Marketing          

Marketing is the life line of business. As business operators we need to keep customers interested in and informed about our product and/or services. We do this through advertising strategies which can take many forms.
The forms of advertising are Word of Mouth, the use of public media such as newspapers, radio, and television, major advertising signs such as billboards. Delivery of flyers, car signage. Major directory advertising lists such as the Yellow Pages, community directories, internet search engines and Web Directories.

All of these strategies have a value.          

Word of Mouth is where the customer tells a story of how remarkable your product and/or service is. A recommendation from a trusted friend or acquaintance can have the most influence on a person’s perspective. Let’s face it, humans talk!, if enough people talk to their friends about the product or service they have experienced, will seek you out.
Public Media such as Newspaper, Radio and Television provide short messages where people can concentrate, hear a name, become interested in your product or service. If the information is not relevant to the audience, they are easily able to filter out the information.
Advertising signs and flyers fixed and mobile billboards, car signage. Are all great for exposing the product or service you have to the members of the community in which we work, live and seek leisure.
Major directories such as the Yellow Pages, community directories, search engines and Web Directories are reference points for marketing a business, product or service. If a person sees or hears a commercial on the public media and misses the details, they are easily able to search for the name or listing area for your business, product or service.

Marketing professionals say that we should use as many forms of media to market our businesses as we possibly can in order to market our products and services.

In order to get the best results form marketing          

a variety of strategies combined will yield the best results. Analyse which strategies will work best for you. For example, a seaside B & B would spend more of their time and budget during winter in order to take bookings for the summer period. Another example is a hair dressing salon. When the staff is not busy due to lower customer demand, they go into the shopping strip or mall and give away free haircuts or discounts. This allows the salon to draw attention. It makes people become aware of and interested in trying the service. Through the use of this strategy, losses will be minimized by repeat and/or referred clients.

Have marketing plans and always review.          

Things to keep in mind:

• Use marketing to make people aware of your product, service and sales.
• Awareness marketing can be used to remind people of who you are and what you do.
• What marketing strategy are you going to use so that potential customers will find you? For example: “Find us on geelong.com.au/”
• Allocate a percentage of your gross sales income to the marketing budget.
• Test and monitor marketing strategies.
• Ad campaigns take time to create awareness and business.
• Create a familiar branding for your business which will make it easily recognisable. This will include business name, logo and motto.
• Have a web presence so people can have a quick and easy reference to your products or service. For example: www.yourbusiness.com.au
• Customer service is your biggest marketing tool because word of mouth guarantees regular, quality customers simply because you are are there to serve the customer. And this is what creates RAVING FAN