Right Marketing Methods for Your Business
No business can prosper without using proper marketing methods. Most Ugandan companies have great products and offer exceptional services. But if no one gets to know about them, what happens? You don’t get customers. One of the challenges we have is how to make our products and services known not only in Uganda but worldwide as well.
As a business person, you must focus on marketing your business using effective marketing methods because they enable you to target the right people. You need to target them with the right messages to gain the highest return on your investment.
There are many marketing methods from which you should select the ones that bring significant returns on your investment. There are both offline and online marketing methods. Let’s remind ourselves of the types of the most used marketing techniques before we throw more light on how to select the best practices to use for marketing your business.
Offline Marketing Methods
They include mainly and not limited to:
#1 – Signs – are a great way of catching your targeted customers’ attention.
#2 – Word of mouth marketing – it’s a natural and very effective marketing technique most businesses use. Clients also speak for your business, and you end up getting referrals through their word of mouth.
#3 – Radio advertising – in Uganda, this marketing method reaches many people because a significant percentage of Ugandans has access to radios.
#4 – Free promotional items – branded items like glasses, pens, hats and much more are given free of charge to targeted clients. However, you have to be with a reasonable budget to use this marketing technique.
#5 – Flyers – most businesses use flyers to inform their targeted customers about their products and services.
#6 – Newspaper advertising – one of the traditional marketing methods most firms with a decent budget use to promote themselves.
#7 – Sponsorships – another way to promote your business is through sponsoring an event.
#8 – Events and tradeshows – participating in tradeshows is an excellent way of getting your business in front of your potential customers.
#9 – Vehicle marketing – you can identify your vehicle with your company business.
#10 – Front window advertising – If you have a front window at your shop, you can take full advantage of it by branding it to communicate to your potential customers.
#11 – Wearable marketing – this involves you and your employees dressing alike in matching uniforms featuring your company logo.
#12 – Door hangers – these are materials printed with your company name, products and services which you hang on doors in commercial buildings after working hours. It’s an effective door-to-door marketing technique.
#13 – Business cards – most people with businesses in Uganda use this marketing method to reach their potential customers.
#14 – Phone marketing – you can use SMS marketing to reach your targeted clients.
Online Marketing Methods
These are internet based marketing methods. I’m sorry, but the days of not having a presence for your business on the web are over. It is what Ugandan businesspeople must learn. Some of the online marketing methods most companies use include the following:
#1 – Have a website – a business website is a prerequisite for establishing an online presence for your business.
#2 – Maintain a blog – integrate a blog into the site to connect to your potential customers and to get new clients.
#3 – Search engine optimisation – helps your website to appear in search engines for specific keywords that potential customers use to look for what they need.
#4 – Online advertising – the most familiar way to advertise online is by pay per click, which most search engines like Google offer.
#5 – Social media marketing – social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin offer great marketing opportunities to businesses.
#6 – Email marketing – this involves building an email list of people to whom you send your marketing emails.
#7 – Forum marketing – this consists of participating in online discussion groups on subjects related to your niche.
#8 – Press release – doing an online press release can bring business for you when you send a news article to Google News, Yahoo News and other news sites.
What Do You Need to Know Then?
On all the methods, there is a lot to learn. You need to know how each technique works. You also need to understand what is involved in using the approach to market your home business. It’s when you can appreciate how each process can be an essential part of your marketing strategy.
Selecting the best marketing methods involves making big decisions on how to spend your marketing budget. If you make poor decisions, you risk wasting your time and effort. You also risk losing your financial resources on marketing methods that won’t work in your business.
As you look for the best marketing techniques for your business, you need to avoid information overload. It might stop you from taking action. You need to find quick and simple ways of discovering the potential of the marketing strategies that are ideal for your business.
How Do You Evaluate the Practicability of the Marketing Methods?
When checking the viability of the marketing techniques, you should ask yourself the following guiding questions.
- Which marketing methods? You need first of all to know them. Luckily, we have mentioned some of these techniques above.
- What do you know about them? Knowledge about individual marketing methods is so crucial for you to make an informed decision.
- What marketing goals do you think these marketing methods will enable you to achieve? You should have an annual marketing plan for your business in which you target specific goals.
- Which other businesses you know have used these marketing methods and succeeded? Through benchmarking, you can understand what works and how it works.
- What kind of results do you anticipate to achieve with these methods? It’s always good to expect some results or else you spend your time, money and energy on strategies that don’t bring results.
- What benefits do you see for a business like yours?
- Are you assured of any success?
- Are there any risks involved?
- What resources (time, money, energy) are needed to have them set up? If you don’t have a decent budget, consider using marketing methods where you do not spend much. But you will have to spend your time and energy on them.
- Do you have the resources to run these marketing strategies?
- How will you evaluate your success?
Conclusion
As you plan your marketing strategy, use the above checklist to evaluate all the marketing methods you think that will work for your business. It’s essential to assess each approach before adding it to your marketing plan. If you respond to every question well, you will have the best marketing methods to market your business. What are your best marketing methods?
This is interesting and educative. I was searching for something about our economy, I’m glad I found it.