Marketing is crucial to every business. In today’s world of cut throat competition the importance of marketing is increasing by leaps and bounds. However, marketing needs a well defined strategy. Mere marketing for the sake of marketing can hardly translate into sales. The best approach is to keep your marketing strategy simple.
Having customers in local areas is of great importance to any business. It helps you build trust from the block level, and at the same time ensures you have steady source of loyal buyers. To start with, you need to focus on networking. Hooking up with schools, government agencies, major employers, churches and social organizations can help you get a firm footing in the market. Go the whole hog to ensure that your association is beneficial to every local level establishment. To stay ahead in the competition, back up your marketing strategy with quality, accountability, discipline, etc.
Given below are few simple ways to create awareness about your business
Hand shake and business card: There is no substitute to meeting people in person and talking to them about your business. Talk about how they would stand to gain from your business than about what you have to offer. Leave a card behind to remind them about your business in your absence. Meet as many people as you can. Even if a fraction of people turn into customers, by the end of the year you will have a substantial number of loyal buyers. Handbills do help, but they only elicit a casual or passing interest and can in no way replace personal meetings. However, handbills issued every now and then, can be a good way to reinforce your publicity stints.
Support Fundraisers: Fund raising programs can provide you an ideal platform to promote your business. You not only associate yourself with a cause, but subtly carry your advertisement out. For instance, you can get some signboards set up on behalf of the local body area, requesting people not to litter the area, with the name of your agency below. If you are into T-shirt business, and promoting the cause of the pernicious effects of smoking, you can print a few hundred of such shirts and distribute it to college students, in a sport meet, or any other college function. Initiating a cause, like collecting books for the under privileged, with you playing the lead role can also be a good attention catching move.
Special Offers: Special discount sales have their place of importance in public mind. Two in one offers or lucky draw lottery can arrest the interest of customers and draw them like a moth towards a candle.
The above mentioned strategies are easy to initiate, can be quickly planned, are result yielding and cost little. Instead of pouring dollars into media advertisements, you can drive sales using your own product as the incentive and have complete control over developments. .