Do you ever wonder why your marketing strategy just doesn’t take off?
I was having a conversation with a friend recently and as we were wrapping up, she said, “I don’t get it. Why can’t people buy my products? I have awesome advertisements, content and social media pages. But why aren’t people flocking to my site? And what do all the other sites in my industry have that I don’t?” In the world of marketing, there are many who think that once you master one technique, you are half-way done. Meaning that if you use another tactic, it will stop working. However, this is not the case at all. Your marketing strategy is only as good as the content and execution behind it. So before getting out your pitchforks and torches to burn down every single competitor in town, let me give you some tips on how to put together an effective strategy
Define your goals
People may not be able to name one thing that you sell, but I’ve yet to meet a company that doesn’t have a clear outline of what they want to achieve. What are you trying to fill a void for? What problem is your product trying to solve? Why does your product exist in that niche? Before you can craft an effective marketing strategy, you need to define your goals. Part of the magic of marketing is knowing the right things to promote and the wrong things to avoid. What do your customers want to hear from you? What should they not hear from you? You need to know this stuff so that you don’t accidentally give away too much in your advertising. You also want to make sure that your audience knows this stuff too, so that they can choose to ignore your ads instead notifying with a purchase.
Be transparent with your audience
Transparency is perhaps one of the most important marketing strategies you can employ. People love to be sold to, and you will have an easier time connecting with your audience if you are upfront with them about what they are paying for. What is your product’s value to the customer? What is the customer’s pain point/need? How is your product/service/brand going to solve that problem? If your product is a solution to a pain point, you will have a much easier time building a customer-base. After all, if people don’t have that pain point, they won’t be as interested in your product in the first place. Vague promises about the benefits of your product aren’t good enough. You need to state what your product does, what it does for the customer, and why it is important to them. This is especially important when you are trying to sell a new product. You don’t want people to wonder if they should buy your product because you are being “transparent” with them. You want to leave people with the impression that they should buy your product already.
Be proud of the user-first philosophy
You have to be proud of your user-first philosophy. If people are flocking to your site because your advertisements are great, but your product is a dud, you have some work to do. You need to seriously examine the way that you are approaching this. If you are being too pushy with the offers and deals, users will feel like they are being sold to. They may even start to feel bad if they don’t purchase your product because they feel like they are being sold to in the first place. You also need to be careful with the negative ads you are running. You don’t want to go overboard here, but you do want to be upfront and clear about what your product is, what it isn’t, and why it is not the solution to your problems.
Build great content
You don’t need to be a published author to write great content. You can learn how to create blog posts, videos, or even digital documents. All you need to do is to understand what creates an engagement among your customers, and then go for it. What are they interested in? What are they confused about? What are they looking for? These are the questions you need to be answering for your blog post or video. Once you have the answers to these questions, go for it.
List your benefits first
This tip is meant to be used when promoting a new service or product. Before you can pitch your customer-base to buy your product, they need to know why they should buy it in the first place. What are the benefits of having your product in that niche? How will it benefit the customer? This is the information you need to make the sale, and it needs to be the top of the list.
Don’t be afraid to shake things up
Sometimes, you just have to shake things up and tell people what you are actually doing. With most traditional marketing strategies, you would want to be very careful with the messages you are sending out. You don’t want to give your customer-base the wrong impression about you or your brand. With the user-first philosophy, however, you can be more bold. You can be straight-up negative with your customer-base without any worry of getting it wrong. You can let the customers know what is happening with their money. You can also let the potential customers know that you are a startup. This marketing strategy works because the people in your industry know what is happening right now. They are the ones dealing with customer-service issues, returns, and complaints. They are the ones who can best tell you what is happening and what needs to happen.
Bottom line
In a world where businesses are expanding at an exponential rate, it’s important to have a strategy in place to brand yourself and your business. No one is going to know who you are unless you make them aware of your brand, and the best way to do that is through marketing. With a little effort, you can start branding your business today, and make it known that you’re the best source for the best deals in the city.
