In order to grow, businesses need to do one of two things: increase sales to their existing customers or find new customers. A business cannot expand very easily without finding new customers to buy their products or use their services.
Finding new customers is all about making sure more people know that your business exists, and what it can do for them. In other words, advertising and marketing.
Hitting Your Marketing Target
Successful marketing starts with defining your target customer. Who exactly has need of your goods and services? Where do they live, work, and visit on the internet? What other businesses do they use? Answering these questions will give you a good idea about how to target your advertising.
Advertising can be quite costly, so it's important to choose effective strategies and to measure how well they are working. A mix of print and internet advertising is typically most effective at reaching the entire target market, and both types can be measured for effectiveness.
When marketing online, Google Analytics is a free tool that shows exactly how many people your online ads are reaching as well as the response rate and sales that resulted from your marketing. It is also possible to create multiple ads and test which ones perform better so that you can drop those that are less effective and use the best ones going forward.
For print ads, you can use different phone numbers or codes embedded into the ad to track which ones get the best response. It's a good idea to constantly fine tune your ads to get the most bang for your buck, which is often considerable.
Pay Now or Pay Later
If the thought of managing a complex marketing campaign has you feeling overwhelmed, there are many companies that will handle your marketing for you with great expertise. Be sure to ask a lot of questions if you decide to hire out your marketing to make sure the company provides access to data that show that they are marketing successfully for you.
On the other hand, if marketing sounds like a fun and exciting way to spend your time, you will probably be well suited to a more hands-on approach. Marketing is time-consuming, however, so you will need to hire more staff to take over some of your other duties while you focus on this important aspect of the business. Either way, marketing costs can be significant, especially at the beginning when you need to put out funds to get your campaign going but you haven't seen any results yet.
Business cash advances are tailor made to handle the ramping up of a marketing campaign. You can get cash up front, then pay it back as your marketing grows your business. Once the advance is repaid, your sales will have increased and the profits will be all yours. Learn more about our financial products which help businesses grow.
