Make Marketing a Habit
Marketing, marketing, marketing! As business owners, we hear that we should do this to make our businesses grow. But what does that mean? What do we really have to do? How much time will this take?
It’s sounds overwhelming, but if you consider marketing to be all the things you do to sell your products and services, it’s actually much simpler than you think.
I recently read an article written several years ago: 33 Tips for Marketing Success and I think the ideas that the author describes are still the way to go for the busy business owner. The author suggests that you do 3-5 of these activities every day and get into the habit of marketing. Some of these involve more work than others, but all are suggested as a way for you to keep thinking about how you can make your business better!
Here are some of my favorites:
- Write a hand-written thank you note to one of your customers.
- Ask your staff what your best selling gift basket was during the past month and get their thoughts about why customers chose that basket.
- Visit a competitor’s web site.
- Invite a customer in to look at some of your new design ideas.
- Visit your neighborhood businesses and look at how they display their products.
- Call your local newspaper and find out who writes articles about local businesses.
- Review your customer list and make sure that it’s up to date. Make notes about customers who you haven’t heard from in a while and make a personal phone call to remind them that you’re around.
To be a good marketer, you need to think creatively about your business and think about it every day! What are some of your successful marketing ideas?
4 comments July 30th, 2008