Having a business can be rewarding and a lot of work but consumers can only buy your product or services if they know your business exists! You might have the best product or service on the market but no one can buy it if they don't know it exists!
Putting together a marketing plan for a business is essential and necessity to promote your products and services. Consumers have to know your product is available in order to purchase it and leaving this out of your plan could help slow down your growth. Having a marketing plan that is creative, outgoing and well thought out can help provide the growth you will need to sustain and be successful.
One example of how this has been done well in recent times is what the American Hockey League's Lake Erie Monsters have done to market themselves to fans in Cleveland. The Monsters are a minor league team in what many call a major league city and the team had to almost start out from scratch. The previous team in the market, the American Hockey League Cleveland Barons, played to an empty Quicken Loans arena for several seasons from 2001-2006. The Barons weren't very big on marketing and almost never advertised at all in the market. As a result, the team took a hit at the gate and many in Cleveland didn't even know the team existed.
After the Barons left town to move to Worecester, MA, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert brought in the Lake Erie Monsters and he and the executives hired to run the team put a huge emphasis on marketing. The team was not only utilizing traditional methods of purchasing ad space in newspapers, television and radio but hired salespeople who previously contacted those who purchased tickets to Cleveland Barons games and Cleveland Lumberjacks games (the Lumberjacks were a minor league team in Cleveland before the Barons). These salespeople found out that many people were unaware that minor league hockey existed in Cleveland but those phone calls along with the ads in the paper and on radio and television helped get the word out. It took time to put in those phone calls but the person on the other end of the phone lines learned a little something when they received that call or saw the ads elsewhere.
In addition to traditional forms of marketing, the Monsters have a functioning web-site, have utilized Twitter and Facebook and have had players make public appearances at local rinks and schools. As a result, this has helped build the brand name of the Monsters and become more familiar to people in Northeast Ohio. The Monsters are also cross promoted at Cavaliers basketball games and this and the other marketing efforts have helped fans become more familiar with the team and get them through the gate.
In these times, it's not always easy to have a big budget for advertising and marketing but there are cost efficient ways to promote your business. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter cost almost nothing but time to the business owners and many have been able to grow by utilizing this as part of a marketing strategy. Networking at different functions can help put you in touch with people who may need your products or services and blogs have also become useful in getting the word out. Being able to get in front of people utilizing the growing forms of social media and networking can help put you in front of potential customers and make consumers aware your business exists.
Putting together a good product or service is vital to a business but making others aware it exists is crucial to growth. Marketing does take time and can be expensive but can also be done in ways that can help promote your business and grow your sales.
No comments:
Post a Comment