Marketing by Numbers: How Demographics Can Help (and Hurt) Your Marketing
When you’re making the decision of how to spend your marketing budget, you don’t want to pour money into a campaign you haven’t planned out carefully.
Advertising in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or to the wrong people could cost you more than you realize – not only in lost sales but in lost time and market share. In order to keep risk low when it comes to spending, many businesses use demographic information to craft a highly targeted campaign in hopes of getting the highest return from their marketing dollars.
On the surface, demographic marketing seems like a perfect fit for the savvy marketer; simply segment the population by defining characteristics such as age, race, gender, income, or geographic location and you’ll get a better feel for how to design a message that resonates with that group and converts more effectively.
But as with anything in life, there are advantages and disadvantages to every strategy. Understanding both sides of demographic marketing will help you become a better marketer.
Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons.
A Simple Way to Get Repeat Business from Skeptical Buyers
If you’ve done the legwork and built a marketing message that addresses your target audience and resonates with them, then you’ve got a good thing going. You’ll be noticed, even in a sea of competition.
But now what? What happens when people notice your ads? Do you think they’ll automatically come calling for your business to change their lives and solve their problems?
Most likely not. Consumers have become very skeptical. They don’t believe that the business that boasts is really the best – they’ve been there, done that. The hype is just hot air. In the end, gaining a first sale is difficult, and consumer loyalty is tough to foster.
For people to trust you, they need some indication that their trust is well placed and that they won’t be disappointed. They’re already wary. Your fantastic marketing efforts have attracted their attention, but they’re still not convinced.
You can bet that if they do trust you enough to try your business, they’re going to be watching to make sure you meet their expectations.
The Small Business Guide to Taming Your Email
When you’re running a small business, email is an indispensable tool that can help you communicate quickly, resolve problems effectively, and generally grow your business. But there’s a dark side to email as well – if you don’t manage it carefully, your inbox can spiral out of control, playing havoc with your productivity and limiting your potential growth.
But there’s hope beneath that pile of unread messages. With just a few simple adjustments, your inbox can become a well-oiled machine that keeps you productive and helps you market yourself and your small business.
Let’s take a look at five simple tips that will tame the email tiger, once and for all.
How To Get Your Message Across Using Trigger Events
Earlier this week we talked about how the world is full of competition, small business is overcrowded, and standing out can be tough.This week, we’re going to talk about how you can rise to the challenge and overcome the obstacle of being just another fish in the sea.
Consumers are a tough sell these days. That’s because of advertising insensitivity caused by an overwhelming number of ads pummeling them daily. Everyone is clamoring for attention.
Adding even more problems to the issues is the fact that small businesses have to compete with expensive ad campaigns from larger companies. These big corporations can afford slick advertising and savvy media marketing.
That literally means the small guy’s efforts at promoting a business are often swallowed whole and rarely seen. But, there are ways to avoid this…
The Biggest Marketing Challenge Yet
Over the past several years it has been getting easier and easier to market a business. Costs have gone down, barriers to entry have faded, and the web has made it so that anyone can have access to the whole world.
This price reduction and ease of entry is a great thing for small business, but it has come at a tremendous cost: It’s getting really crowded.
So many people are trying to market and sell their stuff that it’s causing big problems. It’s easier than ever to get started marketing a business, but it is harder than ever to get noticed.
Not only is it harder to get noticed, but once you do, be prepared for a tough sale: How much will this cost? What are the hidden fees? Let me see your credentials? Can you give me your competitors phone number? Do you have a money back guarantee? The truth is that nobody trusts anyone anymore.
5 Ways Big Business Marketing Can Hurt Small Business
Big businesses use marketing tactics and strategies which make them billions of dollars every year (and in a few cases, every month). Because corporate marketing is so pervasive and effective, it can be tempting for small business owners to believe that they have to follow suit, investing substantial sums of time and money developing massive marketing campaigns.
But breaking the bank to get the world’s attention isn’t necessarily in the best interest of your small business – and can actually hurt you in the long run.
In this article I’ve gathered a few small-scale marketing nuggets that have worked well for me over the years, and serve as reminders that big business marketing tactics don’t always work well for small business.
Do You Know Why People Buy From You?
When you set up a small business business, you probably have an ideal customer in mind. You probably know the person’s gender, age, economic status, martial status, lifestyle and personality. (If you don’t, then you should do some market research – quickly.)
This ideal customer is your target. You foresee that this person would buy from you the most often because you sell what this person wants or needs or should have.
You know whom you’re targeting. You know why you want to target that person. But do you know why this ideal customer buys from you?
