Q: How can I successfully promote my brand?
Sep 07 2010
Answered by: Marc Barber Ask a question
The first thing to do is decide what you want to say about yourself, your product and your business. If you do not know, how can your customers? But knowing the message is not the end of the story. You have to decide who to send it to and how you are going to do it. If your message is not received loud and clear, your customers will not understand why they should buy from you or what it is they are getting. If they do not know the reason for buying, there will be no sales; if they have the wrong reason for buying, there will be dissatisfaction.
If you do not manage to communicate effectively the benefits of your product or service, your business will fail. The message, and getting it across, is crucial. Broadly, marketing is all about getting your message across. But marketing can be an expensive habit if it is undirected, too ethereal and without a clear purpose. Small businesses need to market, but more and more the marketing should be focused on generating direct responses, on building communications with your target group of customers rather than broad-brush image generation.
Here are some areas to look at:
-Flyers, leaflets and data sheets are a way you can convey information about the benefits of your product to your target customers.
-Advertising can create attention, inform, remind, prompt sales and improve the image of your product. But the return from advertising is uncertain. It costs more and takes longer than you think.
-Focus on direct-response advertising, which encourages readers to contact you about your product. You can enter details in your marketing database and send offers to them until you convert them to customers.
-Do not rely on one form of advertising to achieve your objectives. If you can afford it, use a mixture and try to organise a spread of advertising over a period of time (unless you need specific timing for your product).
-Advertising must be consistent with the impressions of your product and business that you are endeavouring to foster among potential buyers.
-Think carefully before you set up a website. You may spend as much time and effort marketing the website as you do marketing your product.
-And don’t forget social media - it’s an excellent and relatively cheap way to market your business.
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