Marketing Focus – The 5 Key Marketing Methods
On 7th October we will be offering our first training course which will give delegates an introduction to the five basic tools of marketing and work with them to fully understand them and learn how to apply them for their business. Click here to find out more and register.
Before the course, I wanted to give you a quick overview of the methods which we will explore in depth at the event, to give you a taster and help you become more informed about the different options open to you from a marketing point of view.
There are 5 main elements which make up marketing, and businesses should be using a combination of techniques to make the most of the power of each technique.
Advertising
This is used to:
o Create awareness of your company
o Persuade people to buy from you by promoting products and services
o Reinforce your existence by consistently repeating key messages
The key points to advertising is:
o It is paid for therefore you choose where to appear and what message is promoted
What can go wrong?
o For a small company it is important to get a return on investment from advertising therefore it should not be for brand awareness only. All advertising should have a strong call to action so people are motivated to do something as a result.
Direct Marketing
Direct marketing is smart marketing which is trying to elicit a response from your target market, be it filling in a form, registering for a competition or buying a product as part of a special offer.
Its key elements are:
o Targeting
o Control & Testing
o Continuity
Sales Promotion
Short-term promotional offers such as buy one get one free, special offers etc. This can be used to boost sales in quiet periods, clear stock or push new products or services and works well. Try to involve data capture in these drives so you are able to use this for promotions, this data has value
Personal selling
Using a sales person to go direct to a potential customer and target their message dependent on their requirements. This is very effective and works well for small businesses if the business owner is good at selling, however beware of hard selling, this can put some clients off.
Public Relations
This is soft sell promotion which creates a positive impression of your company and brand amongst your “publics” or the local community. It’s good because it is a lower cost method of promoting your company than advertising, however it is more difficult to control your message as you aren’t paying for it. Examples of PR are writing press releases and articles for the press, supporting charities, running community events and spreading the word of your successes to a wider audience
What can go wrong?
o You can’t control the message so it can be negative e.g. a bad restaurant review, or using the news in a negative article
o You can’t sell in a direct way so it can be difficult to measure the response
These are the options open to you as a small business and as I said before, the best way is to use a combination of techniques with a clear objective in mind. The more methods you use, the more powerful each method becomes as they all support each other.
If you would like to find out more, please register for our Introduction to Marketing seminar on 7th October http://shawmarketingservices.com/