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Gone are the days when you could launch your business, sit back, and expect things to take care of themselves. Starting a business is not easy — it takes work and investment in resources and money.
These days, even with all the technology available, going “marketing” is almost a superpower. You can use social media to connect with people and promote your business, search engine optimization (SEO) to get more exposure for your site, paid advertising such as Facebook ads or Google Ads to reach out to new customers, and influencer marketing to gain attention for your product or service.
Influencers are individuals with large online followings that may be willing to advertise for your company by posting pictures and videos about it. They usually are given compensation for this kind of advertisement, so they must believe in your product or at least like them enough to pitch them.
With all these tools, how do you know what works and what doesn’t? What strategies have been successful for others in the past? And what will give you the most return on investment (ROI)?
There are three main areas of market strategy: where to focus your energy, what types of messages to convey, and how to measure success. In this article, we'll talk about the first one — where to focus your energy.
A market strategy is not successful if you do not know who your potential audience is. Who are these people that will spend their hard-earned money on what you offer? This is very important information as you need to be aware of where they live, how much income they have, and what products like yours exist already so you can compare it with yours and determine whether or not it is needed.
It’s also important to find out which types of media they read, search for information about them, and create content targeted at their needs.
By doing this, you’ll gain more insight into your ideal customer and help shape your marketing strategies accordingly.
Now that you have an understanding of what markets are, how they work, and some basics about business, it is time to develop your market strategy!
Your marketing strategy is everything from deciding where you will advertise, to determining which products or services you will offer, to developing your communication style. It is important to be clear about who your target audience is, as well as what messages you will use to convey your product or service.
Having a strong marketing strategy is essential for success in any field.
After you have gathered all of your supplies and you are completely prepared, it is time to start creating your business! Starting from the beginning will set you up for success in the future. Your next step should be creating your own unique website.
Your business needs a web presence to succeed. This can be done through either buying a pre-made site or finding one online via free platforms that allow you to create an account.
Business owners typically use WordPress as their platform due to its ease of use and availability of plugins. There are many ways to go about hosting your website, but most people purchase a domain name using a company like Hostgator, gotel.com, or bluehost.com. These sites offer different levels of hosting, which determine how much space you have to store files and videos etc.
You will also need to pick yourself a username and password so people can access your page, this is usually linked to your email.
After you have determined what type of product or service you want to promote, you will need to create some promotional material to spread the word about it. This can be an article or statement that gives more information about the product, photos of the product, or even videos showcasing features or benefits.
Your promotional material should look professional and appealing so people will feel confident in using the product. You can also include links to the product website or other resources supporting its use.
When creating these items, think about how you could organize the content into something easy to read.
As mentioned before, you will need to have some sort of distribution channel for your product or service. This can be done through Amazon, eBay, physical stores, etc.
Running out of money is always an issue for business owners, but having a distribution channel makes it much easier. Many online sellers are able to offset their sales by selling elsewhere.
By distributing your goods, you create more opportunities for income which helps mitigate risk. Plus, this gives you the opportunity to try different channels and see what works best for you.
Remember that not every seller is given the same amount of exposure due to limited marketing resources.
The next key element of your marketing strategy is deciding how much you want to charge for your product or service. What price are you willing to accept as profit? This depends on several things including the competition, season, and market size.
By having a lower price than your competitors, you will win in the long run!
Your competitor’s higher prices can create a perception that their services are better than yours which may not be true. By being more competitive, people will perceive your business as quality and this will generate positive feedback.
Seasonal variations should factor into your pricing as well. If your product is seasonal, why not emphasize the importance of early purchases and reduce the price during those times?
Market size also makes a difference in how expensive your offering needs to be. A small niche market can have very low cost entry level products while larger markets require more elaborate strategies.
You must know what you're talking about, but you don't need to talk about it every minute of every day — unless you choose to.
Be honest with yourself about whether such constant exposure is necessary.
It is very important to know who your competitors are in order to effectively go head-to-head with them. You can do this by looking at their social media sites, talking to people that have business relationships with them, and reading their marketing materials such as blogs and articles.
By knowing what you’re up against, you will be able to plan ways to compete with them and even possibly take away some of their market share.
It also helps determine if they do enough work or not to get where they want to go. If they don’t seem like they are working hard, then why should you?
Another way to find out how competitive your rivals are is to do an online search for information. Simply put yourself in their shoes and see how they run their businesses – are there any clues about how to run yours better?
You may also want to look into their past achievements and test whether or not they keep what they achieved alive through communication and motivation.
The second part of how to go market is creating your launch or promotional event. This can be done at any time, but it makes sense to do so when you have a new product or service that people will see for the first time.
Your launch should tell everyone what your product or service is and why it’s important to buy it. You don’t need very much content- just enough to get someone who wants to learn more about your products potential aware of them.
Some tips: Make sure your message is clear and sounds professional. Use direct, simple language and emphasize benefits over features. Do not use jargon or overly marketing style vocabulary unless you are trained in marketing.
Once you have your launch ready, there are several ways to promote it. You can spend lots of money through traditional advertising channels like TV ads, billboards, and magazines, or you can try some less expensive alternatives such as social media advertisements, word of mouth, and online ads. It really depends on your budget and the results you want to achieve.
