In the business world, coming up with the golden idea or product often means nothing if you don’t know how to market it effectively. Luckily, there are many ways to market your product or business to drive interest and increase sales.
- Effective marketing will generate interest, leads, engagement, drive sales directly, or garner significant publicity. Any marketing strategy which isn’t doing one of these should be assessed and tweaked.
- Advertisements are often placed on social media sites like Facebook and Reddit, though there are key principles to advertising on these sites which will be discussed.
- Word of mouth is still one of the most effective methods of driving sales. No matter how you market, your method should generate buzz and get people excited for what you have to offer.
Offer Previews
This method is best used for gaining and maintaining customer loyalty. Customers feel prioritized when given the chance to view or use a product in advance.
By giving a tour of the product, either virtually or in person, your brand can generate excitement and engagement before the product officially launches, leading to great first week sales and word of mouth. Not only will you gain more customers by offering previews, those who already enjoy your products are more likely to stay loyal if given early access.
Introduce the Product with a Deal
Marketing means making customers excited for not only the product, but the deal behind the product. When launching your product, there are a number of fun and innovative offers you can introduce alongside it to generate buzz and make customers feel like savvy shoppers.
For example, a buy one get one free deal is a surefire way to generate value for the customer while selling more units and spreading word of mouth more quickly. Alternatively, any shopper reward bonuses can be doubled for a few days for anyone who buys the new product. Any activity which generates value for the customer will simultaneously generate value for your company.
E-mail is Underrated
In today’s climate of medium-saturated content, e-mail is often an overlooked but invaluable tool for advertising and spreading marketing messages. E-mail is one of the most viewed and actionable forms of online marketing – nearly 82% of e-mails are opened and read, numbers that are rivaled only by text messaging.
Generating an e-mail list also provides many leads for future product launches and can be used to target specific demographics, easily organized by whichever metric your company sees fit for a particular product launch. There’s no limit to dividing and subdividing you e-mail lists so that you can cater to the needs of all your clients in different, unique ways.
Advertise on Facebook and Reddit
Facebook is currently one of the most lucrative locations for ad placement. There are many factors which play into the price of a Facebook advertisement, including the specific location of the ad within the site and the amount of text present on the advertisement. Paradoxically, ads with less text are cheaper to place on the site but drive more sales, as they’re less likely to be perceived as ads and thus more likely to be engaged with by users.
Marketers have found that the ideal ratio for text to image, per percentage, is 15:85. Reddit is also a fast-growing community of demographics with disposable income. The key to advertising on reddit is to keep the message on brand with whichever subreddit you’re in and downplay the “selling” nature of the ad. The more natural and integrated the ad into Reddit’s platform, the more likely it will be to generate engagement.
Blogs Create Intimacy
The increasing emphasis on marketing and advertising in recent years has left many pining for more breezy, laidback content to connect with. The solution to this for many marketers has been to start blogs and other personal opinion sites. These sites are not as formal or data driven as other marketing concepts, letting people connect with the blogger in a way that feels more intimate and relatable.
Keeping this connection between blogger and reader is crucial to build trust and consistent viewing. You can also send your product to other bloggers for them to discuss and share with their own readership, one which has already been carefully cultivated.
Host a Business Event
Business events have been steadily growing in popularity over the last few years. They’re a combination of marketing’s greatest assets: word of mouth, engagement, previewing, and specific, on brand messaging. The key to a great business event is the balance between keeping the product in focus while also keeping the event engaging.
For example, a dating website recently hosted an event where attendees were paired up with a stranger to participate in a scavenger hunt together. The event both reinforced the concept of the site while also keeping their audience invested and active, improving memory recall of the event and brand.
Use Search Engines Effectively
Learning to optimize search results in your company’s favor will open up a plethora of new leads and potential customers from the general public. This process can be tricky, and it may take a few weeks to get off the ground, but the results of a finely tuned, specific search optimization are well worth the time and effort.
Keywords are paramount in designing an effective search path; use keywords most likely to drive traffic and place them strategically on your site, using them frequently for maximum results. Making sure you can generate enough online content, and update your site often to keep searches optimized. Done effectively, search engine optimization is a major boon for any business.
Roll the Dice on Press
Finally, the most lucrative but risky attempt at marketing you can make is contacting local press about your product or business. This method tends to be a crapshoot, as members of the press are often flooded with story angles from marketers and only the most truly unique and engaging stories are going to be reported on.
However, if you can create an angle that appeals to the general public and is crucial to health, ease, or another equally important characteristic of the public’s wellbeing, your chances will improve. All in all, publicity is rarely negative for your business and pursuing any additional press is always a path to consider.
Marketing in the current age can be a tricky, frustrating task. However, there are many avenues for your business to explore to enhance consistency and profitability.