Many business owners will tell you that they experience a lot of fluctuation throughout the year. Some months will have higher profits than other months, there will be an increase in demand for a particular type of product or service one month, and then the next month a different type of product will be in demand.
This business phenomenon holds true for a business’ source of customers as well. Some months, a business may receive a surge in word of mouth advertising, whereas other months it may receive orders from people who came across an ad that the business had placed.
Many marketing experts agree that it is important for a business to diversify its marketing methods. This will ensure that leads are coming in from many different sources and that if one source is having a particularly slow month, the other sources should still be delivering plenty of leads.
On the other hand, marketing experts caution against having a marketing message sprung out over too many places. It can be hard to keep track of ads and know which ads are hitting the right target market.
Testing ads and keeping track of the results can help a person decide which areas are the best places for them to advertise. Knowing this information can also help stretch an advertising budget.
There are many choices for where to spend advertising dollars. If a person wants to advertise online they could choose to invest in pay-per-click ads, ad space that they buy directly from another website, as well as free options – including social networking and article marketing.
There are many ways to find leads offline, including flyers, lead boxes, and ads placed in local newspapers and magazines, as well as referrals from current customers. Depending on the type of business, a person may also opt to buy leads from lead companies.
The marketing mix that works for one person may be to have one or two ads running, both online and offline, while another person may find that participating for a few hours each week in social networking and hanging up flyers around their local area is what works best for them. Just remember to diversify your efforts.
Also, it may be somewhat tedious, but testing ads and tracking the results is the best way to find the right mix for your business. Using an ad tracker service such as Google as well as linking ads to different URLs can help determine which ads are outperforming other ads.
Happy Marketing!
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Thanks for the reminders to diversify marketing efforts! We know things we need to do but it’s always good to have things brought to the forefront of our mind.
I have to admit, this is one area that we are very different in. Of course, many of the things you are talking about are really under the heading of advertising, and we spend very little money-if any- on ads and so, we don’t test them either. The money we spend is on going to events, meeting people, building relationship, and writing… refining our message, our story, our services, conversations and understanding our client needs.
Then- our business comes 100% from relationships and referrals. Nothing to test or measure. It’s old-fashioned, and unscientific, but very rewarding.
Thank you Wendi, I definitely agree that networking, education and relationship building should be a staple of anyone’s core business development but as a marketer I think marketing is also important. I did a blog post on keeping customers in June 2013 relating to building relationships https://strategizeyoursuccess.com/staging2/keeping-customers-is-better-than-finding-new-ones. You’ll see it echo’s your sentiment. My belief is that in today’s marketplace it’s all vital.
Lots to think about here, Wanda. One thing to add to the ad testing. Just change one thing at a time in your ads. Otherwise, if one pulls better, you won’t know if it’s because of the wording, ad size, photo or some other element.
I’m also someone who does lots of my marketing online, in person and one-on-one. Although I rarely attend networking events, I network at every event I attend.
Thanks for the wisdom of diversifying one’s marketing strategy and of tracking to see what works best! I like the advice you give on finding strategies that are effective for you, to diversify but not to spread oneself too thin and to test to see what’s worth continuing with! Great article! Many thanks!