Advice For The IT Channel: 4 Ways To Market Your Business
By Roger Franklin, President and CEO, Crystal
If you ask CEOs to name the most difficult aspect of their businesses, most will say the greatest challenge is reaching and retaining customers. The best way to educate your customers about your brand and the services you offer is through a strategic and coordinated approach to marketing.
Marketing a business can be a time consuming and costly endeavor. If done correctly, your company will reap the rewards. There are many approaches to take when you start marketing in earnest, and the most effective strategies improve your visibility, foster the customer relationship, and can be measured for their effectiveness.
Here are four tips for marketing your business:
- Advertising Effectiveness
Determining the effectiveness of your advertising campaign is not easy. Knowing what your customers want and where they spend their time will help you prioritize your marketing mix. Collect insights to understand what your customers react to. This will drive how to reach them so you can make a significant impact and maximize your return on investment.
Choose advertising initiatives that can be tied back to awareness or sales by including a call to action that closes the loop. Using campaign specific landing pages, hashtags, and even telephone numbers is a low cost way to accomplish this goal.
- Email Marketing
According to the 9th annual Email Marketing Industry Census, sponsored by Adestra, email continues to be a leading channel for delivering ROI despite decreased spend. Start a customer newsletter that offers timely information about your business, highlights industry news, or provides an inside look at your company. This approach builds community with your customers, and keeps your product and business on their minds. The more creative you make your newsletter content, the more likely your customers will open it supporting increased lead generation and overall customer engagement.
- Leverage Social Media
Social media can be tough to tackle. Truly taking advantage of social media requires time, effort, and an understanding of the platforms. It’s free, easy to get started and offers a massive network of potential customers, but the most difficult part is increasing your followers without wasting your time. Make sure you focus on quality vs. quantity. Identify the social channels that reach your customers best — including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
The goal is to provide your followers with something that’s useful, interesting and shareable. Start small, post a few times a week and learn who your audience is and what they react to. Once you have an understanding of who’s consuming your content, and what they’re interested in, you can ramp up your efforts.
- Let Your Customers Speak For You
Happy clients are a business’s best marketing tool. Actively engage pre-existing clients through social media, email, and PR. For example, pitching your business along with a satisfied customer to a journalist can be beneficial for both parties. This approach leads to a more compelling story and creates a stronger relationship between you and your customer. Once you have a handful of customers as spokespeople, provide ways for them to share positive experiences and tell your company story for you.
Marketing is a crucial and often overlooked key to a company’s overall success. Savvy businesses use strategic marketing as an effective way to increase visibility and drive customer acquisition.