from The Homemade Company

I speak to many business owners who are either just starting out or venturing into new pastures developing new services or products.

When looking at marketing any business people generally want to communicate more effectively with their customers and know where and how they can reach new markets.

The first question I ask is – “Do you have a marketing strategy?” The answer is nearly always the same….”Well, I have it in my head. But have never really gotten around to writing it down”

When I dig a little deeper, very few really know what makes them truly unique to their customers, who and what their competitors are doing and how they can provide a better service, and of course how to communicate in a way that will get your customers attention, and end in a sale.

If you are going to succeed in any business a marketing plan is essential, but without a solid well researched marketing strategy to begin with, your plan can easily fail, and cost you a lot of money and time.

So here are my top 6 tips on building your marketing strategy to help save you time and money and to market your business to the people who will buy your product or service.

1. Find your perfect client – Your target market is a group of people who want or need your product and are willing to pay for it. (The pay for it bit is super important!).  You cannot be everything to everyone, so find the people who need YOU.

2. Define the problem and offer them a solution

Understanding the benefits of your product or service can really help you to identify how to market your business.  Turning your features into benefits is the key to grabbing your customers’ attention.  People generally want to know how your product or service will make a positive effect on their day or life.

For example if you are a chiropractor your features may include

• Improving peoples aching joints

• Being local to the town area

• Over 20 years’ experience

When you look at these features as benefits they suddenly sound a lot more exciting.

• Improving your lifestyle, you will now be able to play with your children without pain

• Improving your mindset, when you have no pain you feel more confident and happy.

3. Understand your competitors and knock them out of the ball park.  In this day and age most people’s competitors are not limited to the shop down the road who stocks similar products. With the internet your competitors can come in all shapes and sizes. Know what areas you are competing on, understand the contributing factors when your customers are deciding where to buy from.

4. Find your USP. This is your unique selling point.

I am the best – is not good enough, be specific and make sure it is unique.

5.Find your core message, and know how to communicate it.

With a solid core message your business will:

• stand out amongst the crowded marketplace.

• communicate the value it provides your customers.

• be positioned to be noticed and understood.

• be the consistent foundation of your marketing plan

6. Outsource it to a professional – get help and write it down, so that you can use it when marketing your business. Once you have this information it will help you when talking to people, writing and placing advertising and building your website.

I’ve partnered with Jenny Hassam at Rhetoric Communications to offer a quick and easy way of putting together a marketing and PR strategy suited to YOUR business, click here for full deets.