Marketing is an ongoing effort for all companies and businesses, and it is what keeps the customers coming in through the doors, whether virtual or physical. Whether you have a traditional physical business or a virtual store-front, you need to make sure that you have customers coming through your shop doors or shopping on your site. Whilst many companies have a long tradition of sales behind them, and are therefore well known with repeat customers, smaller start-up businesses need to attract sales and attention, and turn interested passers-by into buying customers.
Make your business marketing unique and noticeable
It is not particularly difficult to market a product these days, as there are many ways of doing so; advertisements in magazines, flyers, bonus offers, special deals such as “Buy three and only pay for two”, radio advertisements, and advertising online through a dedicated website (store-front) as well as buying pop-up advertising placed on popular websites which catch the eye of customers who are unaware of your business offerings. Whatever you do, your marketing must be effective and bring in the financial return (sales) on your investment. You need to be able to read the market and its needs, and find slogans or taglines which make your business or product stand out amongst all the others. You have to offer something unique, even if many other companies are selling similar products. You need to be able to convince potential customers that your products are the best choice for them, either because of keener pricing, speed of delivery or assured quality and results of the products. This is why reviews and customer feedback is so important in sales, as a product with consistently good reviews will sell automatically. And don’t be led into thinking that people, when buying online, do not look at other buyers’ reviews. Poor reviews will sink your product before potential customers have even tried it themselves. Online store-fronts are, in a way, far more open than traditional physical stores as they offer the opportunity for customers to post their reviews online for others to see. If you have a good product, these reviews will help to sell your product for you, but if there is doubt or negative reviews, potential customers will be wary and tend to look elsewhere, more or less forcing you to offer incentives which other businesses lack in order to persuade people to buy from you. Unless you have excess stock or know that the product line is going out of fashion – so to speak – and must be moved quickly, offering incentives to buy will inevitably hurt your profit margin.
Choose your marketing approach with care
When you have a new product or unique service to sell, you need to market this effectively and efficiently. You need to make the public aware of your offering, and persuade them to try it for themselves. This is where the so-called marketing ‘hype’ will come into play – pushing, persuading, cajoling, challenging customers to try the product before it is sold out or gone for good (“Never to return – so get it NOW!”). When you have been browsing online, how often have you seen offers which are “almost all gone”, “expiring within the next three hours”, “only available to a select few”? The result? It more or less forces you to make a quick decision and buy this fantastic product or take up this amazing offer before you lose out. So you will probably rush to place your order before reading more about the product, or even checking it out by Googling it generally and getting more facts, and even finding those important customer reviews. This is where marketing can be seen as being more detrimental to the customer’s interests by not giving them sufficient time to consider the purchase before it is made, and then finding out the cons once the money has been paid. ‘Push marketing’ definitely has its place in the advertising sphere, and can ramp up sales in a very short space of time, but it works on a form of panic buying by the public, which is not an ideal way to cement a steady and committed relationship with your customers, where they will continue to buy from you because they trust your service, quality, delivery and after-sales care.
What do you want from your marketing strategy?
The bottom line is : market with care. Market with the intention of building a solid base of happy and satisfied customers who, in turn, will spread the word about your company and your products, and thereby bring in further sales. Marketing is often a means of selling a product or service line quickly for a particular reason, introducing a new range, offering a discounted or extra-value service or product for a specific period only. On the other hand, steady marketing which is almost invisible because it is so well known, acts on our subconscious and guides us into buying products which are familiar to us and, therefore, ‘safe’ and reliable. Both types of marketing have their place and purpose, and both are effective in their own way. You just have to decide which is best for your business and aims, and wait for the response, but be willing to adapt your methods if necessary.
