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Sales & Marketing

Marketing your Business for Success

By Ryan M. Hoback, Motivated Entrepreneur Incubation & Consulting

A pinch of this, a pinch of that, some creative stirring, and marketing mix that can't be matched. This is what “marketing your business for success” is all about, capturing the reader's attention and delivering the intended message. By now you understand that in order to promote your business; an integrated marketing communications idea is absolutely crucial to a successful promotional campaign. This is a concept of marketing that revolves around portraying a clear and consistent message about the company, business, or product and illustrates the company's vision and mission.

What is it that makes your idea stand out, what about your concept is different than what everyone else is doing? Is it different, does it even need to be? Figure out what type of customer – your exact demographic – wants your product or service, then start brainstorming on what it is that appeals to that audience. You need to be extremely creative, visually appealing with your delivery, and intellectually interesting while thinking outside of the box.

We need to start thinking about the niche angle that will capture the attention that we are looking to achieve from our marketing efforts. What is their age, their annual income, and what are the common interests of the group? Using this information you begin to start strategizing on the different types of media to utilize in order to be most effective while maintaining cost efficiency. Newspapers and local trade magazines are by far the most popular in localized markets, newspapers reach a wide audience and trade magazines captures the niche customer base you are trying to appeal too. Radio and T.V. are costly ways to advertise; however with new technology evolving the cost of producing these advertisements is becoming more affordable. Radio and T.V. also have a large audience base, yet can be targeted to individual sectors of the population. Outdoor billboards and transit advertisements are another way to appeal to a mass audience. The internet continues to be the fastest growing segment of the advertising market, and has become more and more effective in its application. An effective internet advertising campaign revolves around a well-designed website that has great functionality, an exceptional optimization program that ranks you high in search engines, and a targeted analysis of websites that have a high number of page viewings from your marketing demographic.

Cross marketing is an absolutely crucial element to the success of your marketing efforts. You must hit the desired target base from different angles with a marketing theme that remains consistent, while at the same time developing advertising that intrigues the viewer into a curiosity about your product or service. Once you have them wanting to know more about what you have to offer, you can start developing a multi-tier marketing plan that keeps them coming back to you.

Another great way to market your business is through professional associations and networking events. The more events and individuals that you introduce yourself to, the more one-on-one contacts you will have made, which can very likely produce a client recommendation. Personal marketing continues to become necessary to keep a business competitive. By constantly self-promoting the business you are sure to keep even, if not ahead of the competition, in addition the appeal that you give off in promoting your business is important. A true marketing campaign begins from the very top level of the company, and runs down to the lowest level of employee, integrating itself in to all aspects of the company.

Consistency pays off in the marketing world; a company who can consistently present their marketing campaign to the viewing audience will have a much higher rate of effectiveness. Your target audience recognizes brands names that they see on a regular basis, they become familiar with that name or logo. This is the true desired result of a consistent marketing effort; it becomes associated by the target audience with your business. This is when you can start implementing 2nd and 3rd level marketing techniques to your established client base.

Throughout this article we have discussed the different types of media and different marketing approaches and tools that should be used. Without the right marketing & promotion your ideas may never take off, when conceptualizing your idea make sure you test it out on a diverse audience. The more opinions and feedback you can receive from the different groups of individuals who you pitch, the more help you will receive in crafting your good idea into a fantastic idea. Remember, you must remain flexible in your approach to creating the concept. You cannot limit yourself to just one idea, or the one that you think is best because you came up with it. You need to develop and test every idea before implementing it into your marketing plan. Following the guidelines above will give you a good reference to get started on a great marketing campaign that will truly be successful!

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About the Author
Ryan Hoback is president of Motivated Entrepreneur Incubation & Consulting. They help entrepreneurs achieve success starting and growing their businesses.