If you’re about to launch your startup or you just did, I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time planning and crunching the numbers to control your expenses and become pro table in the shortest time possible!
Whatever line of business you’re in, you definitely need to work on promoting it to generate interest and sales. How do you promote it? Traditionally, you would draft a marketing plan and allocate a budget to be spent on advertising mediums such as newspapers, magazine, radio ads or even outdoor mediums such as billboards and lampposts. You might also consider building a nice shiny website and do a bit of online marketing.
Well, what if I told you that you can promote your product in a very effective way and sell 3 times more without spending a dime on Marketing (or ls in this part of the world)! Is that even possible you would ask? And my answer to you is yes. You don’t need to spend any money or do expensive marketing campaigns to promote your products anymore!
Traditionally what happens is, as a startup you tend to focus and spend a huge amount of money on building the best product ever which everyone will be wishing to have and use! And then, the more you sell your product/service the more money you make. So why spend so much on Marketing? Of course you’ll say that you need to promote your product/services in order to sell it and that’ll cost you money. Right?
If you promote your product using the conventional methods and traditional mediums as described above, you will spend heavily as those channels are extremely expensive. Have no fear as the new marketing methods using Social Media will get you more effective results in promoting your product/ser- vice than of all the traditional media combined. You’ll be able to sell at least 3 times more and without spending anything!
How’s that? Well, it’s scientifically proven that only 14% of people trust ads! Can you imagine putting so much time and effort in designing your precious ad and paying the highest price to publish it on the first page on the first day of the week, only to find out that 14% will really trust it and a lot less would call to inquire.
Traditional media is unpredictable and is dif- cult to measure, while with Social Media you can target your customers and communicate with them directly. Not to mention that you can actually measure the success of your e orts almost instantly. The new measurement tools in each of the largest social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc..) allows you to target your customers based on their location, gender, income, and many other criteria which will eventually help you achieve better results and higher selling opportunities at zero cost.
With social media networks, you can cre- ate your own space/channel to engage with your customers for free. You are also provid- ed with tools that help measure the inter- actions and feedback from your customers. On average 78% of people trust customer reviews and recommendations on social media. Those reviews are not necessarily from family members or close friends, they are from other customers who have tried the product and recommended it to others. As in the conventional wisdom, nothing sells better that word of mouth!
If all the above didn’t convince you to switch gears and focus on Social Media instead, then I hope this piece of information will; last year Social Media usage on the Internet has surpassed porn! I hoped you’ve enjoyed reading my thoughts. In my next article, we will talk about how to get started with social media, use it effectively and take the best decisions.