HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT MARKETING STRATEGY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Your online marketing efforts won't bring results until you know who your ideal or target customer is
There are so many online marketing strategies, but do you know how to choose the best ones for your specific business requirements? On the one hand, you can never ignore the potential of promoting your business online. On the other, you need to use the right kind of online marketing tactics so that you can reach out to the right type of audience without wasting time and money.
Given below are a couple of very essential tips (questions) that you can use (ask) to choose the right marketing strategy for your business.
Who is Your Ideal Customer?
Your online marketing efforts won't bring results until you know who your ideal or target customer is. The process of identifying the ideal customer is target customer profiling. Once you're aware of the demographics, psycho-graphics, and behavioural attributes of your target customer, you'll be in a better position to move your marketing efforts in the right direction. Therefore, know more about your existing customers and talk to them so that you can identify what an ideal customer for your business looks like.
The purpose of reviewing your current customer base should be to recognise those that bring you maximum profits. Most of the small businesses or companies make the mistake of looking at their biggest clients as their target customers. The idea is to list your customers in terms of profitability first. Once you're done with it, you can then categorise them on the basis of industry, size and other demographics. And always remember to stick with the target customer profile.
What are Your Business Goals?
There are different online marketing tools to fulfil different business goals. Find out what goals you want to achieve. Do you want to expand the reach of your business? Do you want to retain your existing customers? Do you want to build an online community of loyal followers?
Where Do Your Customers Hang Out?
In order to reach out to the right kind of customers at the right time, you need to find out where your target audience hangs out. There are multiple online and social media platforms. But your target audience doesn't spend time on all of them. When you know where your potential customers spend most of their time, you'll be able to focus on the right channels.
What Metrics Do You Need to Focus On?
Effective online marketing is also about concentrating on the right metrics. To become a 'power user' of online marketing tools, you should be able to focus on the right metrics. Internet marketing requires both time, patience and money. If you are unable to track or measure your progress, your investments might just be wasted.
If you choose the wrong metrics, you can easily burn your fingers and frustrate yourself. At the same time, you need to limit the number of metrics so that you don't suffer from information overload.
What's Your Budget?
Monetary investment can make a huge difference to online marketing. It's how much you plan to spend that decides what strategies you should use for to grow your online business. If you have a strict budget, you may choose cheaper or low-cost options. If you want to hire professionals for the best use of online marketing tools, you will need a higher budget. Decide how much you're actually willing to invest.
Conclusion
There are a lot of small businesses that are unaware of what online marketing strategies fit in with their business needs. They get confused! Thanks to this checklist, you will take your marketing to the next level.
Recommended Reading from our friends at Albacross - An article "The Guide to Creating A Killer Ideal Customer Profile"
