You have a product or a service to offer, but you have no idea how to get it out there. With the sheer amount of advertisement on television, billboards, flyers, and, of course, the internet, how do you go about making your product or service stand out?
You’ve likely come across the term, Search engine optimisation (SEO), whereby search engines choose websites, which fit certain criteria, to place in the top spots when a phrase or keyword is searched. While that is an integral part of being noticed on the internet, there are a few good, old-fashioned marketing matters to take care of.
Identify Your Goals
It may be time-consuming, but it is extremely important to spend some time drawing up a marketing plan. This gives you an idea about what you want to achieve in the short term, medium term and long term. It also helps you to find the type of advertising which suits your product or service best.
Create a Plan of Action
This step forces you to analyse your ideas and helps you to prepare for the work ahead. You will describe what it is you are marketing, how you intend to market it and how you will be able to finance your campaign.
Define Your Budget
When you know how much you can spend on you campaign, plan every move. Be wise in the way you spend your budget; don’t substitute quality for quantity.
Hunt for opportunities
Spend time browsing the internet and getting ideas. Look for affordable opportunities; they won’t just fall into your lap. There are also many free ways to advertise your product or service on the internet.
Know Your Audience
Don’t waste valuable time and money on advertising if you’re going to be aiming it at the wrong group of people. If you’re selling pork sandwiches, we wouldn’t recommend advertising on a website exclusively visited by Jewish people – you could end offending a couple of people. The same applies to advertising kitchenware on a website about power tools – it’s not going to generate much traffic to your site.
If you get that far and you feel ready to take the next step, read: Great Tips for a Great Ad Campaign (part 2).