Promote Your Business

Knowing what works is critical. Look at how others in your field do it to see what kinds of promotions have been successful. You may also have to make wise and challenging decisions about spending money on some of the more expensive aspects of promotion.

Promotion on a Budget

A lack of resources can force you to be more creative in getting out messages that catch the customer’s eye and generate a response. Indirect approaches, such as press releases can be more effective than activities like advertising. For many new businesses, local coverage may not only be easier, it may also be more effective at generating sales.



Networking can also play an important role in the promotional mix and tends to be costly in terms of time rather than money.



Promote Your USP

What is your Unique Selling Point? A USP gives the customer a reason to choose you rather than the competition. Base your advertising strategy and company conduct around a USP and the sheer repetitiveness of the message can give your company, product or service a consistent and memorable public image.



Branding and Design

Creating a Brand can differentiate your business from your competitors and drive customer loyalty. And it’s not just for big business. Small and medium sized companies can work to create a brand by looking carefully at their business and their customers and working from there.



Use the Internet

For many businesses a website is a vital method of promoting the business. A website may act as an “online brochure” to present your business to potential clients or it could provide the point of sale, if you sell your products or sevices online.

 

Advertising

Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of small-scale advertising in local papers, bulletin boards, and directories such as the Yellow Pages. It helps to come up with a catchy slogan that customers can recall easily and there’s plenty of value in getting involved in community activities. Coverage in the kinds of publications your customers read is worth its weight in gold so don’t be shy about approaching newspapers and magazines. Most journalists are desperate for stories, particularly if you make it easy for them by supplying photographs with a press release.



Direct Mail

Love it or loathe it, direct mail has become a mainstay of marketing strategy. Even with the capabilities of email and the Internet to deliver marketing solutions across a vast area with little financial outlay, direct mail still lands on our doormat day after day almost without fail.



Despite most people’s gut reaction to the concept, good direct mail works.



Good planning and a clear vision of what you’re trying to achieve should help you get the right ’promotional mix’ of advertising, direct marketing and public relations. You can learn a lot from looking at how leading players handled promotion in their early days, but don’t just copy other people. Being different may be the secret of your success!

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