Running a business is challenging. When developing a business plan, you would have addressed every aspect of the company, including marketing strategies. If you have not developed a business plan or marketing strategy, you must address it immediately.
Marketing is imperative when it comes to making any business a success. Without marketing, customers won’t know your business exists or what it offers. Therefore, you must develop robust marketing strategies and implement them immediately. 
Here are five areas to focus on when developing your marketing strategies.
Know Your Customers
Knowing your customer should be a given when it comes to business. Surprisingly, many business owners don’t take the time to get to know their target customers or demographic, which hurts them tremendously. First, no matter how big your business gets, you must realize that your customers are responsible for your success and growth.
While it is understood that some businesses have a vast or unlimited target consumer, most companies have a specific target clientele. Having this knowledge will direct your marketing strategies to have a laser focus on the intended target. This strategy will gain you customers but save you valuable marketing dollars if you direct your marketing strategies this way.
Use Your Social Media
Social media marketing is perhaps one of the most popular marketing strategies because it’s free (or low-cost) and easy to execute. Most people have an online presence on one or more of the three major platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. All three can be effectively used to promote your business and the specific products and services you offer.
Facebook has some pretty inexpensive adoptions, and you can create free business pages that will allow you to reach potential customers and interact with existing customers. Twitter and Instagram will enable you to interact with customers and potential customers in real-time and inform them of your products and services. You can also answer questions or concerns on all of these platforms and receive reviews on your business page on Facebook.
While you will need to supplement social media marketing with other marketing types, if you have a solid online presence through social media, you can focus most of your marketing attention on this area and have great success.
Reward Your Loyal Customers
Business owners and marketing strategists sometimes focus on gaining new business and forget about loyal customers. Look at any cable or internet provider and see how many offers they have for new customers and how many they offer loyal customers; those large corporations don’t have to care for you after they get you because they already have your dollars and regular payments. Small businesses should never adopt this mentality, even if they become corporations.
If you care for your loyal customers, you can trust they will tell everyone they know about your business. So place in rewards, make them feel loved and cared for at every turn, and keep them happy. Your most loyal customers can be critical to ideas and changes that will improve your business, product, or service.
Build Your Network
Networking over the years has almost taken on a negative reputation. When people think of networking, they dream up scenarios of people wandering around, drinking in hand, handing out business cards, and having pretentious and shallow conversations.
Today’s networking is done more in the digital world and, when brought into real life, usually culminates in meeting for coffee one-on-one or social events that have more of a “getting to know you better” vibe than hitting as many people as possible in the palm with your business card.
With this in mind, remember the word personal when building your personal network. Your network needs to be filled with faithful “go-to” people you can call upon when you need them, and they will do the same.
Some of the best businesswomen and men have strong relationships, even with their competitors. Sometimes, your business or theirs cannot fulfill a client’s need, and if you send them their way, that will be bankable networking credit that can prove valuable and profitable.
Change Your Strategy
Change is good, especially when it comes to marketing. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. It is an adage that carries over in our business world today. However, if your marketing strategies are now letting you down or not as effective, change them up. Nothing says you have to do the same marketing you did at the beginning week over week or year over year.
Your business should be a living and breathing thing, and so should your marketing strategy. Why do you think big and even medium businesses have entire marketing departments? Would they need them if they were doing the same things repeatedly?
Conclusion
Throughout the beginning and life of your business, you should focus on marketing strategies. They are essential to the success of your business and the longevity and growth of it as well. Marketing should also get an allotment of the business budget because of its importance. With the right marketing strategies, your business will be a great success.
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