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MenuHow do I choose the right marketing strategy?
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When it comes to marketing it really does need to be personal. I think to recommend the correct strategy one would need to learn a bit more about your business, industry, audience / consumers.
With that being said - let me start by answering your questions:
1. Pricing is a loaded question without understand things like your profit margins, purchasing cycle etc. With that being said do not under value your product. There are no winners there. It is easier to price high and then reduce than the other way around. However, if you are looking at pushing volume - introducing a reduced "limited time" price to help get a foothold in your market could work.... but beware, those "discount" customers who do buy are typically lower value from a retention standpoint.
2. To help push conversions you need to think of your brand as a community. Target an audience and relate to them. Consumers look for that connection between them and a brand. Continue to build relationships with the right consumers and don't always make it seem like you are pushing only your narrative (ie. sales).
3. Honestly before you go out and hire thousands of dollars in marketing services, first take a look at what you can do in house. There is a lot you can manage on your own from an organic side that can really help build your brand equity and convert it into sales. To start I would invest into people and content. Leverage things like social (fb, insta, youtube), blogging and events to capture an audience. Place those captures into tools like mailchimp or autopilothq to help nurture them into sales. Rinse / repeat.
Now this is of course a real macro perspective of things. If you want to dive in a bit more feel free to schedule a call with me.
I have plus 3 years experience in choosing the right marketing strategy. So I can give you the best possible answers.
Part of running a successful business is making it grow. Home-based businesses are no exception. In fact, it can be even more important if you are just starting out or lack a potential client base. The key to growing a business is marketing.
1) Determine Targeted Audience
No matter what marketing method you choose, you first need to decide to whom you plan to market. Mass marketing to a general audience simply is not cost-effective for most businesses so you must decide early on which segments of society are most likely to purchase your products or services. Begin by asking yourself some simply questions:
What needs does my product/service fulfill?
Will businesses or consumers be more likely to need what I offer?
Who are the clients I already have?
Who does my competition market to?
2) Set a Budget
Many inexperienced business owners make a major mistake when they begin their marketing efforts: they do not set a budget. Without a budget, these business owners can easily find all of their profits being funneled into marketing efforts.
Before you make a decision about what types of marketing methods to choose, you need to first establish how much you can spend in order to receive the desired results. Most businesses use the 10% rule. According to this rule, if you decided to implement a marketing program that would generate $5000 in monthly sales, then you should spend only $500 a month on marketing.
3) Evaluate Marketing Methods
There are a wide array of marketing methods available, but not all of them are appropriate for every business, audience, or product/service. Before deciding on a method, you need to carefully evaluate what will work best for your situation. Start by reading the article “Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Advertising Mediums.For example, if you run an online business, you may want to focus most of your marketing efforts on the Internet medium instead of mailing brochures to people who may not even own computers.
4) Finally, remember your budget. A television commercial may be more effective than an ad in the search engines but it may also use your entire marketing budget. To make the most of your budget, you want to start small and test your efforts before plunging into a major investment. After all, if the commercial flops, you won’t have anything left in your budget for alternative marketing.
Once you complete these preliminary efforts, you can begin to explore marketing methods more effectively which will allow you to pick the methods which should provide the best results for your particular business..
For further queries you can consult me.
It might sound a bit obvious but to start with you need customers so first and foremost find out where they are. Talk to prospective purchasers, find out what events they attend, what networking groups they are involved with, trade organisations and buddy groups. From this information build your 'ideal customer' profile and along the way you should have collected contact details of many more prospective customers as well! This will also help identify whether there is a market for the product and acceptable price points.
Next on your website create an incentive offer such as 'try the XX product FREE for thirty days' or provide a light version free that has limited functions with an ongoing upsell to the main product. then contact affiliate platforms and invite their publishers to promote the offer.
Contact me if you need further assistance in developing the strategy.
Determine your marketing goal. Choosing the most efficient marketing strategy starts with setting a well-defined goal. You must always keep your potential customers at the forefront of your mind. Determine the most effective ways to connect with your customers, which includes uncovering their preferred communication channels and purchasing paths. The marketing strategies that you choose should complement the when and where of your target audiences. Create a marketing budget. A business with two employees is going to have a far different marketing budget than an international corporation. As you grow and your marketing budget increases, you can add tactics or increase your spend on tools you are using that work. Read how to create your marketing budget. Location. The real estate market mantra is “location, location, location.” In marketing, your location will affect your marketing options. While you can implement as many marketing strategies as you can afford, doing so is not necessarily the wisest decision. Aside from the high cost, you may struggle to figure out which strategies are working, and which are a waste of money.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
Related Questions
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I just opened a small, upscale, boutique style hair salon. Any ideas on how to market?
