Looking for some killer marketing tips to transform the success of your small business? Read on…
1. Modern marketing is about listening, not talking
Traditional marketing boils down to “shout the loudest, with the most attractive offers”. But in an online world, where your audience has their attention pulled in a thousand directions every day, there’s a smarter and more cost-effective way to market your business. You just listen.
Your prospects will tell you exactly what they want, and how they want it delivered. All you have to do is tap into the websites, social channels, forums and comment sections where your prospects are leaving their thoughts and problems, in order to inform your marketing output directly. Stop telling them what you think they’d like to hear, and just listen out for their exact problems to be solved. This will give you the sole focus for your marketing.
2. To write the best copy, don’t write in your own words
Printed flyers, brochures and mailshots need written sales copy. But writing winning copy isn’t about yelling the best deals in the biggest, brightest lettering. To really hit home with your readers, you need to know what else they’ll read attentively, and what they’re reading for – and you need to write in their words, not yours. Brochure printing along with flyer and leaflet printing can be very effective marketing tools when the write content is given and thought made about the design and impact it will have on the reader.
Read your customer reviews. Hunt down the best and worst YouTube comments related to your market. Take the exact words your prospects are using, understand what they love and hate about your industry, and reformulate these words into messages that can inspire people to take action and solve their problems. Never, ever, write sales copy off the top of your head.
3. To grow your social following, stop selling
In the right hands, social media is the ultimate marketing tool. In the wrong hands, it’s like shouting canned sales messages into an empty cellar. To harness the power of your social channels, and to have them complement your marketing flyers, leaflets and printed collateral, first stop and rethink your idea of what social media is.
In the words of Gary Vee [https://blog.hubspot.com/opinion/gary-vee-most-marketers-are-doing-it-all-wrong-are-you-one-of-them], your social media posts aren’t the advertising; they’re the TV show. A constant stream of useful, shareable, high-value content that harnesses your industry expertise is the gold dust that grows your social following. Not overnight, but over hours and days and months and years of giving, and giving, and giving again.
4. Your website really isn’t about you
And your “About Us” page definitely isn’t about you. Neither are your business cards, or your catalogues, or your mailshots or brochures or printed flyers. None of your marketing materials are about you – they’re only ever about your prospects, and what your satisfied customers have to say.
It all comes down to great UX. Treat “great user experience” like a fundamental law of physics when it comes to your marketing. And at its rock-solid foundation, great UX is this: make everything about your user. Make every webpage like a letter to one person; the kind of person who already buys from you. If your “About Us” webpage talks in “we” and “us” and “our” (the company) – and not “you” and “your” (the customer) – then it simply isn’t doing its job. And really, the same applies across every page of your website.
5. Increase your sales through reverse-engineering
A business needs sales to survive and needs ever-increasing sales in order to grow. If your marketing materials aren’t bringing in these sales, then they aren’t working hard enough for your business. In this instance, it can be really useful to reverse-engineer exactly how a sale takes place.
So, let’s start with the end result and work backwards. ‘Sales’ are the desired end result. Sales occur when the value of your product or service outweighs the value of your prospect’s money. For that to happen, you first need to communicate that overwhelming value effectively, to the right audience. And for that to happen, you need the right marketing (flyers, brochures, social, content) to work correctly in converting unaware people into interested prospects. (And to do that, refer to the tips above.)
In essence, marketing works, and hence sales occur, when it stops being about “you in your own words”. Know your customers the best, and solve their problems the best, and overhaul your marketing material so that it uses the words they use to solve the specific problems they face. And, crucially, use higher-quality marketing materials that will distinguish you in your space, and give you a real competitive edge against rival businesses in your location and industry.
Need professional printed materials that work harder
From business cards to flyers, from stationery printing to your graphic design, the most effective marketing materials you’ll ever produce will be formed in direct answer to your prospects’ specific tastes, wants and needs. And, put simply, quality wins. And that’s exactly where we can help to grow your business.
For all brochure printing enquiries contact us here at PrintUK.com