Marketing Strategies for Today’s Retailer: Out with the Old and In with the New
11 Mar
The Yays and Nays for Marketing a Small Business
Yes, Maybe or No? via Flickr from ‾olǝƃuɐ‾
Marketing is not what it used to be. What used to be all about newspaper, radio and TV advertising, is now all about internet, social media and direct mail marketing.
When you look at your own business, have you changed your marketing strategy in the past five years, or are you still trying to do the same old thing and achieve new results? In my opinion, here are a few Yays and Nays to consider:
Marketing Nays
- Newspaper – news print readership is on the decline, yet advertising is still expensive.
- Radio – with so many stations diluting the market, it no longer has impact.
- TV – very expensive and too much dilution.
- Yellow Pages – (unless yellow pages online) usage of traditional yellow pages has plummeted in recent years, replace with assorted online websites. Carrying ads on their site is also more expensive then other mediums
- Twitter – I haven’t been able to prove the ROI / economic value to my businesses using Twitter, yet. It can be a time suck, and reach a different market then I’m intending. But, I remain optimistic and continue testing.
Marketing Yays
- Websites – make your website easy to find, informative, up to date and relevant.
- Staff Blogs – builds an online community and encourages people to visit your website regularly.
- Facebook – setup a fan page to help build an online community and to become a part of their online community. It doesn’t take a lot of time, and its an additional place to be found and push out your promotions
- Facebook Ads – a very effective marketing tool that enables you to narrow in on a very small and specific niche in the market place. They’re also less expensive then you think
- Google Adwords – a very effective advertising tool to get in front of people searching for something that you’re hopefully selling. If you know what you’re doing, this can be very effective. There’s lots of help available in this field if you want to outsource.
- YouTube Segments – this can be a very effective tool for providing informative content to your customers, and using a flipcam, video can be fun and easy to create.
- Email Campaigns – not as effective as they once were, as long as you have permission, you keep them relevant and you don’t abuse the privilege, it is still a very useful tool. When looking at pushing out promotions, email is still king.
- TV Listing Channel Ads – if you must do TV, then do the TV listings channel. It is more reasonably priced and you’ll get more bang for the buck.
- Direct Mail – whether it is via email or snail mail, direct marketing to your customers works every time. It may be time consuming, but know that the response rate on Direct is the highest of all channels.
Andy Buyting has been in the retail industry since he was six years old. Today, he applies his entrepreneurial know-how to Green Village Home & Garden, one of Canada's most successful specialty garden stores. Green Village Home & Garden is currently expanding into multiple locations throughout eastern Canada.
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