I have no experience with salons, but marketing is my thing. So I'll give you some suggestions of what to think about, followed by what to do. Do you have clients already (let's say from your working days at another salon)? If so, you can start profiling them. You can ask them to fill out a form in exchange for a free gift (maybe one of those creams you use in the salon), or an entry to a raffle (where the prize is valuable). In the profiling, you want to look out for which neighborhoods they live in, what kinds of activities they like to do, what kinds of social events they love to do, and their occupations. Then, using each of those profile data, you can market to more prospects who share the same characteristics. For example, - You can set aside a budget to send flyers to specific neighborhoods. In order to get people into the door, maybe you can offer a certain procedure for free in exchange for opportunities to win new regular customers. (You could theoretically do this with Groupon too, but you have less control of who comes into your door) - You could set up joint venture relationships with organizations like ball room dancing schools, professional associations, etc. You could offer an exclusive discount with those groups to entice potential customers to try out your service. More opportunities for you to win regular customers. - With certain demographic data, you can probably make the same offer by advertising on Facebook. If you target specific enough, you can get the price of acquiring the lead to be pretty cheap. You would have to figure out your typical lifetime value of your customers before deciding whether advertising on Facebook would be worthwhile. One last thing, you can offer gifts for your existing customers if they refer you people. If you have any more questions, I'm happy to chat with you. Hit me up on this platform.SL
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How to promote a paid iOS app to increase downloads ?
Your best bet to get traction quickly in USA is to advertise on mobile ad networks. You may need to advertise on CPM/CPC basis instead of CPI if you have a paid app so make sure you understand your user lifetime value and watch conversion rates closely so you don't overspend. That said, depending on what your niche/vertical is, there are many other ways to market non-gaming apps.SR
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What are some tips for boot-strap marketing to gain awareness and website visits for a start-up?
There is a tremendous amount of buzz surrounding content marketing and its need within a brand’s overall marketing strategy. Doing content marketing is much more than publishing on your blog occasionally and posting your thoughts on social media. “Do stuff and maybe it will work” is not a strategy, it is a gamble. A risky and expensive one, at that. Even so, many brands have yet to create an effective content marketing strategy. What does such a strategy look like? Where are the examples of brands doing it well? Here, I will show you examples of an effective content marketing strategy and offer ways for you to craft your own for your business. What is Content Marketing Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media, not renting it. This generation of customers are taking drastic steps to avoid marketing messages. As consumers, we use DVRs to skip television ads, pay internet radio subscription fees to avoid commercials, mentally block out — or use plug-ins to avoid — internet click ads, and gloss over road-side billboards, rendering them useless and ineffective. So how are marketers supposed to combat this shift? Education. Consumers are still buying and making purchases, but the way they go about making a decision has changed. With all of the world’s information at their finger tips, savvy consumers are doing enormous amounts of learning and self-education before stepping into a showroom or talking to a salesperson. Knowing this is a huge opportunity for brands. If you know consumers are looking for information, be the source of that information. Not with sales-y content that puts your priorities before theirs, but information that the buyer really wants and needs. The Marketing and Sales Departments must align to create a buying path for this new era of consumers that provides authentic and transparent information about a product or service (the mission of Marketing) and closing the sale (the mission of Sales). Content marketing closes this gap by using brand-created educational content to satisfy the prospective buyer while helping the sales team convert anonymous visitors into buyers. Thought leaders and marketing experts from around the world, including the likes of Seth Godin and hundreds of the leading thinkers in marketing have concluded that content marketing isn’t just the future, it’s the present (see the video below on the history of content marketing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OHgMMpGLzk The key ingredient to using content to attract new customers is in the advanced planning. The strategy. What is a Content Marketing Strategy A content marketing strategy is a roadmap; a “User’s Guide” to how your brand will do the following: - Meet the customer at their specific point within their buying cycle - Align the customer’s needs with your knowledge and expertise - Use your brand’s assets to meet these objectives Business-to-Business marketers who have a documented content marketing strategy are 66% more likely to consider themselves effective compared to only 11% of those without a documented strategy. A content marketing plan helps you see the end-game before you have even started. Further, it gives a clear, articulable vision for your entire team and keeps you on track throughout the campaign. Just like New Years resolutions often fade into a foggy memory, our intentions are good – but we allow resolutions to fail. To be successful in any strategy, we need to be intentional. For proper sales and marketing alignment, and for the success of your bottom line, you must have a plan in place. How to Start Your Content Strategy The framework of a content marketing strategy is fairly straight forward: - Who are you targeting? What are their needs? - How are you going to reach them? (Attract new and nurture existing) - What content do you have now to get started? - What is your plan to develop and share more - How will you measure your efforts 1. Personas Take some time to consider who you are targeting. Are they male or female? Does it matter? Do they have a career? Children? Are they affluent? Coupon cutters? What are their goals? What happens if they do not reach them? Is their a monetary penalty for them? Will meeting this goal further their career? Will it make them happy? Clearly defining your targeted personas will save you a lot of time, energy, and money as you continue your business. With this person in mind, your content marketing strategy will begin to fall into place and you will feel that you are having a conversation with this “person”, rather than blindly throwing stuff out there. 