Great Article - The Building Blocks of Effective Marketing
If you're ready to start marketing your business, begin with the basic building blocks to form your foundation and grow from there.
Network — many networking events can be found in just about any city or town. If you, like most business owners, are short on time, focus on the ones that are during the evening hours. In many cases, these events are free, so the only cost is your time. Networking is a great way to make face to face contact with prospects without the distractions you would normally face during the work day. All you need is a handful of business cards, a winning smile and a great attitude.
Business cards — Obviously, you'll need them for networking and sales calls. Don't forget all the other ways you can distribute them. Business cards a an easy and inexpensive way to generate exposure for your business.
Direct mail — You don't need to mail to a list of 50,000 for direct mail to be effective, you just need to be consistent. You can have 1,000 postcards printed, affix postage and labels yourself, and mail out 50 or 100 to the same targeted list each week. As you begin to generate revenue from this, you can increase the size of your mailing list.
Web site — If you don't have a web site, you are wrong. Plain and simple. Web sites aren't just for e commerce, nor are they just for large companies. These days, people use the internet for comparing companies and without a web site, you're out of the running. You don't need all of the bells and whistles, but you do need an effective and professional web site.
There you have it. The basic building blocks you'll need to effectively market your business. With these blocks in place, you can begin to add additional things, such as search engine optimization, television and radio advertising, or billboards. The idea is to build a foundation, and as you achieve results, add more to your marketing campaign.
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