Marketing and Business 101

Marketing Essentials

Over the years I have decided that there are Seven marketing essentials that every business should employ.

· Trade Shows

· Networking

· Newsletters

· Advertising Specialties

· Business Cards

* Social Media

· Blogging

Let's look at how to maximize each of these very important marketing elements.

Trade Shows—

Exhibiting at trade shows is important for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, you are there to sell, or at the very least generate qualified leads.

Secondly, it puts you face-to-face with existing and potential customers so you can do market research; finding out specifics of what they like, don't like, and would like to see

Because this is such an important opportunity, the CEO of the company should be there.

Their participation tells attendees that you take the event, and their business very seriously.

Networking—

Probably the backbone of any salespersons arsenal, networking is vital.

Through social events, church, clubs, associations, and even networking groups, you pick up leads.

I have belonged to a couple of networking groups in my lifetime, and yes, they have generated some very valuable leads for me.

I also network on line utilizing www.linkedin.com. While I haven't made any money from my connections yet, I have no doubt that the relationships I am building here will eventually help me in my business.

Many also utilize social networking sites like FaceBook, You Tube and the like for business as well as social networking.

Newsletters —

As I have said many times, I am a firm believer in newsletters.

They are an unobtrusive way to stay in touch with your customer.

Newsletters should be useful and hopefully valuable to your customers.

Obviously you want to promote your business, but by keeping the focus on providing good content for the reader, your newsletter will be appreciated.

And that also means that your customer will come to you, and not your competitor when they need your services.

In the United States, Federal Law requires that all unsolicited e-mail must have a way for the recepient to unsubcribe clearly posted somewhere on the message.

Advertising Specialties—

Well selected ad specialties, imprinted items, keep your name in front of the customer for months at a time. Potentially even years.

The key to ad specialties is in the selection. It should be appropriate to your business, it should be useful or of value to the recipient, and the perceived value should be equal to the value of the service or product you are selling.

If you sell a modestly priced car, you would not give out a $16,000 fountain pen; nor would you give out a twenty cent stick pen if you sell Rolls Royce.

The specialty should be useful so that it does not get stuck in a drawer and forgotten.

Business card magnets are excellent for realtors, insurance, pizza delivery and a host of other businesses that deal with homeowners.

Business Cards —

My main criticism of many business cards is that they attempt to put way too much information on a card.

I came across one card where the top half was the company logo, and the bottom half had all the usual contact information for the salesperson, but also the complete street address for all three offices.  The type was so small that it was practically impossible to read without a magnifying lens.

Blogging —

Blogging is increasingly used by business to communicate with customers and prospects.

Blogs can also be set up to allow for feedback by the readers which can be very informative for any business.

Blogs should be kept current. I read one place where they recommended a minimum of two blog entries per week.

The reasoning is sound; you want to keep your blog content fresh, so that people come back to learn what you have to say. Back to learn about more products, and hopefully to make purchases.

Social Media -

Social media is used for business as well as personal pleasure.  One key ingredient for business is to cross link.  For example, you might do a Facebook post about a new product, but include a link to a video of the product and how it is used, and of course that video should be linked to your business page.  Most websites can now "capture" the e-mail address of any visitor that comes to your site, allowing you to now do one or more follow-ups to see if they have any interest.  If there is any sort of interest, you can add them to your newsletter list for periodic "touching base" with the individual.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about any article or different marketing or business question, please feel free to contact me, I'm here to help.  

brock(at)bhenderson.com