Six Tips in Marketing Your Business

Prior to setting up a business, you need to have a plan on how to effectively market your products and/or services. Here are some tips or techniques to help you get started.

1. Identifying the Valuable Characteristic within your Product
   Your goal is to earn money by selling your products and/or services. The very reason that consumers will opt to purchase from you should provide you a hint of the valuable characteristics of the products and/or services that will appeal to them. There should be a certain interesting way on how you will offer your products and/or services based on its valuable characteristic. In Brand X Milk the valuable characteristics are its high concentration of vitamins and minerals.
   
   
2. Translate that Valuable Characteristic into a Significant Advantage
   Bear in mind that consumers are actually buying the advantage of your products and/or services, and not its features. Consumers don’t just buy soaps for cleaning; they buy blemish-free and smooth skin. Bikers don’t just buy motorcycles to ride; they buy power, performance, economy, style, status, and of course - speed. Mothers don’t just buy milk for its vitamins and minerals; they buy nutrition to help kids grow smart. So, you have to identify the valuable characteristics of your products and/or service, and translate that to an advantage that your consumers can relate to.
   
   
3. The advantages that you present should be believable as possible
   There is actually a huge gap in the difference between being honest and being believable. You can be downright honest and consumers will still not believe. So, you have to go outside being honest, further than the boundaries that marketing has founded by its inclination towards too much exaggeration, and just simply present your advantages in a way which will be received beyond any doubt.
   
   A company that sells milk might market it this way, “A glass of Brand X milk will give your kids as many vitamins and mineral as a multi-vitamin capsule”. This statement starts with the basic and valuable characteristic, then turns it into an advantage - and is believably worded.
   
   
4. Get your Consumer’s Attention
   You think consumers are interested in every advertisement? Not always. They only stop to look at advertisements which interest them. So, your goal is to get that interest. And while you are at it, be sure that it is towards your products and/or services, and not the advertisement. There is a huge difference when a consumer remembers the advertisement but not the product and/or service that was advertised. Just remember this line: Forget the advertisement – are your products and/or services interesting? A company that sells milk might drive their point by presenting an image of a pair of hands opening a multi-vitamin capsule from which a liquid pours out and falls into a very yummy looking glass of milk.
   
   
5. Motivation is the key to get your consumers to do something: Encourage them to go to your store. Tell them to call, fill-up a coupon, ask for more details, or enjoy a free demo. Do not stop short – you have to be able to tell your consumers what you actually want them to accomplish.
   
   
6. Communication is Vital
   You do know what you are talking about - but have you thought about the possibility that consumers might not? You have to identify your consumers, and understand that they do not care so much about your business and are only half-interested in your advertisements – even when you think that they are paying attention. You have to test your ads on at least ten consumers. If one of them misses the point, that is equivalent to ten percent (10%). If it goes out to a population of five hundred thousand (500,000), fifty thousand (50,000) consumers will miss the point, and that is unacceptable. A total of one hundred percent (100%) of the consumers should get the point. A company that sells milk can achieve this by using a headline that states, “Giving your children Brand X milk is like giving your children vitamins and mineral – only tastier”. Your goal is zero vagueness.