If you think you have achieved success when you saw your business up and running, you are wrong. You are actually just starting. You are not really considered successful yet if you have just started your business. Your greatest challenge comes when you have to make your business available to the public. You still have to find who is going to buy your products.
This challenge could never be boring. You can be creative and organize fun stuff to promote your business to the public. Well that sounds easy and fun, but the truth is, you have to know something more about promotional campaigns before you can be successful on that end.
Promotion is the process of advertising your business so that the public will become aware of your business. Promotional campaigns should be something that will get the attention of the public. It is not as simple as just telling someone about your product. You should do something to organize creative advertising so that your audience will not only enjoy, but also learn something about your product and your business.
The reason why you need to promote your business is to inform the public about what you can offer them. You need to let the public know that you can provide a solution with your products and services. You have to establish communication with the public in order for your business to survive. Otherwise, you will end up existing in your own world. The public must know that you exist.
In promotional campaigns, you must think outside of the box. Be creative in your promotion because this is the only way to drive customers to your business. All kinds of businesses, whether big or small have their own way of establishing rapport with their customers. You can call your customers to let them know about sales and special discounts or offer to mail out up to date brochures and catalogs. These could be the best way to reach out to your market.
It can be risky to start a small business, but the reason why people keep doing it is because it is such a great fulfillment when you can start a business and make it successful. You wouldn’t know how wonderful it is to see your own business running unless you take the risk to do so. Promotion can be a hassle, but if it will make your business active, you must be willing to take on the challenge. If you see the result of your labor, nothing can compare to the fulfillment that you may get out of it. With hard work and the right promotion strategy, you can take your business to the next level.
Take some time to research the best and most effective way to promote your small business. It’s not the size of the business that counts, it’s the people who value your business that matter. And people will value your business if you are promoting it with great pride.
The best product in the world won’t sell unless there’s someone (preferably a customer) standing on a soapbox somewhere telling everybody about it. Of course, this means the best promotion is word-of-mouth from happy customers.
What do you think about using guerrilla marketing tactics when you are promoting your new business?
This is an area where many small businesses fail.
I agree with Bobby. The best form of advertisement is still when customers recommend you to their network.
Another challenge with new small businesses is the focus on features instead of benefits. Customers purchase benefits, solutions, etc, but the temptation for somebody who is justly proud of their offering is to tout its features and miss the boat on marketing.
There are some great points made here. After running an air conditioning business in springdale AR. for 30 years I’ve tried it all. Basically you can break advertising into two types promotional and directional. Promotional makes people aware you exist and directional is being there when people search for you. The word of mouth comment mentioned earlier is spot on as one of the best forms because it is generally coming from someone you know and trust and it is a form of promotional. Websites would be a directional form, i.e. they need your product or service and look for a solution for their need. In my experience directional is the best bang for the buck because you are there when they are making the buying decision.
You cannot be one-dimensional. You need to promote your business through different channels both online and offline. Website marketing, direct mail, telemarketing are just some of the examples. Try them all together. Track them and see which is most effective. In doing so, do not let the others go, but put more money into whichever happens to be giving you more results. It’s only common sense 🙂