Business Marketing and Ownership

Effective marketing is critical for any business to stay on top of the competition and keep the doors open. Marketing encompasses strategies involving social media, print and radio advertising, networking, and public relations to keep your business "on top of mind" for potential customers.

Marketing Strategies for Any Business

Your type of business and customer base will dictate what type of marketing strategy is best for your business. It's important to sit down and do a SWOT analysis and define your target market first.

Advertising

Once you know who your market is, you can develop advertising and marketing ideas to catch their attention and create an effective advertising plan. In the beginning you'll want to budget your money wisely and look for the best deals on advertising to get the most exposure for your dollars. If you have the budget and need the extra help, consider hiring an advertising agency to help plan out your strategy and advertising designs.

Online Marketing

Online marketing includes using social media like Facebook and viral ads, as well as purchasing ads through Google and other sites. Social networking sites can be a low-cost and very effective way to reach your audience and engage with them on-on-one. Online marketing can also include a dedicated content marketing strategy using search engine optimization (SEO) on your company's website.

Email Marketing

Another form of online marketing is developing an email list with regular contacts via a newsletter or targeted email content. Doing a regular email marketing campaign is relatively easy today with powerful and low-cost tools like MailChimp. It's important in an email campaign to write effective sales content which you can do on your own or work with a copywriter.

Business Networking

A traditional method of marketing that can be very powerful is business to business networking. Joining networking groups like the Chamber of Commerce and Business Networking International can put you face to face with businesses that want to buy your products and need to hire your services. The ability to keep track of the many people you meet is vital to success for networking as well as always having plenty of well-designed business cards ready to go.

Customers Are Your Best Advertising

One compelling way to gain more advertising is happy customers. When creating your business, you should build in ways to solicit customer feedback and go out of your way to solve customer problems. Positive word of mouth from great customer service can be a powerful source of referrals and customers to your new business.

Marketing Your Business

Marketing your business effectively means starting out with key information about your target market and strategic opportunities and threats. A good business person always has a crisis management plan prepared for when his marketing plans go awry and relies on building up a history of customer satisfaction to grow the business. Above all, don't be afraid to be creative and look at all types of advertising opportunities when building your marketing plan.