Imagup General Magazine 2024
If you want to market your product, service or company in your area, it is important to build brand recognition. Of course it’s important to deliver a good service or product, but sometimes the reason it’s hard to get new clients, is because your brand isn’t that well-known yet. Good marketing is a must to obtain this. While there are tons of innovative marketing methods, you can not forget the main ones that will always be effective. Curious to which marketing tools you can not forget? Read along!
Your website
In the year 2024, every business has to have a website. It is your business card, so it is of great importance that your website looks good and shows off all the information your potential customers could need. Make sure you pick a website that is developed by someone knowledgeable, add interesting content and optimize everything for SEO so your customers can find everything they need to know.
Potential clients click away super easily if you have a slow-loading website, or if they consider your website not informative enough. Make sure your website looks good and is interesting enough to keep potential clients’ attention! We know that building a website can be a pricy thing, but we recommend you don’t try to save money on this. Having a website that converts and is built by a good developer, will be worth every penny.
Blogging
Good blogs look professional and emit authority. If you write good blogs, you can show you are an expert in your field and that you have all the knowledge to offer the correct information. Blogs also give a ‘personality’ to your company or a tiny peek behind the scenes. This might make people choose your company over others. Blogging really is an underestimated marketing tool! Take a peek in Google Analytics and see what people talk about in your field.
Those keywords and search volumes can give you ideas on what you can write. A tool like ‘Answer the public’ is also super handy to get insight on what people ask about your product/field/service, because it gives you a list of questions the public googles about a subject. You can build blogs around these questions or maybe even write out a FAQ-list. Even if something only has a small search volume, you can still attract people to your website if you rank on the first place of the search engine!
Customized products
Not all marketing has to be online. Offline marketing is still an important factor in the marketing mix. A fun way to get your name out more, is by getting products printed (Dutch: bedrukken) with for instance the logo or name of your company. There are all kinds of things you can get printed! You can choose to have mugs printed or choose to add your company name to all kinds of products that your possible customers might use, such as USB-sticks.
Getting a printed product is always appreciated so this is an original and fun marketing tool. You can give a mug when you’re visiting a potential customer during a sales pitch or give products to your employees. They can then show these off everywhere they go. A fun, customized product for your employees in particular, is a sweater with a quote and your logo. If the sweater is made of a good material and doesn’t look cheap or pure marketing, there’s a good chance your employees will wear it a lot. That way, they become real brand ambassadors!
Social media
Other than a website, nowadays you also have to take care of your social media. Especially when your business focuses on B2C. Luckily you can do a lot with social media without having to put budget towards it. It is important to be active on the social media platforms your customers are active on. For example, companies that sell interior products or fashion items, need to be active on Instagram and Pinterest, while companies that offer services, need to have a Facebookpage.
If you want to score even more with social media marketing, then you can choose certain platforms to advertise on. Facebook Ads has been a well-known advertising platform for years, but you can also advertise on for example Instagram, Pinterest and newer social media apps, like TikTok and Snapchat. Take a good look at your clients and the clients you would like to target. What’s their age group, gender and education? You can make personas and target your services or products specifically to these personas. Are you ready to get new clients?
Old-school networking
Networking is an old-school marketing strategy that nowadays is often overlooked, especially because sites as LinkedIn exist where you can easily connect with potential customers and others in your field. Furthermore, old-school networking has a bit of a negative connotation. Many people consider it scary going to networking events and having to talk to people, others don’t like the salespitch they think they have to give about themselves to everyone new they meet. Networking sounds like something from the eighties, when old men in suits would smoke cigars and drink whiskey. Obviously nowadays a networking event isn’t like that at all. Most of these events bring together like-minded people in similar sectors. For instance, seeing your competitors might bring out some friendly competition – and they might even talk to you about their business!
If the idea of going to a networking event really scares you, you can always opt to go to events where the main objective isn’t networking. An event that for instance has guest speakers talking about your sector, is never a bad idea. You might learn something new and during the drinks afterwards you might talk to potential customers. Even if you don’t talk business, you can introduce yourself and your business to the people there. The more often you do this, the easier it’ll get to introduce yourself and your company. Before you know it you’ll be speaking about your services or products to everyone you meet. You, after all, are the main ambassador for your brand.
We hope these small tips can help you with the marketing for your business!
