Marketing Hints and Tips -Increase Your Exposure and Customers

Marketing is about getting your products and services into as many hands as possible, and then encouraging them to come back.

What are you doing to get your products/services into more hands?

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Do you know how many people MUST be exposed to you and your products to get the needed results and dollars that you want THIS very month? There is a simple formula to do exactly that that we'll discuss in another article. If you want that one, just ask.

In the meantime, here's an idea to get you in front of a lot more people.

Partner with other companies to get your products in other people's hands. First, let's look at how much you are, or should be spending on marketing on a weekly and monthly basis. (Actually finding the number that you SHOULD be spending that ALWAYS generates the results you want and multiplies that return on investment is a whole different article. Check back with us on that one.) In any case, let's say that you should be spending 0 a week to generate ,000 a week in sales according to your business plan.

Are you in the mode of "avoiding spending on marketing" or in the mode of "finding the best return on investment marketing method?"

"Where should you be spending it to generate the best return for your marketing dollars?"

Just one suggestion goes like this (and you should have several going at once, not just one. This is a simple one.). Suppose you partner with other companies to give away that much in product.

There are a lot of ways to do that. One is that your partner company puts a coupon in everything that he sells. The coupon is for either a gift certificate for your product or service, or an X% off. That makes your partnering company's customers extremely happy to do business with them, and at the same time encourages them to come to you to capture his gift or discount.

There are several ways this could take place.

1) Gift Certificates: If you are actually giving a gift certificate, then give away through your partner company the a percentage of the amount budgeted for your marketing through gift certificates with one or more partering companies. The gift certificate probably would be a small purchase, would be something people really want and would come in to get, and if focused the right way a certain percentage would make an additional purchase. The partnering company might give away a gift certificate that is a percentage of his sale.

2) Discount coupon: If you are giving an X% discount on a purchase, then you can afford to give away an almost limitless amount, at least, as long as you've chosen the discount properly. If you have budgeted a certain percent of every sale toward the cost of marketing (by the way, do you do that?) then you can afford to discount it at least that much, or maybe more. I always look at every expense, including marketing as a multiplier. In other words, when I spend on marketing, it should generate 10 to 50 times what I spend. When you look at it that way marketing is no longer an expense. It is an investment in more business. It changes our view to "how many customers do you want to buy" with this investment.

3) What would happen if you developed an additional strategy to encourage them to buy more when they are there, or something to encourage them to come back? When they come in, what would happen if you offer another discount, maybe on a bigger version of the original? You have a bigger sale.

When they come in to collect their gift, make sure to collect their name and address, maybe their birthday, so that you can send them additional giveways, or discounts, or maybe give them a birthday present. You've just captured a dedicated customer, someone you definitely want to always send marketing to. (NOTE: When sending marketing to cold customers a typical response rate is anywhere from 0.5% to 1% is typical, but 1% to 10% might is possible when doing it right. When sending to people who've bought from you that number could be increased upward by 10-20 times. So that's a way to increase your marketing response and return on your marketing dollar.

This whole idea could be taken even further than just one company partnering with another store to give away the other company's marketing. A strategy to advertise the whole program could build those two companies, or even a whole neighborhood worth of business. What would happen if every company ran an ad that they were giving away XYZ with every purchase, or that all of the companies in the neighborhood were running a special to give away products. Wouldn't that encourage more people to shop the entire neighborhood?

Are there certain companies, or stores, that complement each other? In other words people that shop a jewelry store might also shop a clothing store. They might even have bigger opportunities to share customers. What other stores in your neighborhood would be an ideal partner for you?

As I said at the beginning, marketing is about getting your products/services into as many hands as possible. The more hands the better. Also collect names of those that come in and market to them on a regular basis. It's possible to increase your marketing results by multiples of 10 or more.

Marketing Hints and Tips -Increase Your Exposure and Customers

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