It’s time for spring, and with a new season comes a new opportunity to get started on ways to market your business. There are so many ways to do this, so let’s go over a few.
Social Media Giveaways
You’ve probably seen these online, and there’s a good chance you have participated in a few. Giveaways are a fantastic way to engage your customers while promoting your business. Try to keep these tips in mind.
- Establish Your Brand. This means ensuring your company has a presence on social media. You don’t need thousands of followers, but you do need to have clear information and a healthy number of posts to market your business this Spring.
- Target Your Potential Customers. Don’t focus on attracting the maximum number of participants to your giveaway. Instead, focus on those participants who may actually be interested in what your business offers. One way you can do this is to offer prizes related to your ordinary products or services.
- Use the Right Promotions. Paid advertising can cost more than you will get back, and email spam is always annoying. So, try using a limited number of emails, Facebook posts, and even your own website to announce the contest. You shoud also consider offering rewards, such as additional entries for sharing content with others.
- The Grand Finale. The promotion doesn’t end once the winner is announced! Quickly follow up by contacting everyone who entered to tell them the contest has ended, and consider offering them a participation reward such as a discount. This can attract new sales and remind entrants about your company.
- Check the Results. Once everything is complete, it’s time to check the data. Did your website traffic increase? Did you get more social media followers and, perhaps best of all, quality leads for your email list? This will indicate whether your giveaway was a success.
Ask for a Referral
This may seem simple, but it’s an effective marketing strategy. Potential customers will be hard-pressed to find more trustworthy sources of information on your company than the people they already know, so it’s important to know how to effectively ask for referrals.
- Ask in Person. This approach may seem more respectful, and it is also more likely to work. People are far more likely to do what you ask if you are right there. However, if your work does not involve face-to-face meetings, it is fine to ask through other channels.
- Don’t Ask During Payment. This may seem like a good time to ask, but it is a time when customers are likely to think they’ve already done enough for you.
- Ask for a Testimonial. A short endorsement can be great marketing for your website and any other marketing material you create, and you can make it easy for your customers by leaving them a card or form to fill out.
- Offer an Incentive. This may be unnecessary, but if you aren’t getting a lot of referrals, you should consider offering something like a gift card or discounts in return for referrals that result in sales.
- Keep Your Nerve. It’s easy to get nervous and fail to ask. But don’t let that stop you from growing your business! The more referrals you ask for, the more you will get. Keep trying.
Sponsor a Local Team to Market Your Business This Spring
Sponsoring a local team is not only a great way to give back to the community, but a great way to market your business. Let’s take a look at how it can help you.
- Advertising. First and foremost, having the name of your business on the team’s jerseys may not seem like much. But it’s bound to get you some word-of-mouth advertising from the team’s friends and family, and many say this is the best kind of marketing.
- Help Your Image. When people hear about your business, wouldn’t you like it to be in a positive way? This is a great way to stand out from your competitors and show people that you’re a part of the local community.
- Tax Benefits. If the other reasons aren’t enough, this one may help. Many youth teams, in particular, are nonprofits, so although you should check with an accountant first, your contributions may count as charitable donations that you can write off to save yourself a little money at tax time.
Have Brighter Images that Reflect Spring on Your Social Media
Spring is when we all need to find our inner marketing genius. Our social media feeds should transition along with nature from the dark, gloomy black and white photos of winter to the bright and verdant colors of spring. Managing the seasonal change in your social media presence is something that small business owners and entrepreneurs need to master.
Spring is all about flowers, sunshine, and fun, and beautiful images make people do a double-take. They will scroll right past your text posts, but a pleasing image will catch their eye. Plus, fun things and bright colors make people happy, and no one has ever complained about happy customers.
Try Something New
If you keep trying the same thing and it is not working, try something new. This means not trying only one of the above techniques. Instead, if one technique doesn’t bear fruit, try another. The key is to never stop marketing and trying new techniques.
