Marketing is an art, and perfecting that art means finding a way to present the best side of your business to the world in a way that genuinely interests and engages your target market. Marketing has changed to such a huge degree in the last 10 years, it's important to stay on top of the latest trends and innovations to remain current, up to date and relevant as a business. In our fast paced, digital world it's almost impossible to conceive the idea of a ‘rule' because whenever we set one, a new innovation finds a way to break beyond those rules. However, there are some lasting principles - golden rules - that are timeless that can be applied to marketing, and especially applied to today's business world to reap the best results and revenues for your business.
Do More With What You Have
Do you have lists of leads for potential customers you've collected but aren't using them to make sales? Do you have hundreds of hits on your website and social media each day but no customers? If this is true for you, your brand may already be developed and generating interest, and spending more on just advertising may not be the best use of your marketing dollars. But what you do need is to turn this interest into revenue, by using the information, leads and contacts you already have.
When it comes to turning website hits into sale, a conversion rate optimization consultant is the person you need. They specialize in turning more of the people who visit your website just casually or for information into actual customers, meaning mere interest turns into profits for you. If you have a small business who's employees are already maxed out in terms of how much work they're handling, you will want to outsource some of this marketing and conversion work so that your team has time to focus on what they do best - sales.
Give Value to Get Value
One of the mistakes so many businesses make is using their marketing and advertising to only talk about themselves, their company, their products and their services, rather than providing something of value to the client. As a business you have the expert knowledge and wisdom about your industry that your customers are interested in, so share some of that value with them when you do your marketing. Great ways to do this can be through writing informative and interesting print articles, newsletters or blogs, posting useful facts and pictures of your products or services on social media, or providing free quotes or consultations to show your customers what you can do.
When it comes to making content, whether it's website, social media, blog or print, give content that gives value, whether it's valuable information about your business - who you are, what you do, and what makes you different, or about your product - what are its advantages, why is it necessary and why your customer should choose yours.
Be Innovative
Once an ad, blog or other marketing content goes viral, everybody knows that company name and brand. While it might be hard to create viral content, creating marketing that's interesting, innovative and unique is a great way to get people interested in your product and brand naturally, and create a buzz around what you are doing.
Being flexible and innovative with your marketing style is great too - that is until you find the ‘mix' or style that works best for you. Having trackable statistics to measure your marketing success is a great way to calculate this.
Keep It Real
Most important of all is keeping your company real - showing that it is run by real people for real people. Customers can sense right away when a company is not being genuine, and it's really difficult to put your trust in such an organization.
Using tasteful humour, being on the customer's side, providing value and getting good (genuine!) reviews from customers are great ways to generate trust and be seen as a real company of value that's worth investing in.
