Marketing Strategies that Drive Sales

There are a lot of buyers out there. However, everyone buys solutions to problems. Nobody invests hard earn money into what may not work when there is another product that will. How do you then position your product to say confidently that it will solve the problem? This is why the marketing strategies you employ matters. Marketing strategies are the ways or approaches through which products and services are pushed or presented to buyers. The motive is to drive sales and the ways of achieving this are the strategies. These strategies will be discussed below.

Research your customers and target audience. It is very important that you know your customers as they are your target audience. Know peculiarities about them – are they young people? Are they of a particular gender? Are they persons who had an experience or trying to avoid one? These people and the people around them are the people you should target. It will amount to a waste of time and resources to advertize a new alcohol brand to a person who doesn’t drink and endorse of it. Knowing who the product or service will benefit is a way of knowing your customers.

Show your customers the benefits of what you offer and how it can solve their problems, needs, wants – even the problems they don’t know they have. Many times, people don’t know they need some things. Before cars, hardly would people think they needed a faster and more efficient way of travelling. When cars came, people opted for it. This is the same situation with many products and services. Your job as the seller is to make them see the benefits and how it can make their lives easier.

Create buyer personas to help encourage better marketing strategies. Employing buyer personas will take you doing some research. You have to be sure, in reasonable details, of your customers’ demographics and psychographics. This means you have to create personas which would represent your average customers. You also have to update them as you get new information about your customers. Buyer personas are helpful; they are what potential buyers can resonate with.

Define your competitive advantages and messages to your audience. Your audience must have a reason for buying your product – the reason is what they feel is in your product that other products don’t have. That’s your competitive advantage. It could be that you have been in the market for a long time. This could mean “being experienced” or “old”. How do you then pass the message that you are rather experienced and not old? This is in the message you pass to your audience.

Determine online and offline strategies that can map sales directly to your audience. Your marketing strategies should be of different approaches – all targeted to reach your audience. As much as you are advertizing online, develop strategies to advertize offline. The reason for this is that when you are continually sending signals to your audience at every opportunity, the curiosity to try your product arises.

Personalize your marketing for your target audience. Your marketing should be for your target audience. Personalizing your marketing simply means directing your marketing to make a particular effect on your target audience. If your product is to be used by high school students, what they resonate with should reflect in the advert. You can’t have an advert that only the aged community will find interesting.

Make your product the best there is in the market. The best product or service will have more traction. Thus, you have to continually innovate and conduct more research on how to deliver the best to your customers. When consumers try your product or service out for the first time, are they willing to come back for more? Are they willing to refer the product to their friends, neighbors, and colleagues? You need to answer these questions to know how helpful your product is.

Clearly define your customers and be concise. You have to know specifically who your customers are. This is where knowing your product/ service and market research come in. For instance, if you produce or sell socks – your customers are in two categories: first, people who buy the socks for themselves or for others. Second, people who buy the socks to resell. Taking only men who wear socks as your customers may not be accurate. Women can buy socks for their boyfriends, husbands, siblings, children, or whoever. As much as you need to know your customers, don’t make an overly long list. This is for you not to get disappointed as some people may be one-time buyers.

Utilize advertisement both on social media and offline. Don’t be too reliant on social media to forgo advertizing offline. Some people, due to past experiences, may avoid advertisements on social media. More, elderly persons are majorly interested in mass media and they may be your audience. Bill boards, banners, and other advertizing tools can be utilized.

Focus on fostering consumer loyalty. One of the best things that can happen to a seller is to have loyal customers. Apart from referring their friends, colleagues, and neighbors, they keep coming back. Keeping your product/service and customer service top notch and consumer oriented can earn consumer loyalty.

Be clear with sales message. Don’t mince words. Be clear about what you are offering. In 10 seconds, the buyer must know what you have to offer. Imagine you are making an elevator pitch, you can’t afford to waste time. Employ clear words, pictures, imageries, and objects to depict your product.

Add social proof. People tend to prefer a thing because more people key into it. Social proof is quite psychological in the sense that where there is societal validation for a product/service, place etc. more people are drawn there. Thus, add testimonies, demographics, followers, and endorsements to your website or advertisements to gain more customers.

Conclusively, marketing, in this century, has gone beyond what use to be the case. Successful marketing require strategies, plans, and ways with which customers can be drawn to your product/service.

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