You can also raise the profile of your small business and get known with these five marketing strategies.
6. Work for your community.
Nothing will seed and grow goodwill for you better than to be seen working regularly to make your community a better place. Regular donations to your Food Bank or other local charity, serving on town committees, doing volunteer work – all the positive things you do transform into others’ positive thoughts about you and by extension, your business.
How to get started: Choose a cause or causes and get in touch with the organization or charity involved to see what they need and what you can do for them.
7. Create and send out a newsletter.
The newsletter is the workhorse of self-promotion. Sending a newsletter to your customers or clients, either through the mail or via email, lets you contact them on a regular basis, and, if done well, lets them form a connection with you and your company.
The kind of newsletter you send out should not be a product pitch but more a sharing of information that should be useful to the customer or client. You might include information on a special offer or product, but the bulk of the newsletter should be articles or tip lists. The keys to a successful newsletter are readability, usefulness and publishing on a regular schedule.
How to get started: Collect the email and/or mailing addresses of customers (and potential customers if possible). Design and write a sample newsletter and decide on a publishing/sending schedule.
8. Write articles.
If you can write well and are prolific, writing articles can be an excellent marketing strategy and turn you into a household name! Well, maybe I exaggerate a little here, but certainly writing articles can establish you as an expert in your field and draw more business your way.
The tricks to using this way of getting known successfully is to get your articles published in the right places and to be sure that your articles give the interested reader somewhere to go to learn more about/get in touch with you – such as your own Web site.
What are the right places? Web sites, magazines, ezines, newspapers that your ideal customers or clients have a good chance of using.
How to get started: Research to find “the right places” to send your articles. Examine these sites, magazines or papers and brainstorm suitable article topics that would interest their audience and relate directly to your business. Writing the article(s) is next…
9. Create a Web site.
Most of the people who try to use this marketing strategy to get known fail. They make the mistake of creating a Web site about the wrong thing – themselves. Sure, your potential clients want to know the basic information about you, such as your name and contact information. But frankly, they don’t care about your vital statistics or your personal life.
What they care about is your expertise, and that’s what your Web site has to showcase if this marketing strategy is going to work for you. So make sure that your Web site displays your expertise and gives your site visitors a way to sample it. You can do this by providing articles or tips about subjects related to what you do on your site, by having a visual portfolio, testimonials from satisfied clients, or even take and post questions and answers from site visitors.
How to get started: Design a Web site focused on your expertise yourself or hire a professional to do it. Buy a domain name, get a Web host and publish your site on the Internet.
10. Join the “right” organizations.
Some people make the mistake of separating businesses and consumers in their minds. They seem to think because they’re marketing to consumers, they don’t need to bother with other businesses, except for supplies. Wrong! Other business people are consumers, too – as are their families, their friends, their suppliers and their customers – all people who might be interested in what you have to sell if they got to know you.
That’s why joining organizations specific to your industry or field and other business organization, such as your local Chamber of Commerce, Business Association and/or networking group is so popular a way to get known. And by participating in these organizations, you also contribute to the well-being of your business community. In addition, some even offer financial benefits to members, such as discounts on insurance.
How to get started: Pick the organizations that interest you and find out how to join.
Yes, it’s going to take some effort and obviously getting known is not something that can be accomplished overnight, but this is one marketing strategy where you’ll be amply rewarded for your efforts. And don’t forget, you can shortcut the process by hiring a publicist if you wish.
Article Source: About.com
