The greatest advertisement strategy you can ever have is your word! Find out how to use it.
We all are trying to get more customers who need our products but are not aware that we exist or others who are not even aware that we are the answers to their needs. The art of marketing is critical to the success of eradicating these problems in entrepreneurial ventures. In this article, the four main ways to market one’s business will be discussed and the methods most suited for entrepreneurs will be highlighted. Also, principles of how to benefit from these will be enumerated.
The four most used means of creating awareness and generating sales are advertising, public relations, word of mouth marketing and cold calling of assumed potential customers. However, the oldest and the best most cost efficient way to stimulate awareness and evoke sales to build your business may be free of charge if you can believe this.
Word-of-mouth marketing is the world’s best known marketing secret; it will make your job more enjoyable and rewarding. This article will equip you with the basic tools to harness the merits of increased sales at no cost. It will show how you can generate more business for yourself and principles you can try right away if you are willing to start today.
Firstly, we will discuss the option to show why word-of-mouth marketing is the winner for the entrepreneur. Advertising’s primary goal is to create awareness and lead potential customers to purchase the goods or services. The outcome, usually, is that the image and brand become better recognized, it stimulates trials and sales. The big “but” is the cost. It is very expensive to advertise and, for effectiveness, it has to be sustained over a long period. Its greatest merit is the wide target, reach and coverage, and the impact is highly visible. Advertisements could be audio-visual, in print or electronic in nature. Advertisements are by far the most popular type of marketing. Next is, public relations. It is an effective means of reaching the target market for awareness purposes, this goal leads to sales. It is not as expensive as advertising, though the cost of a public relations firm could be high. The goals are usually limited to building brand awareness and product function awareness. The coverage is also wide in terms of reach. Lastly, cold calls. This is another marketing tool used especially in wide market base products; it generates sales through direct contacts. The cost is high because of the substantial staff time, contact methods (either through the phone or visits) and patience. The reach is as wide as the desire of the marketer. Based on the Nigerian context, the advantages are non-existing.
Word of mouth is the third type of marketing, it is cheaper than all the other marketing strategies discussed. If used effectively, it generates referrals and sales, the staff time is the only cost that is incurred and since they are already in existence and in the budget, they are fixed costs. The advantages are the target and wide coverage, the efficiency, extended impact of the company message being passed on to multiple persons at no added cost. The quality of the customers can be managed better and the cost kept to a manageable amount within the entrepreneur’s budget. Word of mouth marketing can be exploited through networks, already existing customers and social settings.
It is easy to see the value when you compare a prompting to purchase a service or goods from an advertisement as opposed to when a trusted person refers you. Getting dozens of existing customers, friends and acquaintances to send such referrals your way daily will impact on your customer reaching potentials.
TAKE HOME
Our reason for choosing word-of-mouth marketing is that it meets both the needs of entrepreneurs and their potential customers. We desire cost-efficient forms of advertising and they want referrals and testimonies. There is nothing like hearing it from the horse’s mouth. It makes the sales easier to close with fewer objections, a strong sense of loyalty is built rapidly, the client will remain longer because you have a reference point and most important of all, there is a high sense of trust. Our marketing strategy does not have to be 100% word-of-mouth; one could have a bit of the other strategies incorporated, budget permitting.