The Ways to Market Your Business Are Many
While it sounds like faux advice from a character in a science fiction movie, there is actually a lot of wisdom in “There is no trying; there is only doing.” Especially when it comes to ways to market your business. You can sit down with a marketing guru and plan out your marketing attack. You can write a business plan that looks five years into the future. Ultimately, you have to stop planning and do something.
And when it comes to marketing your small business, all your planning may come to naught. There may be a flaw in your plan or a mistake in its execution. It may not even be your fault. But more marketing misses than hits. That is the honest truth.
Many Ways to Market Your Business
When it comes to ways to market your business, you have hundreds of options, from hiring a high school kid to stand on a street corner with a sign and a funny costume to hiring a firm to produce a commercial for the Super Bowl. It’s all marketing — and yes, advertising is a subset of marketing.
Other examples of marketing that may or may not work for your business include:
- Billboard ads
- Distributed flyers
- Search engine optimization
- Sponsoring events
- Auto wraps
- Pay-per-click online ads
- Contests
- Special sales events
- Blogging
- Radio spots
- Social media
- Giveaways
- Press releases
With so many choices — and there are many more — which do you try? How do you select the strategy that may work best for you? The answer may surprise you.
Lesson #1: There Is No Trying
Remember the title of this blog post: There Is No Trying; There Is Only Doing. No matter where you decide to start, no matter which strategy you decide to begin with, you must give it your best shot. Don’t hold back. If you can afford a billboard ad, ask yourself if you can afford two, in different parts of your city. Make them different and compare the return on investment for each.
Give your initial strategy time to succeed. While paid advertising (online or off) may yield immediate results, some strategies, like blogging or radio spots, may take time to penetrate to your audience. If you’re prepared to pour money into a marketing effort, make sure you have enough reserves to give it the time it needs to succeed.
Lesson #2: There Is Only Doing
But if your strategy isn’t working, stop doing it and move on to the next campaign. This advice may sound contradictory to Lesson #1, but it’s not. Because there are so many ways to market your business, you’d be foolish to pour everything into one option. Especially if it’s not bringing home the bacon.
If your billboard ads have only brought in one or two customers in six months, stop paying for it and put that money into a different marketing effort. If, after six months of promoting your well-written blog posts, no one even likes them, it’s time to try Plan B. Give a campaign time to succeed, but recognize when it’s just not working.
Know When to Do It Yourself … and When You Can’t
Planning your initial marketing campaign is an exciting time for your business. If you know your industry and your market — and how to reach them — then go for it yourself. Plan your strategy, unleash your attack and track the results. If that’s too ambitious for you or you just don’t have the time to devote to it, call in a marketing pro.
The same advice holds true for marketing campaigns that involve writing expertise. If you’re capable and can paint a marketing phrase like a master, go for it. Otherwise, we recommend hiring professional writers like those at Ray Access. We provide the means for marketing your business that have a better chance of succeeding.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.