thing as long as you have quality to back it up with.
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