MARKETING 101: How to engage your customers

Marketing.  All of us in business do it at some level.  Some of us do it well; some of us do it poorly.

How we market ourselves and our business is critical to our success in the modern world.  It takes on even more of an importance when we are our brand so having an awareness of our personal marketing, (the way we portray ourselves in the public eye) must be considered.

There is so much information out there we need to be careful what information we are sending out. For many years emails were the perfect way to market our business to our audience. These days email open rates and click through rates from our emails are very low in fact, open rates can be as low as 20 percent.

Email still plays a very important role in our marketing. We just need to make sure that we're looking at alternate ways that we can market our business. I keep my list up-to-date with a monthly email that contains success tips and a little bit of information about what my business is doing in the coming months. This is really just like receiving a letter from a friend. Every now and then I will make an offer for a special that I think my list find valuable however, I really don’t use this communication as a marketing tool. 

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I love to try different ideas with marketing, I always have. There were times when I tried just about everything to see what worked.  I did letterbox drops and even did some local newspaper advertising.  I just had to see what would get results.  The marketing of my business that got the best results for me were social media especially Facebook, utilizing Facebook advertisements and also LinkedIn as for me, building my business and my brand is all about personal connections and networking.

When you are your brand, it is important that you do share enough of yourself that your potential clients will feel as though they getting to know you.  Every Facebook post, every status update, on your personal and business page is a form of marketing.  It is how we market in 2014.

If we are running a marketing campaign, lets say we want to attract more people to our database, and we decide to give them something valuable like an eBook or something from our product range to get an email address, it is important to make sure that we are utilizing a launch campaign or sequence.  Marketing is all about understanding that people need to trust you and like you before they will buy from you. Just because they don’t buy when you first make an offer doesn’t mean they wont. You just need to keep being front of mind so send a follow up campaign on your original marketing offer.

The number one thing people like talking about is themselves. Every good marketing campaign will ask a question of our target market and potential client. This is a great way to get more interaction with your campaign.  Having engaged customers is the number one success principle when it comes to marketing. When someone is engaged their buying impulses and high, therefore making them feel that they need to do business with you now. 

So what is the best way to get engaged customers?  It is about giving them something so valuable, so life changing, that they just need to be part of what you have.

The best way to market to people is just show them results in advance. Paint a picture of what they will have once they complete your program or service.  Having a questionnaire available the potential clients to fill in and answer a few questions about what they're doing is a great way to get engagement and the opportunity to share the results and explain how you can be part of it. 

Another hugely important part of marketing successfully is the making sure you're clear on your message. Having a message that can be understood by a 14 year is a key success principle to making sure that people understand what you do and what problem you solve.  Never use complex language or anything that can make somebody have to think hard about what you do. The human brain likes simple things and it likes to understand what somebody does and if that person can solve the problem they have. 

You must also have a call to action on any marketing that you do. Where do you want people to ‘go here’ for example, give them a link to a webinar to book in to attend or to ‘download’ this audio file on the solution to their problem. The call to action can even be as simple as email ABC, to get your free copy of XYZ.

Most marketing can be done by yourself once you have the understanding of the marketing principles.  Until you can afford to pay an expert to look after your marketing, just make sure to keep trying new ways of marketing yourself until you find the three or four that get you your best results.  Just remember to always AB test and measure any marketing you do to maximize your result. 

Marketing can be fun, exhilarating and frustrating at the same time but once you crack the code, your results will explode your businesses success.

About the author

Natasa Denman is the next generation business mentor and product generator specialist.  The founder of Ultimate 48 Hour Author, a book writing mentorship program, Natasa is the author of 4 books herself – The 7 Ultimate Secrets to Weight Loss, Ninja Couch Marketing, You Can Live The Life Of Your Dreams and her soon to be released latest, The Ultimate 48 Hour Author.  For more information visit www.ultimate48hourauthor.com.au or email [email protected]