Marketing can be a scary word. When you first hear it, it’s easy to imagine crazy costs and complicated software you just can’t get your head around.
But learning even the basics of marketing can be a cost-effective way to help you attract more customers and increase your profits. All you need to do is take that first step, once you do, you’ll realise it was never really that scary after all. Here are our five ways to overcome your fear of marketing and make it work for your business.
No-one knows your customers better than you. Knowing exactly who it is you’re talking to and what they want to hear should be at the heart of your marketing. Taking the time to talk to your customers (and potential customers) is an effective and low-cost way to encourage more sales and can ensure that your future marketing ideas will work.
Try asking for feedback on what you can improve upon; your customers are the best people to tell you what they want from your products and services. If somebody gives you some positive feedback, ask them if you can use their comments on your marketing so that potential customers can see how great your service is. Similarly if a customer gives you some negative feedback try not to be disheartened and think instead about what you could change so that that issue doesn’t happen to another customer in the future.
Other ways to learn more about your customers include attending networking events, sending out a monthly email newsletter, or posting interesting and helpful updates on social media. Focusing your attention on the people who need and want your products or services will make your marketing more specific and more likely to be successful.
When you’re starting out you don’t need to worry about splashing the cash on big budget campaigns. Get the basics right first, because even the smallest of steps can create good results. Try posting on Facebook a couple times a week, or sending a monthly email newsletter to your customers to let them know about your latest news or offers.
89% of customers start their buying process with an internet search. To help you make sure that potential customers can find your business, you can learn the basics by reading our 6 key steps to using online business listings for marketing. Taking the simple step of claiming your listings will give you valuable results quickly and at no cost.
One of the biggest worries many people have when it comes to marketing is how long it will take. With all your time taken up running a business, it’s easy to wonder how you’ll possibly find the time to do anything else.
Using tools to schedule emails automatically or to manage your social media means you can spend less time fiddling with the technology side of sending it all out, and more time thinking about what it is you’re sharing with people. Scheduling won’t just free up more of your time, it will keep the level of marketing that you do regular without increasing the costs or requiring you to take on new staff.
There’s no point in marketing your business if you don’t check that what you’re doing is working. There are plenty of ways you can do this, whether it’s asking your customers how they heard about your business at the till or sending an email asking for feedback.
If you want to get more technical you could take a look at some of the built in measurement tools on Facebook and email scheduling programmes like Mailchimp as these can show you things like how many people opened your emails and how many people clicked through to your website as a result of your marketing efforts.
With everything a local business owner has on their plate, it’s unsurprising that sometimes marketing gets put to the bottom of the to-do list. It can feel overwhelming, but there’s plenty of help you can access to make sure you feel confident in what you’re doing.
Take a look at the articles we’ve got on our website for further advice, or try joining LinkedIn groups for small business owners to ask questions to other people like you. You could also consider working with an external marketing expert to help you manage each aspect of your marketing or you could just decide to take the plunge and work your way through each of the above steps, it’s really not as scary as it seems.
We’ve got more articles that can help you conquer any worries you might have about marketing with simple, step-by-step techniques. Read these for more ideas:
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