When you’re creating a marketing plan for your business, it’s important you don’t focus solely on one area. For example, if you only utilize social media and never try an email newsletter, you could be missing out on countless potential customers and beneficial brand exposure. It’s best to create a well-rounded marketing plan that allows you to tap into all available marketing channels until you find the ones that work best for you.
Here are a few marketing techniques you can try:
Email newsletters can be effective. If a company sends out interesting news, entertaining or helpful articles, and coupons or discounts (always a great idea), I actually enjoy receiving email newsletters. The trick is to produce something your target audience is going to take the time to read. Of course, you can throw a bunch of junk together and email it out, but all that’s going to do is send your email newsletter straight to the trash bin. Put together a quality email newsletter and send it to everyone on your company’s email list. Remember that this is not the place for a hard-sell—this is your chance to highlight any new products or services, include current specials or promotions, and offer your customers advice, tips, or how-to articles related to your industry.
Use social media to your advantage. With over 750 million people using Facebook and over 100 million using Twitter, it’s no surprise that social media offers mega benefits for businesses. Social media is a way for you to gain valuable insights about your business and customers, as well as engage with your target audience on a daily basis. Other beneficial social media sites are LinkedIn, Foursquare, Reddit, Digg, YouTube, and HubPages.
Press releases are still important. Have a new product coming out? Want to announce exciting company news? Press releases are still a great way to reach your target audience. Incorporate search engine optimization into your press release to help it get better rankings on search engines and send it to a press release distribution site. In conjunction with the social media tip above, send out a tweet and a Facebook post with the link to your press release to gain even more readers. Encourage social media discussions by asking your followers what they thought of your press release.
Explore all marketing avenues. There are many different ways you can market your company and exploring a few different techniques is a smart business move. From pay-per-click ads and TV advertisements to banner ads and professional web development, there are many ways you can establish your company’s credibility, reach more customers, and draw attention to your products or services.
Photo (Source)