When you finally have your business up and running, or have a new product ready for market, how should you let people know that you are ready to do business?
There are several ways to market yourself – and I say “market yourself” even if you simply have a product or a service to offer through your company. It’s still considered marketing yourself as an entrepreneur.
As I have mentioned before, you can make local appearances and call attention to them in the press as one way of getting some free publicity.
You can also write a press release, or hire someone to write one for you. There are many sources for finding out what a good press release should have in it. Look on the Internet. There you’ll find many fine examples.
I feel that you should write about your product or service in a way that will either inform the public about your service, educate them about your new product or entertain them in some way; thus making the press release newsworthy. Be creative to catch the media’s attention.
However you choose to write the press release make sure you know the audience you want it to reach. It is important to know where the people are who will be purchasing your product or service before you invest the time and money in advertising. This is true of any marketing strategy you employ.
Many new companies will put together a direct mailing list or use other mediums such as radio, TV and Internet advertising options.
Before you go sending out a letter or any piece of marketing material, decide what you expect the mailing (or ad) to achieve.
Also make sure that anything you send out represents you in a professional way. If designing marketing pieces is not something you are comfortable with, hire someone to do it for you. Spend the time and money to have a complete marketing package done.
You should already have a business plan with a marketing section. Some people further develop that section of the business plan to a stand-alone marketing plan.
How to get your business service or product known to its buying public is critical and worth spending time on, especially before you spend any money on marketing ads. Many people will approach you to purchase ads and while the prices might seem reasonable, any money spent would be wasted if the medium in which the ad is placed doesn’t fit in with the objectives of your marketing plan.
Know the difference between marketing and selling. While the ultimate goal of marketing may be to sell something, marketing is about getting your name out there in front of the people who will use your product or service.
Try to stay focused on your audience, what you want them to learn about you, and the media that will reach them. Randomly sending out hundreds of releases will not accomplish the goals you want.
You might think that more would be better in the case of advertising, but it’s really not.
Article – Copyright 2001 Stanley I. Mason. Syndicated by Paradigm News, Inc.
