The lifeblood of any business or organization is
keeping current customers interested in your product or service while finding
prospects to become new customers. This necessarily means that your business or
organization must devote time and resources to promotion – using various
methods to reach a target audience with a specific message.
Effective promotion is not limited to large
businesses with substantial budgets. Smaller businesses and organizations can
be successful by understanding how promotion works and adapting strategies and
techniques to fit the available resources.
Promotion
objectives
There are many possible objectives for a
promotion strategy. Each is intended to produce a specific outcome and can be
used singly or in combination. Here are the most common objectives:
- Build awareness. Although your current customers know you well, your prospects – the businesses or individuals you have identified that you want to have as customers – may not know you at all. Promotion helps introduce your business to your prospects, and is often the first step in gaining a new customer.
- Create
interest and build trust. People buy things they need or have an
interest in from those whom they trust. And long-term, loyal customers are
the result of many positive interactions and transactions that become a
trusting relationship. Promotion begins the process of building a
relationship.
- Provide
information. If you are launching a new product or service, whether to
existing or new customers, the object of a promotion may be to explain it
and its benefits. If your product is well established, an
information-based promotion establishes you as an expert and creates
interest among prospects who don’t yet know your company.
- Sell
something. Some promotions are intended to drive demand and increase sales
by getting customers and prospects to try the product. Free samples, free
demonstrations and free trial periods are the type of promotions that
stimulate demand.
- Establish loyalty. A repeat customer is one who has product or brand loyalty. Promotions based on establishing loyalty are useful after a customer has made one purchase, to start the process of building a strong relationship.
Target
audience
Effective promotion begins with determining what
audience you are trying to reach, since both the message and the promotional
method may change depending on whether you are targeting current customers,
past customers or prospects. Most small and medium-sized businesses are
equipped and staffed to offer a specific and well defined complement of
products or services. A successful promotion matches these products and
services to the audience most likely to be interested in them.
Purchase motivators – the things that cause
someone within the target audience to become a buyer – are different for
individuals and businesses. In general, individuals purchase products or
services to satisfy a basic need, to solve a problem or to feel good while businesses
purchase to increase revenue, maintain the status quo or decrease expenses.
If your target market is individuals, learn to
describe them with measurable characteristics such as age, gender, level of
education, income, marital status, ethnicity, and family status. The
corresponding characteristics for businesses are number of employees, annual
sales volume, location and years in business.
Selecting
the promotion method
For a promotion method to succeed, it must first
reach the target audience. This sounds simplistic, but is often overlooked by
businesses that haven’t adequately profiled the target audience. It is
important to change your perspective from the business owner or sales manager
to the target audience – simply put, to sit in their chair or walk in their
shoes.
Begin by asking yourself how your target audience
accesses information. Are your customers and prospects more likely to seek
information using traditional media like reading newspapers and magazines,
watching television, reading newsletters or responding to a direct mail
campaign? Or do they seek information by reading e-mail, searching the Internet
or reading blogs? You’ll need to set aside your personal biases – though you
may be intrigued by social media such as Twitter and Facebook, if your target
audience isn’t, then a promotion using these methods will not be effective.
Keep in mind that no single promotional method
works all the time for every target audience, so rotate several methods and
vary your approach. In addition, use promotions regularly. Over time,
consistency and frequency will influence the buying decision more than the
specific type of promotion.
Promoting
on a budget
No matter the size of your business or organization, it needs to have a
budget for promotions. Pick a time period – we recommend quarterly,
semi-annually or yearly – and commit both a sum of money and some time for a
designated person to manage the promotional effort. It takes both a budget and
someone to manage the budget to ensure a successful promotion.
Promotions don’t have to cost a lot of money or take a lot of time. A
simple way to start is by targeting your best customers and introducing them to
products or services you offer that they may not be using. Here are seven ideas
for promoting on a budget.
- Send a
monthly informational newsletter. That’s
what we do! In fact, we send both a printed and digital version that gives
us a chance to demonstrate our expertise, introduce you to new
technologies like QR codes, and remind you of the full scope of services
we offer.
- Highlight the specific products and services that represent what you do best. Develop a series of post cards, flyers or mini-brochures that showcase the things that provide the majority of your sales. These are the things that, because of equipment or skills or experience, you can offer a true competitive advantage to buyers. The series can be distributed individually or as part of another communication.
- Follow up a purchase with an additional offer. A customer who has just made a purchase is an excellent candidate to make another one right away. This is especially true if the customer receives an offer with additional value attached – a discount coupon or a buy one/get one promotion. To create urgency, include an expiration date for the offer.
- Target past customers. Revive an old relationship by contacting past customers. There may be a negative reason (such as a bad customer service experience) that explains why a customer became inactive, but don’t worry about it. Something may have changed within the past customer’s company that again makes them a good candidate for your promotion.
- Put a sticker with teaser copy on an outbound envelope. Teaser copy – a few words that creates interest – is often printed near the address on the outside of an envelope or a self-mailer. Teaser copy is just what its name implies: something that teases the reader to open an envelope or keep reading. If the teaser copy is printed on a sticker and affixed to the envelope, it becomes dimensional and attracts even more attention.
- Offer a guarantee. Changing suppliers presents some prospects with a risk factor they may be reluctant to deal with. This is true even if the current supplier is not performing well. Alleviate the anxiety and eliminate the risk by offering a guarantee to your prospect.
- Self-promote. Get the word out about your company’s accomplishments. When you win an award, land an important new customer, expand your capability or capacity by adding equipment or staff, let everyone know. People like to do business with successful people. Use a press release directed to the business editor of your local newspaper to announce something you are proud of. Add a line to your e-mail signature and announce your accomplishment on your web site.
Promotion builds business
Regardless of the size of your budget,
it is important to continuously promote your business. At PaperGraphics
we’ve been helping businesses, organizations and individuals with promotions to
customers and prospects for 40 years. To
brainstorm promotional ideas to help your business or to get started with your
promotion, contact Dennis Smith at 254-773-7391 . We’re ready to
help.
