Marketing Strategies

[DayTrader]

In any business, whether they are offering services or products, marketing is important to push the service or product to the target audience. There are a lot of different marketing strategies. A certain strategy may work on a certain product, but another strategy may not. Please share your marketing experiences, whether good or bad, for us to learn more from each other.

[JKansas]

For the more grassroots/ low budget I would suggest attacking groups. By attackign I mean gear the materials, your presentation and delivery specifically towards groups and how their individuals can get involved. Groups already state their interest (gun club, car club, church group) so you can easily target your market. They tend to have announcements and enjoy group discounts. Maybe say members of _________ group gets a 10% discount this month. The leaders like that you bring value to their group and it can be very cheap (to nearly nothing) to advertise this way. Most groups have websites with published contact info. A night of googling and a few emails can result in contacting several hundred potential clients in your market. I feel this is more towards an online or more retail presence though. For more personal sales you can get a lot of half-interested replys that can end up taking up a lot of time with little success. However, it at least get's yoru name out there to people in your market.

[DayTrader]

Marketing to groups is a great idea. Giving discounts to bulk orders wouldn't be such a bad idea either. It would certainly create sales even if the profit would be smaller. Offering products or services to groups could gain sales not only from them, but it can extend to their personal friends and relatives. Especially if your product is of best quality. Marketing to groups or clubs can create another marketing strategy called Word of Mouth (WOM). WOM is a very powerful strategy. It can spread like fire, if you position your products or services right.

[Advertising Swami]

I've found it useful to discern the difference between strategy and tactics. Most people, when
they talk about marketing a business, get these two confused.

One of the better books on the subject is "Bottom Up Marketing" by Ries and Trout. I recommend reading it,
because it is likely to advance your thinking on the topic substantially.

[GoodbyeToronto]

I agree with JKansas, know your audience and give them what they need. For any full service marketing campaign, the key is always to have an understanding of who the customer is and what could they want from your brand. Making the consumer a part of the brand experience is proving very important in the online marketplace as well.

[DayTrader]

Speaking about giving service, after-sale service is very important in maintaining your existing customers. When customers are satisfied with your service and they feel valued, they will easily go back to you. You will be on top of their list of suppliers. You get the priority. Apart from producing best quality products, your personal service to customers should also be a priority.

[JKansas]

Very true Daytrader... one thing we have a problem with is how to charge for this after-sale service. The national companies charge no matter what... small providers tend to not charge as often. It spreads the word of our business and shows our cusomers we care about them. We do care, but ccasionaly we get taken advantage of, but we have to weigh the outcomes. It's hard to implement a concrete system so we really just wing it. If the customer is aggreable and not rude to us we tend to take care of them for free or at our cost. If they are rude or obnoxious or scamming us then we tend to charge, but that's maybe 1 in 15 cases. The ones we end up charging aren't going to say good things about us anyways. The ones we help for free or our cost tend to say good things long afterwards... I've had strangers tell me a story they heard from one of my clients from 3 years ago so I know it does work.

[ksteffen]

One of the greatest marketing tools that people can use is the press release.

There are several companies/sites that will actually write and distribute releases for you. I recently found this great company online.

MyPRGuide will take well-written press releases and put them directly into the hands of those you need your company’s latest news to reach!

It’s a really simple process. All you do is go to myprguide.com and fill out a form to tell them about the news you’d like to announce and select the distribution package you want.

A team of professional practitioners will write your press release according to your standards. They will be in touch with you within 5 business days to go over any edits you may have, just to make sure you’re completely satisfied.

After your approval, they distribute it and put it in the hands of those you need to reach!

What’s even better….they just lowered their prices, so writing and distributing ranges from $99 to $199 depending on your distribution choice.

I promise you won’t be disappointed with the results. Check out the site and follow them on Twitter and Facebook!