A Look at the Future of Marketing

I’ve been writing articles about marketing for nearly 3 years on this blog and I thought it was about time to have bit of a talk about the what the future of marketing for a small business. There have been some big changes in the way people consume and respond to marketing in those three years which means that what worked then may not work now or in the future. What are the new marketing methods you should be paying attention to.

Now I am the first to admit that I’m no marketing expert, and the closest I have to a marketing degree is some modules in my IT training. I do work at the ‘coalface’ of the marketing industry, designing and printing marketing for many clients, and I do watch what our competitors are doing too. I’ve noticed some methods come to the fore and others falling out of favour. These are my picks that you should be paying attention to in your business.

Recommendations are still the best advertising of all

Nothing beats a recommendation from a happy client to get you a new one. Now while I expect you will be doing everything you can to make your customers happy, there are a few things that help these recommendations along. A classic tool is the ‘bring a friend’ deal where you offer an existing client a discount if they bring a friend along who gets a discount too. The goal of that type of deal is to get new people in to try you out who wouldn’t think do otherwise. Another tool is the ‘recommend me’ gift where you give a client sends you someone new and they get a reward from you. In the end it doesn’t matter the method, what matters is get that time with someone new so you can sell yourself to them.

If you don’t have a web page for your business, you won’t have a business for much longer

Like it or not, the majority of people use the internet to find businesses these days. I haven’t used a yellow pages in years, and a lot of millennial’s think a phone book is their contacts list app on their cell phone. If you are in business you need a web page, it’s as simple as that. If you don’t have an internet site, people will move on to someone who does and that’s another customer you have missed out on.
Now setting up a website for your business doesn’t have to be a big task for you don’t have to be a fully functional store or have loads of content. Your site can be as simple as the electronic version of your brochure. You need to talk about what you do, why the viewer should use you, and how they can reach you right now. If you don’t feel up to making one up, and especially don’t feel like spending a lot of time or money then give us at Copy Express a call as we offer simple solutions for just such a situation.

It pays to be social but it also pays to watch what you say

Social media is the current hot ticket in marketing. Facebook, Twitter,Tumbler, Pinterest, Google+, and countless other sites offer a direct link to both your existing and potential new clients. While the big corporations have dedicated teams keeping on top of social media buzz and generating content, even a one man business can keep a simple Facebook feed running with content for a half an hour or so every week. Just talk about the work you are doing, feature testimonials from happy customers, put up ads for promotions you are running, and other small items that people would like to see.
On the other side you do have pay attention to what you say and how often you say it. Companies who constantly post on their social media profiles quickly turn off potential customers for spamming their feeds. There is also countless stories of big businesses who post something completely inappropriate to tie in to some event, sometimes intentional but more often than not making themselves look less professional. While there are no golden rules for social media posts, I say treat it as though you are having a one on one conversation with someone you are meeting for the first time that you want to impress, that should help you avoid the obvious pitfalls.

Print is not still just relevant it’s premium and personal

We have covered it before in articles on the blog but in a nutshell, with the rise of electronic marketing, physical marketing has more impact because it a rarer occurrence. Now a lot of people claim that electronic marketing is more useful as you can have it generate dynamically from your own records. What they don’t realise is that the same dynamic personalisation is available in print, with the added perceived value of getting a physical item. Sure it takes a little longer to set up over a email but with the right marketing plan in place it can be just simple and greater potential to be read and retained by people. Many people get enamoured with the perceived low cost of email and other online marketing methods, but often forget that print and direct-mail can still provide a better return on investment.  This is where talking to us at Copy Express will pay in the long run as we can help you set up your marketing plan and make everything push button simple.
That’s enough crystal ball gazing for now. Watch this blog for other great marketing ideas.