4 Ways to Ensure Your Small Business Isn’t Losing Money
Being a small business owner is a huge undertaking! Often times you are required to operate the advertising and marketing, accounting and finance, customer service, production, payroll, and virtually all departments of your business. A small business owner is often required to be a “jack-of-all-trades.” Because of this, many small businesses are losing money simply because they have so much focus on other aspects of their business, they are overlooking some key marketing/selling guidelines that are pivotal in continuously expanding and maintaining their customer base. Below are some helpful tips to ensure your business is maximizing its profits through marketing.
1. Spend Time on Your Titles/Headlines
Many companies (especially small businesses) tend to speed through the process of selecting a title or headline for marketing content. This can include: email marketing, print advertising, digital marketing, social media posts, and blog posts. These simple tips for headlines can ensure that you are gaining customers and attention through your headlines and titles.
- Start Headlines or Titles with Numbers! “25 Best Ways to Write a Headline”
- Flag Common Mistakes! “Are you Spending Too Little Time Marketing?”
- Ask Questions! “How can I Improve my Advertising?”
- Use an Image Along with Your Title! (Free stock Photos are available at pexels.com, unsplash.com, and stocksnap.io along with many other free websites.)
- Limit Headline or Title Length! (The most captivating headlines/titles are around 50-60 characters and rarely more than 100 characters.)
- Model the Best! (You can model the headlines or marketing titles from some of the most successful companies at advertising or some of the most popular blog sites-Mashable, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, etc…)
2. Turn Features into Benefits
A common mistake among businesses is that too often they choose to focus on features of a product or service and not enough on the benefit of that product or service. One of the most effective ways to ensure that you are focusing on the benefit of a product/service rather than the feature, is to continually ask yourself “So What?” The great thing is, this method works for every industry!
- Our blend of chemicals for your lawn contains phosphorus, and potassium. So what? Your grass will be greener and thicker compared to the blend that our competitors provide.
- Our cyber security MNO’s software stops cyber-attacks. So what? Your computer and database network will remain secure so you can keep operating your company efficiently and effectively.
- Our electric vehicle provides you with a quieter ride than any other vehicle on the market. So what? You can enjoy conversation with those in the vehicle with you or have time to think in peace and quiet on your daily commute.
- Contains a proprietary blend of Organic Wheat Grass, Organic Maca, and Organic Carrot. So what? Your stomach will better digest food and you will be happier and healthier to enjoy time with your loved ones in comfort.
3. Personalize
Buyers, consumers, and prospective clients want to know how your product or service will impact them. If they are able to feel like your product or service was specifically made for them, they are more likely to purchase or use what you are offering. Here are some common mistakes in selling and marketing that can easily be corrected:
- “Studies show that wearing a hearing aid can help prevent dementia.” Instead say, “Studies show that if you wear a hearing aid, you are less likely to get dementia.”
- “Voted as best place for personal training in the state.” Instead say, “Voted best place for you to receive personal training in the state.”
- “Quietest car available on the market.” Instead say, “Quietest ride for you to enjoy that is available on the market.”
4. Focus on Pain Points
A pain point in marketing is a problem that potential or prospective customers of yours might be experiencing. These marketing pain points are much like pain points in our physical bodies, in the sense that once a potential customer learns of a possible cure or remedy to their problems they are eager to acquire that need or remedy. The key to marketing customer pain points is identifying the pain point, so you know how to best grab their attention in order to resolve their issues. Here are some of the categories that pain points often fall into.
- Productivity Pain Points: Much time is being wasted using their current service/provider/product and they want to reduce their time.
- Financial Pain Points: Too much money is currently being spent on current service/provider/product.
- Process Pain Points: Prospective customer is currently in need of an improvement in internal processes. Examples of these processes could be tasks like assigning leads to sales reps or finding highly qualified candidates to fill an open position in your company.
- Support Pain Points: Areas where a customer struggles to find help during the buying process. This could be on the website of their current service/product provider or through customer service departments.
If you take the time necessary to write effective titles and headlines, choose to focus on benefits more than features, personalize your advertisements and/or selling pitches, and focus on customer pain points, you will find yourself gaining more customers for your company. For more tips to effective marketing go to alpinemarketingventures.com where you can find affordable marketing solutions for your business.
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