You do not need to budget for TV commercials, newspapers, magazines or Per Pay Click advertisements to market your business. Do you know that you can launch a marketing campaign on a low budget and achieve success in your business? Whether it’s a brick-and-mortar business or an e-commece venture, there are great ways to market your venture without emptying your bank account. Here are a few tips to help you launch a lean marketing campaign:
Understand Your Target Customers
As a business owner, understanding your target market isn’t an option. Many businesses, especially online businesses, jump straight into the market and start spending money on ads, without a careful and thorough research on their potential buyers. The end result is usually failure.
Although it is crucial to invest money in promoting your brand, you must take out time to understand your target market. Conduct a comprehensive research on your target market based on their demographics, income levels, buying behaviour and so on. You can start by selling your business idea to the people around you to get their honest feedback. By all means, avoid making vague and blank guesses when it comes to understanding your target customers.
Evaluate Your Product
Once you figure out whom you are targeting, you must evaluate the quality of what you are offering and ensure that it is worth selling to your customers. If you want your customers to value your product, you must present it well to them. Branding and packaging also play vital roles in appealing to your target market. According to Eric Reis, the founder of the Lean Start-up movement, ‘One of the principles of lean start-up model is the concept of ‘pivot’ (i.e. continuous change in the product until it satisfies the customer’s need) or ‘persevere’ (leave the product as it is if it satisfies the customer)’.
Locate Your Customers
To launch your marketing campaign with a bang, you must locate your customers to strategically channel your marketing efforts. If your target customers are online, then you must invest in online advertising across social media platforms. If they are offline, it is necessary to print marketing tools like flyers, banners, giveaways, and so on.
No matter how much you spend on advertising, it won’t pay off if you haven’t located your target customers. Once you have located your target, you can reach out to them and start building solid business relationships.
Connect With Prospective Customers
Now that you have found your target customers, you need to build an emotional connection with them. It is inappropriate to start pitching your product or service to prospective clients right away, or you may come off as desperate and risk loosing their patronage. A study shows that emotions control 50% of customer buying decision. Also, a recent Ipsos MORI study shows that customers who are emotionally engaged are more likely to:
– Recommend others to buy
– Re-purchase
– Less likely to shop around (44% said they rarely or never shop around)
– Much less price sensitive
You can connect with your customers through continuous engagement (in person, telephone or social media), by listening to their feedback and by making them a priority in your business decisions.
Launch Your Product
Finally, you must get your product out in the market. It’s important to announce your product release in advance, so that both existing and prospective customers will be aware of its launch in good time. This way, you’ll have more buyers waiting in line to purchase your product.
Having established a relationship with some customers prior to your product launch, they are more likely to buy your product once it hits the market. Your customers may also pardon initial defaults in your product or service, if any, because you have a working relationship with them.
