Marketing is essential to the success of businesses of all sizes. After all marketing is everything that helps a business get customers.
From ads, promotions, to the signage you see in front of stores the purpose of it all is to get customers.
Unlike big businesses smaller ones have a harder time with marketing because they don’t have the resources and expertise of bigger enterprises.
What smaller business need is to know what they need to do to get more people into their store and to their places of business whether or not they have a big budget or team at their disposal.
To help guide small businesses in this matter I want to provide them two things they can do to get more people to come to their businesses.
This two-step guide will provide a simple approach to start attracting customers and getting customers through your doors.
Step #1 in What You Can Start Doing to Get Potential Customers
The first thing we want to realize in step number one is that that the goal of marketing your business is to get customers to come to your business and buy from you. In this step the idea is to get people through your doors.
Whether you have a dry cleaner, flower shop, or a mechanic shop you want potential customers and to learn about your business. You want them to know that you are there offering your goods and services at that location.
Furthermore, you want to aim to get people’s attention, get them to learn about your business, and connect or develop a relationship with them.
One easy place to start is with the signage or displays you are allowed to put outside your business or nearby places. Even if you haven’t opened yet and you are still under construction having a sign outside announcing the opening of your business will help build awareness and hopefully anticipation as well.
Using the example of the flower shop, one thing you can do is maybe create a space (front windows or wall of business) where you celebrate graduating elementary school students.
For example, you decorate the wall with flowers, and you don’t have to use real flowers here since it is just a display, with congratulatory and encouraging messages to the roses blooming in your neighborhood or town.
You can do this for students graduating from kindergarten and fifth grade. Also if you want you can even offer a free roses or flowers to any parents that come in before graduation.
Step #2 in What You Can Do to Get People Through Your Doors
Another way potential customers can discover your business in online. For this step you can start by picking one social media platform and start sharing things with people there.
Using the examples from above, perhaps with a dry cleaner you can share style or care tips for certain types of clothing.
With a flower shop you can share images of maybe some of the more interesting flowers you sell. You can also share places around town or nearby, or even the country or globally that people can see beautiful flowers or interesting plant life.
You can even have people share with you flowers they are growing at home or a home garden and maybe even pick one maybe every month to highlight.
With a mechanic you share things like tips on ways to save on gas, places in your town with the highest accident rates, or images of what bad brake pads, or worn-out tire treads look like to help people keep an eye on those things.
As you can see hopefully none of these things cost a lot of money or resources. These are easy things you can start doing to drive traffic to your place of business.
Remember that marketing is everything that you do, use, or that helps you get customers for your business. Don’t let any limitations of money, people, or time get in your way.
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