Marketing
What is marketing?
Marketing is a term that covers a broad range of processes that communicate your brand’s offerings to the world. Successful marketing will improve brand awareness and increase sales for your company through initiatives that pique the interest of your target audience.
When does my business need marketing?
We’d argue that every business needs to deploy marketing initiatives consistently to best promote your offerings. The bottom line here is, if you’re not marketing your business, your potential customers won’t know you exist.
How marketing can help my business?
Marketing, when done right, aims to get your messages to the right people at the right time in the right place, or “fish where the fish are”, so to speak. A strategic marketing plan will educate and engage your customers, maintain your presence in the marketplace, drive sales, and consequently, help grow your business.
What marketing techniques should I be using?
Contemporary marketing techniques focus most on where people consume the most information – digital media. Mobile phones, tablets, and even laptops are constantly in the hands of consumers, and pose a great opportunity to businesses to reach a considerably large audience. However, traditional channels such as radio, point of sale, press ads and direct marketing techniques still have a place in the lives of consumers.
It is recommended that having a mix of marketing activities is often the best way to improve retention and share risk on investments. In addition, reaching your audience across multiple touchpoints builds brand awareness and creates trust. Knowing the how, when, where, and what messages to deploy is the most critical element of successful marketing.
Trade Promotions
What are trade promotions?
Trade promotions are a form of tactical marketing that aim to improve demand for a particular product or service. Competitions, free gifts, and special pricing offers are all forms of trade promotions.
What are the different types of trade promotions?
Trade promotions include a number of promotional activities, including competitions, temporary price reductions, coupons, rebates, premiums, in-store displays, samples and free trials.
How can a trade promotion help my business?
Ultimately, running a trade promotion will assist in increasing sales for your business. Trade promotions create value for your customers, which in turn builds stronger relationships with your company and improves your brand image. A trade promotion can also help to differentiate your product from competitors, meaning consumers are more likely to choose you first.
How can I take my trade promotion to the next level?
Trade promotions used to commonly see customers fill in an entry form and place it in a box instore, but this approach is quickly becoming less and less enticing for the consumer. It is now possible to direct your customers to an engaging microsite, allowing them to enter your competition or redeem a prize online. This method also allows for instant and easy monitoring of entrants, as well as data collection for future marketing opportunities.
Branding
What is branding?
Branding relates to the creation of a name, logo, design or colour that represents a company, making it easily identifiable. Creating a strong brand for your company or product will help customers recognise you, and differentiate you from competitors.
Why do I need a brand style guide?
It is important to use created brand elements consistently throughout all marketing material to ensure consumers know exactly who they are looking for. Brand guidelines clearly show appropriate use of your brand and act as a point of reference for future communications and projects. They will typically contain brand story, logo, colour palettes, fonts, voice/tone and acceptable ways for using the brand. Brand guidelines are critical to ensure all your content delivers consistent, on-brand messages.
How can I make sure my brand is consistent?
Once you have a brand style guide, simply ensure all existing and future materials adhere to the guidelines you have set out. Brand consistency is not only about ensuring your logo is the right colour, but makes sure the entire customer experience is streamlined. Don’t forget to consider your website, blog, digital marketing material, social media platforms and posts, physical signage, stationery, employee clothing and print advertising.
Digital
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing refers to content delivered through digital channels or electronic devices, including social media, mobile applications, email, websites, and even viewable monitors including TV screens, point-of-sale monitors, and menu boards.
What are the benefits of Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing provides an opportunity to reach a much wider audience with a significantly smaller investment from the get go. There is the ability to target your messages to particular audiences, and share information quickly and easily. Using digital marketing provides the ability to see and analyse results in real-time to determine the success of a campaign.
How can I promote my business online?
The best place to start to promote your business online is with your website. Ensure it is up-to-date, relevant, and easy to navigate. Once you have a strong website, you can start to build a following on social media and utilise other outlets such as online advertising. Consider your audience, ensure all your communications follow your style guide, and provide meaningful content that engages, entertains, and educates your customers, and you will be well on your way to promoting your business.
How often should I update my website?
Ideally, the information on your website should be updated as soon as any of the information on your pages is no longer relevant. The website itself should be user-centred, easy to use, and should clearly show what your business does. Importantly, your website should be responsive to ensure it provides the best quality experience for your customers at all times. If at any point your website is no longer meets any of these standards, it may be time for a complete overhaul of your content and design.
Why does my website need to be responsive?
Having a responsive website means that the design will respond to the user’s behaviour based on screen size. This allows for the best experience for your audience, regardless of what device they are viewing your website on. A responsive website leads to longer visit times, and a more positive impression of your brand. Also, Google ranks your site higher if they are ‘mobile-friendly’ for mobile search results.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and refers to the process of improving your standing on search engines. It’s well known that the top results on Google get the most clicks, and SEO aims to get your website as high on the ranking as possible.
Do I need a blog? And why?
A blog is a great way to add value to your website, and encourage visits to your page by sharing industry relevant content. Your blog is also an important SEO tool, as the content should include key words and phrases that relate to your brand and help lift your website’s search engine ranking.
