How to grow your business through Effective Marketing - Business Marketing Tips.

Marketing is key to the success of your business. During this next section of the Business Start Up Course, Richard McMunn takes you through some key marketing strategies that will help you to establish sustainable sales in your business.

Marketing has always fascinated me, for a number of reasons. The first reason is that over the last few years I have been aware of how powerful it can be. When I say 'powerful' I actually mean in terms of its potential and ability to grow your business, and also its potential and ability to destroy it......more on this in a second.

The second reason why it fascinates me is that so many entrepreneurs and business owners spend very little time on perfecting it - this, in my opinion, is madness!

The Power of Marketing

Whether your Business is a shop on the High Street, an Online store, or even a part time internet business that you run from home, one of the key factors that will determine the success of your business, is marketing.

Let us take a look at marketing through a website. You create a website that has the facility for customers to purchase your goods or service. You feel good about yourself and you deserve a pat on the back for achieving this milestone in your entrepreneurial career. Now what do you do? Most business owners at this stage will stop, leave the website as it is, and go and concentrate on some other area of their business. After all, they have provided a service and they have created an online shop that has the ability for people to buy the product, so what's the problem?

Well in truth, there isn't one.

There is no problem if you want to sell the same amount of products or services year in, year out.
But what's the point of being in business if you don't want to see that business achieve it's potential?

Those of you who are happy with the same sales year in, year out, please don't read any further....

Ok, now I have the attention of those entrepreneurs who want to grow their business, or even take it to stratospheric level!

Let me provide you with an example of how powerful 'effective' marketing can be:

I run a number of websites through which I sell my own products. When a customer clicks the all important 'ADD TO CART' button, the magic begins. Yes, they are about to provide me with a sale which will put money in my pocket, but more importantly they are giving me something else...... a willingness to give me more. Providing I can make their life better at that particular time, or at anytime in the future, they will buy from me.....guaranteed!

Now it's very important at this stage that I look after them. So straight away I will try to offer them something else which is either similar to what they are buying, or a product that is too good to miss - a reduced price on a second product for example.

Whilst this marketing strategy is simple, and very easy to implement, it is in fact extremely good for my business. On many of my shopping carts I will offer my customers a 'reduced price' product if they buy it there and then with their first purchase. I have calculated that 1 in every 4 customers will take up this second purchase offer, and this in turn adds over £40,000 to my annual turnover. That's more than most people earn in a year!

Now you are beginning to see how powerful 'effective' marketing can be, if you do it right.

Communicate, communicate communicate

Your customers are the difference between a successful business, and one that gets struck off the company register. You need them.......really badly. So why do so many business owners shy away from communicating with them? The simple answer is that can't be bothered.

Communicating with your customers can literally double or even triple your turnover, but first you need to be able to capture their details. This is why so many successful entrepreneurs make more effort in capturing a potential customers details, than they do in selling them a product. To them, a persons details are far more valuable. If they have their details then they can sell to them time and time again......providing they offer them a service they need, and one that will improve their life at that particular time.

So, the first thing you must do is use a marketing system that will allow you to capture a persons details so that you can contact them at anytime in the future. The second thing you must do is make sure, and I mean make sure, your products or service are good. If they are good then a customer will come back to you time and time again. As soon as they buy a poor quality product or service from you then that's when the magic will end. So make sure you put plenty of time and effort into making your product or service really good.

Once you have achieved this little milestone and you have great products and services, try to think what else the customer who is buying from you could benefit from. Let me give you a simple example:

If I was buying a bed in a shop then there is a good chance that I would buy, at that same particular time, a couple of pillows and even some sheets or a duvet cover for the bed. Even though my initial intentions were to just buy a bed, I realised at the checkout that I could do with those few extra items. This is called 'up selling' and in this particular case it will put an extra £50-£100 in the till of the business owner. Up selling can literally add thousands and thousands to your turnover and those business owners who do no or very little of it, are crazy.

You can up sell in many different ways. The first way is directly at shopping cart which I explained earlier. You will see companies such as Amazon taking full advantage of up selling at the bottom of each page description. "Customers who bought this item, also bought..." You can start to get the picture.

The second way in which to up sell is through direct e mail or telephone communication with your customers, or through 'auto responders'. Auto responders allow you to contact a customer at a set period of time after that a customer has 'opted in' either through purchasing a product from you or from signing up to a newsletter or some other form of communication. Auto responders are a simple yet very powerful way of you getting the same message out to every customer without having to retype it and hitting the 'send' button each time. Basically the marketing system will do it for you. Just create your 'up sell' message in the box provided and set the system to fire out the message at a set number of days or weeks after that person has opted in. Then watch your turnover increase!

To move on to the next section of the business start up course entitled 'Advertising Effectively', please click here.