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Marketing Tip of the Week: 5 Tips To Make All Your Marketing Better

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Finding success in marketing may often seem like walking into a brick wall, but there are some basic concepts that can help any form of marketing be better. You’ll find a few of them listed below:

Strengthen the Lead

Customers rarely want to wait around for your marketing content to get to the point. It’s important to start strong and say the most important thing first. This gets the customer’s attention immediately, and consequently lets you spend more time on the explanation.

That’s why you see adverts with 50% OFF splashed in large font while the disclaimers are in smaller print at the bottom or off to the side. It’s not about deception. It’s about getting the customer’s attention so that the will read the rest.

Make It Visual

As you’ve read here many times before, images and graphics do more to get the customer’s attention than any number of beautifully written words. Use graphics, use pictures, use anything and everything you can to catch your customer’s eye. Then keep their attention with your impressive writing skills.

Devote To Details 

Vagueness gets you nowhere fast. Customer’s want to know why they should spend their money with you. You have to provide them those reasons in detail, not broad generalities.

Ex. Quality means nothing without an explanation to back it up. It’s been so overused in marketing speak that it’s a non-word. It has no real meaning to the consumer. Explaining what makes your product quality restores meaning and even lets you define it in your own terms.

 Know Your Audience

No, that doesn’t mean to know them personally. It means to know before you begin exactly who you are targeting with any specific campaign or piece of marketing material. Each should have a specific audience and the more narrow and refined the better. Without that targeted approach, you are throwing darts while wearing a blindfold and hoping to hit the bullseye.

Always Be Closing

Yes, it’s a movie quote (thank you Glengarry Glen Ross,) but it also happens to be excellent advice. Every piece of marketing should have a stated purpose, should have a specific call-to-action for the customer and should be constantly evaluated to see if it’s worth continuing or if it’s time to pull the plug.

Consistency and persistency are important, but knowing when to walk away will always make you more money than sticking to a bad strategy.

Being a good marketer isn’t hard, but it does require adherence to a few universal truths. Have some tips you’d like to share? Add them in the comments below or be social and hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.

Marketing Tip of the Week: Spice Up Your Images!

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Last week I discussed a free site perfect for creating short videos to wow your customer. This week we are going to cover another free site, only this time it focuses on image manipulation.

Let me introduce you to Canva!

The Importance of Images

It’s no secret that customers prefer images to text. Invariably, any post including either will get more views than one without. But although an image has the power to draw attention, they aren’t always able to do the whole job on their own. Clarification often requires a little additional text, and for optimal impact, the best text should be placed directly on the image itself.

But how many business owners are savvy enough on the computer to superimpose text on existing images?

That’s where Canva comes in. They are a free-to-use site that will allow you to modify images with ease adding texture, filters and text in a variety of fonts and colors. There is a pay option if you’d like to do more than the free options allow, but there is plenty of usability without paying a penny.

Create Informative Graphics

With Canva, you can upload an image of your stock or an item you want to showcase, and then place text boxes so you can write on the image itself! You can easily size the boxes and choose the font type and size you need to say exactly what you want to say. Wouldn’t announcing a sale on shoes work better if the image had a large 20% off emblazoned across the front?

But that’s not all Canva offers. You will also be able to create your own images and banners from scratch. That means you can make your social media or website look professional without breaking the bank to have someone come in and do it for you.

Good marketing is all about having the right tools, and free programs that do the work for you are never a bad idea. Have a favorite program of your own? Share it in the comments below!

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Implementing Branding

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This week’s marketing tip we will continue our talk on brand marketing. Last week, we learned all about what branding is and how you can start integrating it into your marketing plan. So, this week we are going to discuss how you can implement branding into your store and make it work. Branding is so important because you want to be known for a good brand. Your store is your brand and represents you. Therefore, you want to have a good representation of who you are and what your store stands for.

Marketing Tip Of The Week
Develop Your Brand Strategy –This is the most important step within this process. This is where you create your brand identity, which will be communicated throughout the entirety of your store.

Within this process, you must determine your target market, figure out your competition, define your product mix and service and come up with a unique selling proposition. This is your beginning and will carry throughout your entire business. Therefore, it has to be efficient and correct.

Determine Your Objective –After you’ve determined your audience, figure out what you want to achieve with branding. Your brand will represent your company’s core values, personality and characteristics. Consumers will use these words to describe what your company is all about.

First, you need to ask yourself questions like, what do you want your brand to do for your company or what would you like others to say about your brand. After you’ve done that, determine your objectives. Do you want to be recognized for a specific award, gaining a specific amount of new clientele or positioning your company among the top? Those are your objectives and goals that your company needs to strive for through branding.

