The holly grail of all businesses is sales. Sales are the most important thing.
Without selling anything we have no need to make anything, grow anything etc. In fact businesses just wouldn’t work. The only way wages and overheads are paid are through profits. Profits are the margin held in the turnover of sales. So if we don’t sell anything we can’t pay wages. Have no need to make or produce anything. So we need sales.
Sounds simple. In the good old days of marketing we had few options to identify, find and drive customers to our sales team. With the event of the internet and email marketing opportunities have exploded. There are many Chanel’s to choose. Or amalgamate them all into one big marketing mix.
The internet delivery’s at first sight a cost effective method to expose your self to literally a world of customers. This delivers a few problems.
- All your competitors are after your customers and doing the same as you.
- As you compete for first place in Google in either CPC or SEO it becomes very expensive.
- Social media and Bloggs cost money and time, whilst often delivering limited results.
- Also there is so much choice available for marketers to use and then choices for customers to make their is no wonder that results are not what the internet marketers promised.
In fact there are some old fashioned marketing techniques that still stand strong today. Brand awareness. We all take this for granted. For instance, if you fancy going to the pictures for a night out with a friend, where do you find your friend, do you jump onto google and google for a friend to go to the pictures with. Which has many negatives and dangers. The obvious answer is ask a friend. You will have a few friends, trust them know their names, and telephone number and share social media with them and know what films they like. This is brand awareness, you know their brand and they know yours.
The same is true of why we do our shopping with the likes of Tesco, M&S for example. We know and trust their brand in the same way we know and trust our friends. Tesco and the like advertising evolves around awareness and loyalty. The two are interconnected. TV advertisements offer consistent communication. Money off schemes develop loyalty. The two together equal repeat business.
It’s cheaper to keep and develop existing customers than it is to find new ones. So as a small business or charity how do I create brand awareness. Well keep in constant consistent contact with them. The first step presuming you have identified that they have a need for your product or service is get your name ( logo) in front of them. This can be done by sending them a useful item that has your logo and contact details on. Everyone uses promotional gifts pens, mousemats, mugs, sticky notes, all these can be printed with your logo, go one step further send them some thing they can use in their job when they are out and about such as tape measures, ice scrapers, bags, travel mugs, the list is endless.
Add to the mix personalised workwear. Your brand printed or embroidered onto workwear not only creates wariness of your brand (company) but presents your company in a professional manner. The point is that by making sure your customers know your company they will have your name and details to hand without them having to search the internet for an unknown supplier.
Keep in constant contact with your customers both personally and professionally. This way you are their trusted friend. Email offers to them, included them in social media, take an interest in them.
In the same way a fire engine sounds its siren all the way to a fire. It needs to let all the people all the time know its their. Consistent communication. It’s called marketing brand awareness. So if you find yourself in the pictures on your own, yet your friend is there with someone else. They simply found another lover.