As an entrepreneur you want to appeal to the right customers. But whoever your company focuses on, your target audience will be flooded with a huge flow of information. How do you ensure that your message reaches your customer?
An effective marketing campaign requires preparation. In fact, the better the preparation, the greater the chance of a return. Because who do you want to focus on, in what way and with what message? With these four ways you can reach your customers even better.
1. Banner / online advertisement
Promote an offer, increase your brand awareness or promote a new product / service; it’s all possible with a banner. The big advantage is that you can target the online advertisement at a specific location and target group. Even with small budgets, it is therefore possible to get a lot of return from your banner.
Determine in advance the location and target group you want to reach with your advertisement on the internet. For example, do you have a fitness school in Zwolle? Then you know that people up to a distance of about five kilometers are willing to come to you. Then you only want to fire the campaign at people who want to get in shape or maintain their condition. With these two filters you can reach the right people in a very targeted way.
Do you want to keep costs completely low? You can create a banner yourself with the help of websites etc.
2. Social media campaign
The choice from the range of social media channels is increasing. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest … How many messages you post on social media every day is important, although nobody knows exactly what the perfect number of messages should be. CoSchedule studied a number of studies and arrived at these averages per channel:
Facebook: 1 post per day
Twitter: 15 Tweets per day
LinkedIn: 1 post per day
Instagram: 1-2 posts per day
Pinterest: 11 Pins per day
With a social media campaign, it is also important to define specific goals for a specific target group. No social media goals, such as reaching ten thousand followers in six months. But business goals, such as increasing your brand awareness by 20 percent for people aged 18-24 within six months.
The big advantage of social media is that as a company you don’t always have to be the channel. Customers have easy ‘access’ to you as an entrepreneur or as a company, so that they can easily start a conversation with you. In this way you have already taken the biggest threshold, because the customer is coming to you.
3. Targeted mailing promotion
A targeted e-mail is a powerful means to build and strengthen a relationship with your target group. Do you know someone’s name, interests or date of birth? Put it in the text, it immediately makes it personal. And the more personal your message, the more familiar it feels and the greater the chance that a customer will take action. Use a personal salutation, mail customers an offer on their birthday and never forget to communicate clearly: make sure the name of your company and where you can be reached are always clearly stated.
Send a mailing every day? It seems like a good idea, but don’t. That way you almost certainly arouse irritation rather than interest. Make sure you really have something to say when you approach someone. However, it is a good plan to maintain a fixed rhythm to send your newsletters, for example weekly or monthly. But think of the best time in advance.
In addition, a mailing is measurable, which makes this an ideal means to test and optimize quickly and thus increase your success. See what happens with your e-mails. Are your e-mails properly opened? Well clicked? Do they deliver your leads or money?
4. Direct mail campaign
Perhaps the most effective way to reach your target group: a direct mail. No simple letter or brochure, customers want to be triggered. It is therefore essential to stand out: beautiful paper, good printed matter, beautiful photography. Also consider a different size, a surprising color or put something in the envelope. Research shows that people always open an envelope ‘with a bump’.
Always ‘give’ something to the addressee: a temporary discount, the second product for free or an offer on a limited product / service that is interesting for the target group. Or ‘offer’ your customer something: a test product, a consultation or a booklet with more information. Such a free offer – however modest – will move people much earlier to take action.
Because ultimately you want the customer to respond to your attractive offer. To increase the chance of this, not only must the offer be attractive. Also make sure that using it is as easy as possible. For example, provide a link to a website specially created for this promotion, send a preprinted reply card that recipients can return filled in free of charge or state a free telephone number where the customer can retrieve more information.
