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Are you feeling like you need to step up your marketing efforts? If that’s the case, here are some ideas to consider. Some may be new, but you may also be reminded of ideas that you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t had time to implement. For quick reference, we’ve organized the ideas by category. Take a look and see if any of these would help build your business! Market Planning and Research 1. Update or create a marketing plan for your business. To make sure you get optimal results, your business should have a marketing plan that aligns timing, tactics and implementation with market opportunities. 2. Ask your customers how you’re doing -- revisit or begin customer satisfaction research. 3. Revisit your Value proposition – does it still ring true? 4. Refine your target audience and niche. 5. Explore the advantages of offering a new product or service in combination with your current business. Example - conduct focus groups and get input from your target market. Check over your Marketing Materials 6. Take a close look at your business cards -- do they still represent the right image and convey key information about your business? 7. Think about printed materials – does your business need to create or update a brochure / sales sheet to leave behind with customers? 8. Evaluate if you need to update your website. 9. Check your online directory listings and get listed in desirable directories. Person to Person Networking 10. Update your (and your company’s) voice mail message – keep it current, change it when you have new events or specials. 11. Enhance your email signature. 12. Revisit your elevator pitch. Does it still fit? Can you make it better? 13. Introduce yourself to other local business owners – you can do this in person or using Alignable.com. Explore creating a promotion with other local businesses. 14. Find a creative promotional product that fits your business and brand -- give them to prospective customers and referral sources. Direct Mail 15. Launch a targeted direct mail campaign. Think through your offer and call to action. You can create and test multiple approaches and measure their impact. 16. If you’ve used direct mail before, add tear cards, inserts or attention getting envelops to increase the impact of your mailing. 17. Contact past customers; send them an incentive to refer you or revisit your business. Consider Advertising 18. If your business appeals to a wide target market, explore radio, billboard or even local TV advertising. 19. Use your car as a billboard – add a magnet, sticker or car wrap. If you have employees, see if they would be willing to add your magnet to their cars. 20. Use a sidewalk sign for specials or to attract walk in traffic. 21. Run a Google AdWords (Google Ads) campaign 22. Create a Groupon to attract new customers or get them to try a new product or service. Social Media Marketing 23. Experiment with social media for your business – or evaluate the results of your current efforts. 24. Advertise on social media to attract new followers. 25. If your business sells to other businesses, try advertising on LinkedIn. 26. Evaluate starting a business blog. 27. If you already have a blog, try using video – add a video blog, and short video posts for your social media accounts. 28. List your business on Google My Business. 29. Add photos and videos to your Google My Business profile. 30. Create a post for your Google My Business profile. Email Marketing 31. Add an email opt-in on your website or blog. 32. Create an offer that encourages people to add their email address to your list. 33. Send periodic email campaigns to your list. 34. Measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Less Usual Marketing 35. Create a business mascot to help promote your brand. This can be fun! 36. Take a stance on a hot industry or community topic, one that you have in-depth knowledge of or that aligns with your brand values. We hope you found this post of value. Did you find some ideas to try?
Please be aware that not all ideas will fit your business -- and the success of many of them depends on having the right messaging and timing. For help with planning or message development, contact us. While marketing a business takes thoughtful planning, implementation, feedback and adjustment, developing a clear positioning statement can make your efforts easier and more successful. This is because the positioning statement helps guide your tactical marketing efforts and internal operations to work together for better outcomes. 4 Steps to Create a Successful Positioning Statement When creating your market position statement, focusing on these four elements will help ensure you have a quality end result. 1) Identify and articulate the profile of your most profitable customer Take an inventory of your past and current customers. Which ones have provided you with the most sustained and profitable business? Identify them and list out what you know about them. For example, a B2C business would want to list socioeconomic characteristics – demographics such as age, gender, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, or average size of family. Highlight the characteristics they have in common to create your optimal customer profile. This is the target market that you offer the best solutions to fit their situations/needs. Remember – keep it narrow! You are not eliminating others who may purchase your offerings - just focusing your efforts and resources towards those most closely aligned with your business success.
2) What / Who is Your Competition? Potential customers have a wide range of methods to research buying solutions and comparing competing offerings. This increases the importance of clear, concise messaging that enables the researcher to find, and easily understand, your business offerings and how they differ from your competition. So find out where you stand.
3) Why Are You Different and Better for Your Target Customer? Now that you have clearly identified your target customer and competition, define how your company offerings are superior to the other alternatives. Begin by brainstorming a list of all the ways your company and its products/services are different and better than the competitions. Next, prioritize this list by the perceived value to your target customer. (You may want to survey them to find out which have the most value to them.) Select the top two or three differentiators -- you'll need these for the next step. 4) Write your Market Positioning Statement This is a short statement describing your business and its remarkable qualities -- what you offer and how it uniquely solves your target customer's problem. It must be a memorable phrase - one you can use when introducing your company. Remember – shorter is better! Have it contain the top two or three distinguishing aspects you identified in the step above, coupled with the specific characteristics of your target customer. Test it out on many people to ensure that employees, customers and those you meet can all recite it with ease. Using our previous example, the firm might have found that their personalized knowledge of the client’s situation, quick response and ability to work to prevent legal hassles was most valued by their clients. Their statement might read – Our business offers highly personalized legal expertise and rapid, proactive response to small for- profit environmental lobbying organizations. In conclusion, taking the time to go through these four steps helps gain the perspective and understanding necessary for creating market positioning statement. Ultimately, your positioning statement can be used as a guide for your company’s culture, marketing efforts and allocation of time and resources. A laser like focus on your preferred target customer will increase the return on your marketing efforts, the top line and ultimately impact the long-term success of your business.
Thanks for reading! If you have questions or need help with positioning your business, please Contact us.  You’ve got big dreams ... and a great idea for a business. But striking out on your own seems incredibly risky. In fact, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA), over 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years. But then again, if you never try you’ll never know -- and that can be a huge regret as well. So go for it! Just do it in a way that gives you the best odds for success. One of the first things you can do to even out those odds is start with a solid value proposition. If you haven't created a value proposition before, don't worry. There's more than one way to do it, and two of them are listed below to help guide your thinking. Option One -- Two simple sentences The first sentence has four parts:
The second sentence clarifies:
 Option 2 - Just three questions
 Creating a value proposition is helpful not only as a guide for your thinking, but to refer to later in your marketing. Have you used either of these? Which do you prefer, or have you used something better? We always welcome your questions and comments! Thanks! Nancy MacCreery *The example is only for illustration. As far as I know, it's not a real idea. |
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