Hitting on the right marketing strategy can save you money and time. Instead of skedaddling down one route, only to reverse and backtrack, you’ll tread the likeliest direction and more confidently advertise your business.
Let the experts show you how.
1.Create a scientific and systematic approach for your marketing
Wilson Hung, author of The Scientific Marketing Strategy Behind Exponential Growth, writes that developing a marketing plan that is based on a scientific approach will save you wasted money and time. This is because your tested ideas protect you from flitting around, and they show you where to invest your money.
Method
The scientific method works on a so-called A/B approach, where you simultaneously test two different methods, or ads, and see which gives better results. So, for instance, you can run one type of ad via Craigslist, and at the same time, or shortly thereafter, follow it up with a similarly-themed ad on the same platform to the same population. The only difference: You change, add, or subtract one slight factor in one of the paired tests to help you pick the winner.
Many persons make the mistake of measuring results by following numbers or simple stats, such as total comments, page likes, followers, and so forth. This tells you little of how you performed as a whole. A better strategy is to tag metrics which review rates and ratios, such as your bounce rate, conversion rate, or click-through-rate of advertisements, each of which shows your market’s response. You don’t need to be trained to use the scientific approach. This factivate article gives you the simple steps.
2. Make noise
Shreya Parashar, founder of Culture Opus, urges you to create attention through a USP, unique selling point, that succinctly tells people who you are, and how you can give them what they need.
Example: I do or sell (x, y.z) in order to (help you save money, make your life easier, help you stand out, become famous and so forth. Highlight your benefit, emotionalize your blurb, and promise something that your target market wants. There’s a difference between quality and benefit. “Quality” is a description of what your product or service does (e.g. I clean houses). “Benefit” is how your product or services improves their lives (e.g. I clean houses so that you can have more time for your children). Address the ultimate benefit for the fullest impact.
3. Experiential marketing
Kit Yarrow and Jayne O’Donnell, authors of GenBuY, recommend experiential marketing that brings in customers by involving them in the marketing action and experience. Recent studies showed that 78% of millennials are more inclined to become part of a brand if they interact with it. In turn, many of the top 50 brands for millennials use experiential marketing. So for instance, ProMotion, an event-marketing team, conducted a 19-market campaign for Snapple, where Snapple rolled out snazzy trucks, tour managers and brand ambassadors and ended up winning thousands of new customers to their innovative brand offering.
Similarly, Anheuser-Busch staged a weekend for 1,000 millennials in Crested Butte, Colorado, where teens drank Bud Light for three straight days, and the company gained free promotion for their new product and thousands of dollars as a result. Millennials can have a resounding influence on consumers. Involve their senses through experience, and they’ll promote your product for free.
4. Craft your own unique marketing plan
Identify your target market as clearly and cohesively as possible, craft a SWOT analysis, which consists of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, set goals, outline your strategies and deadlines, finalize your budget, and evaluate and adjust your actions as you proceed. All steps are important, says Amrut Desai of Technori Start Up Education. A business has to be approached thoroughly and rationally. Proceed from step to step and review each before continuing to the next.
5. Focus on customers
Finding out what your customer wants and needs is crucial. Note that your customers’ interests and likes may differ, if not contradict, your own. Their politics may oppose yours, or you may dislike their opinions and beliefs. If you want your business to succeed, never matter.
On the other hand, Peter Pudaite, serial entrepreneur in the telecom industry, writes that pleasing the customer is one of marketing’s greatest myths. He quotes Henry Ford who famously quipped that if he had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said, “a faster horse.” Added Steve Jobs, by the time you give customers what they want, they’ll want something new.
So what do you do? Advises Pudaite, find out why they want what they say they want. What is their underlying need? Address that, and you’ll be evergreen. In all, customers are still the bottom line. You’re deeply attuned to their needs.
In short:
None of these five strategies are distinct. Each merges together to help you pilot a marketing plan that gives you max results for your bucks. You focus on customer’s ultimate needs, proceed in SWOT direction per A/B testing, cramp your brand into a blurb, and thrill with experiential experience. The result? Your marketing tells clients that they ignore you at their peril.
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