CREATIVE MARKETING STRATEGY

You have a great business idea. You have worked hard to put all the pieces into place. Now you are ready to market your business and its products. What is marketing? Is it the same as advertising? I run a home based business, is it important to have a marketing plan in place? How much does it cost? How do I do it? Yikes! There are so many questions to ponder but luckily, there is tons of information available to help you.

Home business marketing is just like marketing for big businesses. In order for your business to be successful, you need to make money. For any business to make money, you need to have sales. In order to make sales, you need to market your product or service to potential customers.

Here is one definition of marketing:
“Marketing is the process of interesting potential customers or clients in your products and/or services.”

Did you notice that I said “PROCESS”? Marketing does not involve just one thing. Marketing involves branding, researching, promoting, selling and distributing your products or services. Marketing involves everything you do to get your potential customers and your products or services together. To market your product or service to its full potential, you must consider all of these things.

Branding helps customers recognize your company and what it stands for. Branding is used throughout the company, such as in its logo, stationery, business cards, on its website and in its tagline. Everyone knows the Nike swoosh. When you see the swoosh printed on a shirt, you know it is a Nike shirt. The word Nike does not need to be printed with the swoosh…you recognize the swoosh as Nike. That is branding.

Researching involves finding the perfect customer for your product. If you are trying to sell peanut butter brownies to a diabetic, you are probably wasting your time. If the brownies are sugar free, then you could have a market. What product or service are you offering? Who is most likely to buy it? Do your research. You do not want to waste valuable time and money marketing to someone who will not buy your product or service.

Selling is the process of informing your prospective customers of the benefits of your product or service. Tell them why they need your product or service. How does your product or service benefit them? Moreover, why should they buy from you and not your competitor?

Promoting keeps the product in the minds of your prospective customers and helps drive demand for the product. This could include a little publicity. Sponsor a charity event and have a local paper cover the event. For screen printers, hold a free or low cost screen printing class. My local newspaper always lists local events. Write a Blog about your products. Publicity goes a long way.

Distribution is the many methods used to get your products or service to its customers. Do you want to sell on the internet, through a catalog, in a brick and mortar store or a combination of the three? In this section, I also think you need to include order fulfillment. Will you be able to distribute all orders in a timely manner? Deciding on your methods of distribution will greatly affect the other aspects of your marketing.

Now that you have considered all of these aspects, how do you get the word out about your wonderful business? The capabilities of the internet and social sites have given us little people lots of help. However, it can still be tough. How do you stand in a crowd of so many?

You stand out by being as creative as possible. “THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX”. Well, I decided to think both ‘INSIDE” and “OUTSIDE” the box. Therefore, I have named my marketing strategy “INSIDE OUT CREATIVE MARKETING”

Stay tuned...VIDEO ON ITS WAY.  I wanted to get this posted first.


Jeanette