Imagine this! A customer would walk into a retail shop wanting to purchase a pack of noodles -any brand of noodles at all- but would first state “I want to buy Indomie”.
Would you like such level of recognition for your brand/business name? Sure you do!
Keep reading and we’ll see how to get your business more traffic,both online and in-store.
1. PLAN TO SUCCEED
Set your marketing goals, write your plan and make them plain. Break it down and think of the processes in bits.
Itemizing yours steps would make your goals seem attainable and give you a boost of confidence. This should make it easier to see how these goals can be achieved.
Your goals should be specific, measurable and realistic.
Sit down and make a list of everything you’re going to need each time you make contact with a prospective customer or client. This ranges from a stationery package to brochures and presentation tools. Even if this sends ripples through your bank account, get to it. Then, if you can’t afford to print it all at once, at least work with a designer or graphic artist to create the materials so you have them on disk. Find creative ways to deal with any spending challenges that arise: Hire an art or marketing student from the city, or barter your services with other home-based entrepreneurs; anything to cut cost while getting the right value-for-money outcome.
2. BE SPECIFIC
Focus as narrowly as possible when defining your target market. Instead of trying to reach all the people some of the time, narrow your target audience to highly qualified prospects. Instead of going to seven networking groups once every two months, go to the two groups with the best prospects every week. Instead of marketing to 5,000 companies, find several dozen highly qualified companies and make regular contact with them. Call them, mail your marketing materials, and then ask to meet. It’ll save you money and time.
3. JOIN AN ASSOCIATION
Networking, Events, Resources and Advocacy, these and many more are the benefits accrued to members of Associations.
I’ve listed a handful of bodies in Nigeria created to house and commune with MSMEs:
• Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME)
• Small and Medium Enterprises Development Association of Nigeria (SMEDAN)
• Association of Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AMEN)
• National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI)
• Lagos Professional-SME-Business Network (LPBN)
4. REGISTER YOUR BUSINESS
If your small business has not been registered already, get to it now!
Consumers of products would rarely ever pick an unregistered product over a registered one. Clients looking to be serviced would have more trust working with a company that is registered and regulated by government agencies.
It could pose a bit of a challenge when trying to get all the licences required to run a business in a State or Country, so here are steps to make the process easier:
• Pick a Name
• Look up availability of chosen name on CAC website
• Make Payments
• Prepare and upload scanned documents
• Pickup your certificate
Most MSMEs join Associations for the primary reason of getting easy documentation for their businesses. Take advantage of this initiative and get your business name and product registered.
5. ATTEND RELEVANT EVENTS
Make the most of trade shows, business fairs, trade fairs, seminars and conferences. Attending and partaking in events is one of the most effective marketing methods for MSMEs as they give you more face-to-face access than any other channel, helping build brand awareness and generate leads. The goal of event marketing is to grab attention and leave a lasting impression on clients.
If you don’t get a booth beforehand, try to find someone who might want to share their space with you.If you could not get a booth, go anyway. You can always do business with the exhibitors—just be sure to respect their time with “real” customers before you approach them as a peer looking for some B2B deal. After the enents, be sure to follow up on your leads. What’s the point of attending events if your leads end up in the trash?
Events can be a huge marketing expense, so when you decide to invest in event marketing, you must be able to evaluate your events’ expenses as against your events’ income. That’s where Return on Investment (ROI) and Return on Engagement (ROE) come into play.
6. CREATE A CONVINCING ONLINE PRESENCE
Social Media Marketing
Create a social media presence by actively posting topics that are educative, informative and relevant to your target audience on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This improves your website traffic, boosts your search engine rankings and increases your prospect conversion rate.
Digital Marketing
• Design a strong Website: Your website is the central place where your clients can learn more about your product/service and how to get in contact with you. Get basic knowledge on SEO techniques and then hire an expert on SEO practices to take your website rankings through the roof.
• Use Email Marketing to create a series of messages on a consistent basis to reach potential clients. First, to build trust and credibility before convincing them to purchase a product/service.
• Advertisements: Facebook Ads and Google Ads are two of the most efficient ways to get your product/service to your target market.
Read more about online marketing here
7. STAND OUT
One of the biggest mistakes SMEs make is copying the competition when trying to promote their business. Those businesses took some steps and became successful, that doesn’t mean you have to copy it all, verbatim. The market will only perceive you to be a weak copy of your competitors and that’s a very bad rep… they’ll end up patronizing the original business.
So, when your competitors go zig, you need to go zag; when they go potato, you need to go potahto. How do you do that? Well, it basically depends on your business type. Let’s take for instance, you’re a baker. Every baker raises their prices in festive seasons. You could drop yours. It won’t just get you noticed and flood your business with customers, it will also paint you as the only baker who cares about the reason for the festivities and you will easily become the baker of choice even off the festive season.
If your competitors still make use of paper method to issue invoices and take accounting records (which is highly unlikely), then stand out by going the paperless way with the online, cloud-based Accounting and invoicing software for faster payments and easy record keeping Think outside the box, do something weird, in a good way. Anything to make your brand stand out.
8. JOIN THE PARADE
I know this sounds like I’m contradicting my last point, give me a chance to explain. Nothing appeals more to a client than a brand that relates to things they equally relate to. What are people talking about right now? What are they sharing on social media? What big news is rocking the country/world? By attaching your business to something trending, you have an easy way into the hearts of customers, a large pool of customers at that. It goes without saying, the trend or topic should relate to your product or service. But if it doesn’t, you could easily tweak your brand to match-up… if you can. This is often a cheap way to capitalize on short-lived trends and topics.
The business world is now totally digitized, most of your successful competitors are likely to use the Accounting and Invoicing software as against the paper method and excel sheets. Join the parade and watch your business ganner just as much traffic as the big players in your business line.
9. HOST CONTESTS AND EVENTS
Everyone loves freebies or at least a chance to get freebies. A free coupon or discounts among other goodies will improve your image positively. Put up a contest online, attach juicy incentives to them and watch your online rep skyrocket!
Seminars, Webinars and conferences are also excellent ways to interact with your existing and prospective clients. Host events to boost your business traffic.
10. SEEK OUT PARTNERSHIPS
Mrs Udo Maryanne Okonjo (C.E.O/Chairperson at Fine and Country, Nigeria), speaking at the DayStar ELC ’19 Conference stated that “the world is too dark to have a lone star. Learn to associate upwards. Partner with the right people. Look for the first and best, offer them value, never beg! Use your brand as your greatest leverage.”
Partnerships can either be Affiliate or Strategic and with the right partners, your business stands to:
• Acquire new clients • Increase revenue • Access new technologies… amongst others.
Go ahead and put these steps in motion, your business will be a household name in no time!
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