The finer details of marketing

Marketing is something that you’re either going to be really clued up about, or it’s something that you leave to the experts.

If it’s something that you’re really clued up about, then you’re someone who has either spent years in marketing and knows what they’re doing, or you have spent years of your life researching it. We know the latter is rare, and we know that most of you will be fresh business owners, with no marketing experience at all. So we therefore know that so many of you will just be leaving your marketing up to the experts.

All you’ll do is find your marketing consultant, and let them do the work for you. But there so much to marketing that you need to be able to understand, if you want to make sure it’s doing the most for your business. Because it’s not all about what a marketing consultant can do for you, it’s about what you can do for your business through your understanding of marketing. So without further ado, here’s some of the finer details of marketing that we think you should understand, so you can let it do the most for your business.

Your own social media pages

Having your own social media pages is so important for you business, and the more time you spend managing them personally, the more you’re going to get out of them. Social media is where everyone is at at the minute…literally everyone!

Think about how many times a day you see people liking something on Facebook, or posting an Instagram picture. It’s hard actually to not live your life around social media. But so many companies choose to outsource this marketing method, and in the grand scheme of things, it is a waste of money.

Social media is one of the finer details of marketing, simply because it’s a sort of a background marketing method. It isn’t as heavy duty as others, and you really would be wasting your money if you’re outsourcing your social media marketing. Considering this is a long term and constant marketing technique, it’s going to be so much more cost efficient, and easier for you, to keep it in house.

All you have to do is get used to using things like hashtags on Instagram and Twitter, and posting at the right times. Making sure your posts are engaging is easy as well, you just have to make them fun and interactive. The only time you’re really going to find that your social media pages are failing you, is when you’re not putting in the effort to manage them!

Little ways of spreading your brands

So it’s no secret that marketing is one of the most expensive things to a business, and this might come as a surprise to some people.

As your business starts getting bigger, your marketing bill should too, that’s how you keep your business as big as it’s growing. But sometimes it’s not all about these big bold methods, like we’ve tried to say. And sometimes, it’s not about any obvious marketing method at all, it’s about the little things that you can do to spread the word of your brand, without spending as much.

So think about things like packaging printing, and how that might benefit your business. If you’re selling products, you should have your own packaging, but for a small business, it can be something that’s hard to maintain a high quality of. But if you can produce high quality packaging that shows your brand off, it’s going to be so easy for word to spread. It also helps to make your business look so much more professional.

Another thing you could do, is start giving out things like branded pens. Pens travel fast, that’s no secret. Think about how many times you’ve lost a pen, and you just never see it again. It’s because someone else picks it up, the someone else after that…and the list just keeps going on and on! Handing out pens is easy, all you have to do is keep them in your office, or put them in an order box, or leave them by the till. You don’t have to turn it into a sales thing either, because getting branded pens is really not hard. You’re doing this one as a marketing strategy, not as a sales one!

The serious risks

There are definitely some serious risks that you need to watch out for when it comes to marketing, because it’s not all about promoting your business.

You have to be careful, and think about every single little thing, and how the public are going to react to it. So the first risk that you might face, is the risk of offending the public, and even being taken to court. All the public has to do is take one comment the wrong way, or one image the wrong way, and you’ve just got a million and one problems on your hands.

Take the Pepsi Max campaign that blew up in their face, and nearly ruined the reputation of Kendall Jenner. Or think about The Weeknd pulling out of his collaboration with H&M, because of a comment that was taken the wrong way. So our advice is to make sure that you’re checking and checking again, and ensuring your marketing campaign is safe.

There’s also the risk that you’re going to get in trouble through spammy marketing. Mass email marketing, and things like SEO, carry big risks where this is concerned, so you have to make sure that you’re being textbook all of the time!

Noticing when a company is useless

We know that for the most part, you are going to outsource your marketing, so we therefore think it’s important to think about when a company might be useless, and doing everything wrong for you. So the best way to do this, is to monitor the progress of your sales during every campaign.

A good campaign WILL see your sales increase, and this is something you should always go off. You want to watch out with techniques such as SEO, making sure that you’re checking your ranking often, because sometimes a company can do more harm than good to you!