The prime purpose of any business is to sell its product. A product can be a good or service. The aspect of profit may exist or not exist depending on whether your business is for profit or not for profit. The aspect of selling their product will stay constant either way regardless of whether the business is for profit or not for profit. One of the most common and important steps towards selling your product is its marketing efforts.
Marketing is the process of promoting your business or its product to potential consumers. Marketing is necessary for all forms of business. It is important for established businesses in order to keep their product in the spotlight. On the contrary, new firms need marketing in order to create brand awareness and a name for themselves.
Marketing is not an easy task, it requires a lot of planning and effort. In today’s highly competitive world, marketing is crucial for success. A business will not be able to catch up in sales and profit to its competitors if its marketing is not up to standard. In this article, we have listed methods and techniques you can use to make your marketing efforts more productive.
1: Create A Marketing Plan
Before you do any sort of marketing, we would suggest you create a marketing plan. A marketing plan outlines all the objectives and goals that you have for your marketing efforts. It will also define what strategies and methods you can implement in order to achieve those goals. A marketing plan will help give direction to your efforts.
2: Marketing Objectives
Marketing objectives will vary depending on the existing position and desired position of your business. Marketing objectives will give you a target and motivate the marketing team as well. Marketing objects can be financial or non-financial as well. A car headlights factory may market itself to increase the number of sales and consumers whereas a plastic chair maker may have the objective of creating brand awareness.
3: Using BCG Matrix
The Boston Matrix or more commonly known as the BCG Matrix is a very helpful tool when it comes to deciding marketing strategies. It categorizes the firm’s products into four categories based on their performance. These include; Star, Cash Cow, Dog, and Question Mark (?). This allows for a business to easily decide which strategy or tactic to use for which product.
4: Ansoff Matrix
Ansoff matrix also known as the product market expansion grid is used by firms to evaluate growth strategies. It will help a firm decide what sort of marketing is necessary to achieve growth objectives.
5: Use The 4 Ps’
The 4Ps are very important to any business’s marketing strategy. They stand for Product, Place, price and, promotion. For any marketing effort to be successful, the business needs to consider them.
The product itself matters the most. While marketing any product, the product itself will hold the most importance. The target market will be decided based on what the product is. Ideally, a product should fulfill existing consumer needs. The only other way it can be successful is if it somehow creates a perception that it is needed.
Price is another important factor when it comes to marketing. Make sure to keep your product at an affordable price if you are looking to enter a market or increase market share. Low prices and good quality will always attract consumers.
The place helps determine what sort of marketing activities are necessary. For example, if the product is being sold at retail stores, it will probably need mass marketing.
6: Social Media
In today’s world, social media and online platforms are the most common method of communication. You can go as far as to say that people live their lives on social media. You can get all kinds of information and exposure from social media as well. We would suggest that instead of advertising in print media, invest in marketing through social platforms. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are household names. We would suggest that you advertise on these platforms. Paid promotions through social apps are comparatively a lot lesser than other forms of marketing.
Other than paying the platforms themselves to promote your business profile, you can also market products through influencers. Wholesale jewelry manufacturers in China might hire a fashion or lifestyle influencer to promote their product through posts or stories. Influencers have large follower counts and therefore can help promote your business to a large audience.
Conclusion
Marketing your product is one of the most important tasks. However, in today’s world, it has become much more accessible and cheaper to market any product. Just make sure you follow the above-given steps and you’ll be golden.