ADVERTISING YOUR BUSINESS JUST GOT CHEAPER WITH SMS MARKETING

As an entrepreneur, identifying the marketing tools and strategies that work well for your kind of business is paramount to her overall performance.

An enormous marketing budget doesn’t necessarily translate to large sales. It’s effective marketing that generates large amount of sales. As a small business owner, it’s erroneous to think that until you have a huge advertising or marketing budget, that’s when more sales will flow. Wrong! Doing the right thing for your small business is what matters.

For some months now, I have taken time to study resources on small business and the marketing tools and strategies available to them (without really having to deep your hands too far into the savings). I have applied these principles to my consulting work and it’s working!

CUSTOMISED BULK SMS MARKETING WILL WORK FOR YOU TOO…
Bulk SMS is one of the most effective, yet cheap marketing tool available to a business. Though the use of direct mail and other forms of direct marketing are still in use, SMS marketing has taken the centre stage. Companies now make use of this strategy to inform, educate, advice and promote their products and services to target audience, customers or clients.
A well drafted and targeted SMS campaign is able to bring you new businesses, clients, or repeated calls from prospects.

USEFUL TIPS WHEN SENDING A CUSTOMISED BULK SMS…

A targeted list of recipients’ number can be more effective than mass marketing. However, you may find new prospects from your mass marketing effort.

Make sure you use a sender ID known by your audience, or at least be consistent in the case of a first time. Your sender ID is the name that appears above the message when a recipient receives your message. Your sender ID may be the name of your business or web site, but it must not be more than 11 characters (including space).

Avoid ambiguity. Be direct when drafting your ad copy.

Make your 160 character message worth reading by always giving the reader useful information.

The ad should promise the reader some benefit that will accrue from accepting the ad’s premises.

The ad should be persuasive enough to make the reader call you.

Put a contact information in the body of the message; for example, your phone or e-mail address.

What action do you want from your audience? Is it to call, email, or just visit your site? Or probably you just want to give an information.

Don’t merge several ads in one campaign. Make sure to send different messages for different products or services.

Don’t bombard your recipients with a lot of sales messages, otherwise they will lose interest in whatever you have to say.

USE A NEWSLETTER TO HELP CUSTOMERS REMEMBER YOU

Studies show that the average consumer must be exposed to a product six to eight times before making decisions to buy. Publishing a newsletter as part of your marketing campaign can increase the potential profit from existing customers becoming long-term buyers.
If you want to keep customers, a newsletter is a must. The frequency of your publication will really be determined by your area of expertise. A weekly or monthly newsletter allows you to put your business name in front of your customers repeatedly. And your topics will be determined by your area of expertise.
A newsletter, whether in print or via email, is a timeless way to keep customers informed, and thus build a solid customer base. Your customers will appreciate useful information and begin to look forward to receiving your publication.
Follow these five tips to create an effective newsletter for your business:
1. Offer valuable, rich content
2. Be consistent in frequency
3. Develop a central theme for your newsletter
4. Be brief
5. Have a call to action.

In the production and final copy of your business newsletter, you need skill and common sense. Consult a good copywriter if you need to. Be careful not to jam-pack your newsletter with sales pitches as this will bore your potential and existing customers, and you as well stand the chance of losing credibility on what you might have to say.

HOW TO GET MORE CLIENTS WITH YOUR BUSINESS CARD

As a business person, your business card should be your number source of leads. The business card tells prospective customers/ clients you are a professional who takes business seriously. Nothing beats a business card for a quick, effective promotion.

The business card must feature your legal name and that of your business, contact address, daytime telephone number, email, web site and a description of your business, preferably, at the back of the card.
Business cards are increasingly getting sophisticated in quality, design and technology. Recently, I read of a business card with built-in microchip, which can be accessed on the computer to get more details about the business.

However, it baffles me when I receive business cards from "great" business people, then after a while can’t remember the kind of business they do. Having a description of your products/services on your card saves you the time of having a prospect to find you from his pack of business cards, or be thrown into the waste paper basket.
Now that it’s time to make one for your business or NGO, make it worth-keeping. The following tips will help you. Read on…

1. Hire a creative graphics designer.
2. Request for samples of business cards.
3. Go for quality instead of quantity.
4. Make sure your card contains only relevant information.
5. Re-read and edit the information for errors and omissions.
6.Check phone number and other contact details for accuracy.
7.Avoid ambiguity, especially when describing your products/services
8.Multi-coloured cards can be horrible if colours are not well chosen.

These days, a whole lot of impression comes from the quality of the business card you hand over to someone. Once prospective clients are convinced that your business card is of high quality, they are likely to believe you will give them unmatched products/ services.

Lastly, don’t forget to take your business card everywhere you go – seminars, schools, churches, offices, homes, parks, meetings – everywhere!