How to Choose the Best Marketing Type for Your Business

Hello All!

Welcome or welcome back, depending.  This week I’d like to expand on a subject we touched on before.  My first blog focused on creating a marketing schedule for the year to help you grow your business.  In that blog I asked you to include all of your marketing efforts for the year (direct, social, etc.).  And although making sure that you have a game plan  is great, I’ve still done you a disservice.   Because the fact of the matter is not all marketing is for everyone.  So to optimize your success you really need to focus your advertising based on a few factors.

Let’s take a step back first.  There are lots of ways to promote your company but I’d like to focus on four very broad areas:

Social/content marketing
Direct mail marketing
Online marketing
Trade show/ convention marketing

So how does one decide what avenue to choose?  Well first and foremost you need to know your budget.  Do you have one at all?  If not that will definitely cut out your options down considerably.  But that’s okay!  Something is always better than nothing and there are definitely free options out there.

Next, what is/are your ultimate goal(s)?  Decide if you want to drive traffic to your website, have a prospect call you, gain followers of your social media pages, etc.  Your ultimate goal needs to correlate with the type of advertising you use.  So if you want calls, you may want to focus on direct mail and trade show/ convention marketing.  And if you’re looking for website visitors, you might want “share the wealth” and do all of the above.

Your clients’ demographics affect your choice as well.  For example, if you want to attract cruisers who like Cunard, you may not want to invest in a pay per click (PPC) campaign on Facebook.  And if you prefer young couples who like adventure travel, direct mail may not be for you.  According to “How to Choose the Right Marketing Strategies for Your Business” by Sydni Craig-Hart, once you identify your target market, you then need to identify their needs. What do your potential travelers need, what might their expectations be?  Do they want high-end products or something mass market?  The answers to questions like these are going to help you determine where to focus your resources.

Now that you know what to look for, you have homework.  Make a list of the three things mentioned above:  your budget, you goal(s) and your demographics – bonus points if you can also list your travel niche (yes these are different things; all the stars to anyone who can tell me the difference).   Next week we’ll take a deeper look into effective social/content marketing.

-Amber ☺