2. Outreach Content marketing and social media are often used synonymously. This is a mistake. Content marketing is a broad method of marketing whereas social media is a tool that complements getting your content seen. Imagine your website as your online hub, where all of your brand-controlled content resides, your social media profiles are spokes that lead back to your home base. Social media has the power to reach incredible numbers of potential customers, influencers, existing customers, and even the opportunity to convert customers from competitors. Social media, in and of itself, is not content marketing. It is one of your outreach tools. 3. Available Content Next, take stock of materials you have on hand already. Many of us sit in offices filled with brochures, flyers, handouts, manuals, and documents loaded with helpful information, but we do little to extend that information to potential customers on the web. Make a list of the content available to you immediately and start identifying which persona is most aligned, where they are within their sales process, and what pain point they are currently facing. Getting started, you can use what you have on hand. But I recommend expecting this low-hanging fruit to run out. You should plan on developing your own, unique content. For a number of reasons, search engines reward fresh, unique content. Further, your prospective customers will be looking for information that is not available everywhere. Your unique perspective and “voice” (the tone in which you talk, the way you communicate, and what you share) may be the first experience a prospective customer has with you. This is the beginning of a long business relationship. 4. Schedule and Share Your Content After you have compiled your educational materials, grab a calendar. I recommend looking out 3-4 months to start. Mark holidays, special events, and milestones. Working backwards, prepare your marketing message for these campaigns. For example, one client of ours hosts 4-5 annual sales. They all surround major US holidays (New Years, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving/Black Friday). By knowing this, it is easy for us to prepare everything from banner ads, Pinterest images, blog posts, Facebook Status, videos, and even newspaper ads (don’t shoot the messenger). Once you have those events marked, consider a “theme” of the week for those 3-4 months. With that theme, and your personas in mind, write out the following for each week: - 2 Blog Posts - 8-10 Facebook updates - 20-30 Twitter updates - 4-5 product photos for Pinterest - 3-4 Instagram ideas - 1 Video By no means is this list all-inclusive. It is a starting point to get you thinking about how to plan content. To get a specific content marketing plan designed for your brand, I need to interview you and understand your goals, personas, and timeline. 5. Analytics Finally, how are you going to measure your work? Remember when we set up our goals earlier? Were you specific in identifying how many leads you want to generate? “Get more leads” is a horrible strategy, better is “Gain 50 new leads by September 1st” or “increase from 6% conversion rate to 12% conversion rate” These types of goals are easily measured and tracked. Do you have a mechanism in place to measure, monitor, and gauge your efforts? Further, do you have the right people on your team to help you know what is working and what is not? Can you explain why certain marketing dollars are generating a return on your investment while others fall flat? Final Thoughts Just like runners know the course of the race before they start, your brand should know the route you will take to your finish line. Having a strong content marketing strategy in place will ensure your team is setup for success. I'm happy to help and provide more specifics. All the best, -ShaunSN
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How does my startup hire an affordable marketing expert?
I don't even know how to answer this. Do you know what the difference between McDonalds and the local burger joint that is filing for bankruptcy is? It's marketing. McDonalds is worth billions of dollars not because of the quality of their food, but because of their marketing. Marketing is not an expense. A janitor is an expense. Your computer is an expense. Marketing is an INVESTMENT. Would you shop around for the cheapest heart surgeon? Of course not. Because you would likely end up dead. Why, then, do you shop around for a marketing expert? Are you ok with your company going bankrupt? Is that worth the small savings to you? No. Of course not. Hire someone who is good at marketing. Hire someone who knows what they are doing. Buy yourself a Lamborghini with your profit the first quarter. Get a beach house in hawaii. Grab a yacht. Or, try to find your business the cheapest heart surgeon you can and then spend the next five years wondering why such a solid business idea failed in the first 6 months. I'm passionate about this exact topic because all those statistics you read about "70% of businesses failing in two years" are solely because of horrible marketing.AM
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How did Snapchat boast a solid user base within a short period of time, compared to Facebook and Twitter?
I've been in the picture messaging space for a while now with my apps Lutebox (voted one of London's top ten most loved apps) and now Click Messenger. I've written a few articles about the space including a recent post about the Future of Mobile Messaging. Snapchat started out as an app called Picaboo, which pretty much did what it does now (prior to the latest update with chat and video calling). They quickly rebranded but saw a little uptake in user numbers and had quite low downloads for several months. Then around Christmas 2011 one of the founders' mom had told her friend about the app, who told her kid and her kid basically then spread the word throughout their high school in L.A. That was what really blew up their download numbers as it spread across teenagers at local high schools. As far as I know they didn't advertise in the early days, relied solely on word of mouth. Also it is assumed that they have a solid user base. Comparatively speaking, their user base may be in the low tens of millions, which may a great base of users, but nowhere even close to being as big as Facebook or Twitter. I'd be happy to speak about this in more detail or about the picture messaging landscape and what I believe to be the future of mobile messaging.AA
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