How to Use Social Media Marketing Strategy For Small Business Success
So why do you need a marketing strategy? The advantages of employing good direct marketing are obvious when you develop your brand, increase your visibility in the market and attain a competitive advantage among your competitors. Without doubt, virtually every company must have some sort of marketing strategy that would work effectively to aid gain a solid clientele. A strong, consistent and reliable marketing strategy is a key to success.
What works and what doesn’t
Developing a good marketing strategy can be simple if you take time to research what works and what doesn’t. You have to recognise your target audience, their likes and dislikes and their purchasing habits. Once you’ve gathered all of this information you can start putting together an advertising program. When you decide which advertising methods to use, you also have to decide how much you’re willing to spend on each method. Some people might find it tempting to overspend on advertising but this can lead to the opposite result, a loss of profit because people just won’t buy your products or services.
What is the plan?
When putting together a marketing plan you also have to look at the disadvantages of direct marketing strategies. One of the disadvantages of marketing methods such as television or youtube commercials is that they tend to be boring and repetitive. Another disadvantage of using television or youtube commercials is that consumers become easily irritated by commercials that they feel are too repetitious or that are “too salesy.” For these reasons, many consumers avoid television commercials altogether.
Telemarketing
On the other hand, direct marketing strategies such as telemarketing are far less annoying because you actually talk to the consumer and can actually hold them captive like a face to face meeting. However, it can also be disadvantageous because when you call the consumer up, you might not know the name or address of the person you called. This makes the conversation a little too impersonal. Sometimes, the consumer may not get a good feeling from your telemarketing strategy because you did not take the time to identify who you were calling.
Coupons
Another direct-mail marketing strategy that some companies employ is that of offering coupons or discounts to potential clients. This can be a very effective strategy. However, the drawback of offering coupons in direct-mail marketing campaigns is that you run the risk of the consumer looking at the coupon and choosing not to do business with you. This is because the consumer might feel that the coupon deal is too good to be true. Perhaps they have been getting bad deals elsewhere or might find the product to be of an inferior quality.
Combo’s
A direct marketing campaign that combines email marketing techniques with telephone campaign is known as an “telemarketing” campaign. Despite being known as a highly effective strategy, some marketers believe that an effective telemarketing campaign takes time to properly execute. This is because unlike mass-marketing techniques, the consumer can easily ignore unsolicited emails.
Many options
There are many other marketing methods that can be used effectively for small business marketing purposes. You need to determine what marketing method will work best for your business based on the product, service, and competitive environment. If you have a particularly unique product or a service that you know will appeal to your customer’s needs, then you should consider using targeted social media marketing strategies. Targeted social media marketing requires that you create a strategy that includes several different elements. The first of which is a targeted list of people who might be interested in your product or service.
Target List
The second strategy is building and maintaining a strong relationship with your targeted list. The third strategy is to test all of your marketing campaigns to determine how well they are performing. Most successful marketers make use of a combination of all three marketing methods to ensure that their campaigns are appealing to consumers. Once you have determined how well you are doing with your marketing campaigns, you should consistently review your strategies to see if there are any areas that you can improve upon.
Question
What is your marketing strategy and why? Leave a comment below with your answer.