Are you missing the marketing bus?
A lot has changed in the past 10 years, but somehow many business owners still stick to their old marketing methods. Try these approaches to better align your marketing with the times we live in.
Forget what you thought you knew about marketing. The game has changed and if you don’t adjust you might get left behind.
Advertising has become increasingly loud, in your face, bold and the shouting has become so deafening that consumer attention is flatlining. Competing is hard work and you really have to be able to pull out all the stops to get noticed.
Consider these alternative options that might just get your message across without having to resort to loudspeakers:
Content
Generally speaking it is a good idea to give your market what they want and if you haven’t noticed yet, they crave good content. Consumers miss the days of having a personal butcher, knowing the guy who works on their car by his first name and having their banker on speed dial.
Give them back that sense of trust by marketing your story.
Website
Contrary to popular belief a website is not something that survives on its own. Apart from making sure that it is up to date, mobile-friendly and easy to use, you will also need to constantly drive traffic to it. If you didn’t spend hundreds of thousands on developing it, chances are it is not showing up in search results.
Business listings, online advertising with clear call-to-actions and boosted social-media posts are just some of the common and useful ways to ensure people find you online.
Social media
If you think that you don’t need to do marketing because you are on Facebook you should really reconsider that stance. Everyone is on Facebook and not everyone’s business is booming. Facebook too is a business and if you don’t know exactly how that business model works, you will get lost in the algorithms.
Social-media marketing takes time and requires constant engagement. Most marketing pros will admit that Facebook is often the straw that breaks the camel’s back if you as a business owner to try to take care of it on top of everything else. Being a manager doesn’t mean you have to do it all.
Should you be advertising or marketing?
Red Bull has never advertised its product or urged customers to buy it, yet it is not doing too badly. If you have something that everyone definitely wants, advertise it. For everything else, market your business. Marketing should shape your brand and communicate your values. If people like what you stand for they will become your customers.
It is hard for to part with your hard-earned cash without seeing that immediate return on investment. But if you do not promote who you are and the values you stand for, people simply won’t consider you when they need to make a spending decision.
How much to spend on marketing
According to a 2016-2017 Gartner Research study, companies are now spending roughly 12% of annual revenue on overall marketing.
You can use this handy marketing budget calculator to work out how much you ought to be spending on marketing.
Virtual Reality
Giving your customers a fully immersive experience of your business will make them feel at home in it. The opportunities are ‘virtually’ endless.
Some people know how to fix cars, others run businesses. Lowveld Media knows marketing.
Drop us a message and we’ll get hold of you to work out a marketing solution that suits your needs and your budget.
