Most startup owners are confident of their technology and product attributes, however, often the success they think they richly deserve remains elusive. Since they are never in a position to judge which marketing techniques and strategies have the potential for delivering the desired revenues, often they take the wrong decisions and burn their fingers with campaigns that simply do not deliver the desired ROI. Some highly-effective marketing tips that can help entrepreneurs get a bigger bang for every buck spent on sales and marketing:
Listen to the Customer – the Eric J Dalius Hot Tip No. 1
Too many entrepreneurs are so focused on their products and services that they completely ignore the customer and his requirements and needs. It is important never to assume anything about your customers. Instead of thinking that you know who your target audience is and what their concerns are, you should engage in primary research to identify them, and profile their likes, dislikes, and buying behavior. Finding out what their real concerns are and what solutions they are seeking can give you the most practical ideas of how to sell to them.
Highlight the Benefits Customers Get
Since very few products are completely new, you will be entering a market that is already occupied by the competition. You will, therefore, need to highlight the reasons why customers should prefer your product over the rest. You may wish to highlight the fact that your product costs less or that it is better in performance or even a combination of the two attributes making it the best value product in the market. However, your position can be undermined if a comparison war has the other players pitching in with their advantages. A more enduring marketing position to take is to try and sell the benefit that customers will get by purchasing your product. By underlining the benefits, the performance and price attributes become secondary thus catapulting you out of the rat race. Make it a point to focus on the customer, not on your product, advises EJ Dalius, a super successful serial entrepreneur.
Start Marketing Even Before You Can Sell
Most entrepreneurs are so focused on product development that they try to get the product perfect before even thinking of trying to sell it. This can prove to be costly because without having prepped the audience for the product, you cannot expect it to fly off the shelves as soon as you launch it. In practical terms, manufacturing a large quantity of the product and keeping them lying as inventory while you initiate the marketing campaign can tie up all your cash and leave you without any revenues. The best way of ensuring success is to start a campaign when the product is near finalization to stoke demand from both customers as well as distributors. Of course, the budget will limit the amount you can spend on the pre-launch campaign though it will generally be money well spent because it is likely to result in immediate demand creation and the cash flow will tend to remain healthy.
Think Creatively
Internet and digital technologies have transformed the marketing environment and entrepreneurs no longer have to depend on conventional advertising and marketing channels to create brand awareness and distribute products and services. For entrepreneurs, the most efficient way of accessing customers is to eliminate the distribution chain and reach out to the actual customers using digital marketing, according to askpreeto.com. Right from the old-fashioned but highly effective email newsletters to social media, there are plenty of options for the new-gen entrepreneur for driving traffic to the website or e-commerce platform for conducting transactions. With a large number of digital marketing techniques like content marketing, influencer marketing, video marketing, social media marketing, not to forget PPC, you can drive demand for your product in many innovative ways to cut through the noise of the competition. Regardless of the channel used, according to entrepreneur.com, it is important to test the messages thoroughly.
Be Sure You Can Measure Results
There is a popular saying that everyone knows 50% of advertising is wasted but nobody knows which one! The days are long gone where you could have afforded the luxury of blowing up a huge advertising and marketing budget in the hope that some of it would stick and work. It is very important that you are able to measure the impact of your marketing activity because otherwise, it boils down to sheer guesswork, which is never a good formula for achieving success. You need to be able to isolate the impact of various external factors like the influence of seasons, competitor activity, or a surge in interest in the product category due to a fad. The way to get measurable results is to conduct small marketing campaigns across various time periods and channels so that you are able to rule out external influences and find out the real impact of your marketing activity. The experiment will also reveal which channels do not work and allow you to focus your energy on the rest.
Use a Mix of Marketing Channels
Using only one marketing channel, even if it has been proven to be the best, is not necessarily a good idea because customers process information from multiple channels to finally form an opinion. So, if you have sent an email to a prospect regarding the product benefits, he may wish to check out your website, even some online reviews from existing customers, get some reinforcement from seeing a TV commercial and finally if they encounter a news report or a blog post mentioning the brand, the combination of all the influences could have a favorable outcome and result in a purchase. This is because when customers encounter your brand repeatedly on various channels, they tend to perceive it as a known and dependable entity that they can rely on. Top of the mind brand recall helps them to select your product instead of a competitor’s when he does need it.
Conclusion
It is always tough for entrepreneurs to achieve success. However, as far as marketing is concerned in this very competitive world, you can be sure that the discussed strategies would be helpful in getting you up to speed.
