In order to sell more your service or your product is necessary spending in marketing, and the months of November and December is the best time to produce a marketing calendar – an advertising and promotion campaign over the complete year that is coming up. The best way is identify the media that best reaches your target audience and the alternatives marketing tools that can help improve your business in the next year.
Here bellow you will find the 10 most important (and some most effective) ways to deliver your message to your target audience. An annual marketing calendar is an excellent way to save money and get more out of your marketing dollars. What many small business owner need to have in mind is focus in an intelligent marketing and advertising campaign every year and the best to do it is making the layout of a strategic and budget advertising investment.
- In Person: One-On-One or Group Presentations: always well effective, but you can not only count with it.
- Ads: Websites, Newspapers and Magazines: banners and displays (specially full pages) works great and particularly, when you launch a service or product. Take not that if you buy a package and not per insert you will be saving a great amount for your year campaign and will get the best results. Remember that 1 or 2 AD’s in many cases won’t give It the results you expect. Its necessary keeping the client mind fresh for the time he/she needs use your service or product.
- Trade Shows: Excellent way to meet your prospects face-to-face. Make sure you are not just handling out your literature that will get dumped in the trash as they leave. The important here is the live direct contact and follow ups.
- E-mail: E-marketing remains a good marketing tool despite the fact that some people no longer consider it. But it is definitely effective. All depends on the quality of your email list (not quantity!) and how you send the campaign through email. Always a good tip is to have your own opt-In mailing list or if you use an e-marketing company that focus in your audience.
- Website: More and more people are turning to the internet for information about products and services. To be on the net is easy today, but with the high competition, to attract traffic is the hard part. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay per Click (PPC) and Google Adsense campaign are some of the alternatives.
- New Releases: The media is always looking for items of interest for their public, so making an effective and consistent Press-Release can give you message an exposure with no cost (if you do by yourself) or affordable cost (and more effective) if you consider a publicist to make it for you.
- Articles: If you like to write, one of the best and least expensive ways is writing tips related your industry. Write in a journalistic way and find out how to introduce the keywords about your company and services. You can also consider hiring a company that specializes in creating content.
- Signs: Store front signs and in-store sings, wall or even your car magnetic signs are great alternatives for delivering your concept and idea. An extra and additional tool used for years, for exemple, for realtors.
- Radio: It can be initially expensive but worth for many establishing business.
- TV-Cable: in most cases, effective and better targeted. You can run ads or even rent a type 30 min airtime at once a week for produce your own “commercial” shows with tips and guests.
- FlyersEtc: A tool that no small business owner should forget. It is most effective if you use the right printer and the right designer. Handed out or posted flyer type as 4” X 6” (this size is perfect as it is postcard size) or sending it by U.S mail with discounted postcard rate. You can also display your flyers in traffic places such as cafés, restaurant, etc.
- Social Media: Considering that more than 3 billion people are on social media daily it’s not surprising that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc is somewhat effective as a marketing strategy. 54% of the planet’s population use in some way social media to research for products and services and 71% of consumers who have a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family. But is important to have knowledge on how to marketing. Remember that most people who use social media are looking for great content (educate them) and not a sales pitch itself.
A considerable number of small business owner not have the success expected
due to improper marketing campaign or even any marketing strategy. Usually the reason is the lack of planning the first steps or the early stage process. The true that you need to consider is that there is a strong potential to increase sales, save money and growing your business with the benefits of a marketing calendar and having an annual promotional plan in place.
* If you need any help with your marketing planning from content marketing and social marketing to design, SEO, video production and web development, do not hesitate to contact us without obligation.