Target – One of the most important factors in implementing this is to make sure you reach YOUR target market. You don’t want to advertise towards the wrong crowd. If you do, your brand marketing can go to waste. Sure, it may attract some, but it will attract more consumers if you’re targeting the right crowd. Your target market are the ones who are going to want to come into your store and actually buy things. So, target them and get your great brand out there.

Knocking Down Barriers – Something that you will always have an encounter with are barriers. Therefore, you must be prepared. Maybe your barriers are your location, competition, financing or lack of demand. Well, be prepared. Sit down and write out any possible barriers you Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Implementing Branding” »

Marketing Tip of the Day

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Last week’s marketing tip kicked of the four part “Back to Basics” series. Every marketing principle/strategymust begin at square one: the 4 P’s of Marketing. This is a basic concept that marketing students learn in the beginning, however, by analyzing your 4 P’s, you can uncover new ways to better market your company. The 4 P’s are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Last week we discussed Product and this week we will cover Price.

Price

Understandably, this may be the most difficult components to alter to the needs of your business. Obviously, you must make a profit but your prices must be within the means of your customers and what they are willing to pay.

There are two dominating factors when analyzing the price of your products: competitor pricing and customer perceptions. You must be aware of how your competitors are pricing their similar products. If they are offering prices much lower than what you can afford, there are other ways to stay competitive. In this case, you must create the quality in the product that the customer is willing to pay for. Given that the customer has the appropriate means to buy your product, you must give them a reason to buy it (this reverts back to the product.)

You have two options. You can find ways to cut costs to offer the lowest or highly competitive pricing. The other option is to create quality in your product that customers are willing to pay for. You must plan your pricing strategy carefully because it will determine your profits and losses.

Other factors to consider regarding pricing are discounts. Are you willing to offer specials and discounts to your customers? Are you going to offer seasonal discounts? If you are a wholesaler or distributor, are you going to offer bundling prices for bulk purchases? These tactics are great ways to increase customer loyalty but you must be aware of potential losses and be willing(and able) to accept those. If you are a reseller, store, or shop, will you offer frequent buyer discounts/specials?

FYI: If you are a FG Market Vendor, make sure that your discounts/offers are listed on your FG Market Specials and Promotions Page!

Danial

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Marketing Tip of the Day

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Marketing Tip of the Day

I had plans to revert “back to the basics” this week with a 4-step guide to evaluating your marketing mix. It seems as though many businesses are especially interested in some of my topics from last week and would like me to elaborate! I am more than happy to help you out in any way!

Here is a quick recap from last week to refresh your memory:

  • Ways to use Facebook to nourish relationships with your customers.
  • Interacting with customers on their Facebook page and creating opportunities for them to actively participate on yours.
  • Offering incentives to customers who follow you on Facebook.
  • Much more…. Go Here to read the rest!

I told one of our vendors this little trick, and it is important that you all heed this advice: Social Media (Facebook) Marketing requires trial and error! Online marketing, specifically with Facebook and other social media tools, is a new concept to the world of advertising and marketing. Technology has forever changed and shaped the way we reach our customers! That being said, not many professionals or experts have pin-pointed the perfect online marketing strategy. We all know that it is an effecient, low-cost resource to reach a mass amount of (potential) customers—it’s perfect! Yet, we do not have the strategy perfected and it may never be.

By utilizing social media marketing, you are relying on your customers to take the effort to find you on Facebook, to friend you on Facebook, and/or to like your Business Page on Facebook. This can be a bit challenging when you consider the enormous amount of distractions (noise) that consumers face on a daily basis. There are a few ways, as a business, you can do your part to ensure you are taking the necessary steps to utilize this awesome (yet foreign) tool.

  • Your social media marketing is useless if your customers (and potentials) do not know about you! First and foremost, it is essential that you take the initiative to inform your customers. A few ideas include: fliers/handouts/posters in your store directing them to your social media pages and a direct link on your home page (that is easy to see!) to your social media pages. You can also mail or e-mail your customer base with your social media information and offer incentives for them to find you.
  • Get involved! Find out what the customers want to know about, what products they like most, what needs you can fulfill, etc. Then, use this information to ignite discussion on your Facebook page. Try using trivia, interesting facts, contests, discussions, trends, and more to interest your customers.
  • If you want your customers to be involved on your page, you cannot ignore theirs! If they post something interesting, comment on it or “like” it.
  • Encourage your customers to post reviews, pictures, etc. on your Facebook page about your products. This allows potential customers to see your satisfied customers and the great products you offer!
  • If you have a rude customer encounter, do not snap back! The best thing you can do when using social media tools is to treat everyone with the utmost respect, no matter what they say to you. This is a great way to build your relationship and authority with customers and potentials.

If all else fails, start over! If your customers simply are not responding to your social media content, then try something else! There are also many Marketing and Social Media conferences across the US—visit the nearest ones for local ideas and tips. I hope this helped those of you who had any questions from last week and if not, let me know, I will be glad to come up with more ideas!

Danial

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