New entrepreneurs often underestimate the importance of advertising and promoting an online or traditional shop. Attracting customers is difficult. Finding the right tools to promote your business can cost you a lot of money, time and nerves. But if you do not spread the word about the existence of your shop, it is unlikely that anyone will know about it. Except friends, family and acquaintances. Of course, they can provide you with revenue in the initial stages, but this will not last forever. You need to attract customers from outside this circle of nice people. Yes, other people may not like you, but you have to tolerate that. Otherwise you could lose money and business. We spoke to the experts at Step Link about the advertising methods available to help new business owners.
Audience research
So where do you start the customer acquisition process? By researching the interests and needs of potential customers. If you're in business for your own pleasure, you won't make much money. You need to focus on the needs of your target audience. You need to identify the pain points and needs of both existing and potential customers. Talk to people, conduct surveys and polls on your website and social media. All of this will help you better understand your target audience and provide exactly what they want.
Once you've identified your customers' wants, pains and needs, the next step is to promote your store and the products it sells. Find your ideal promotional tools. But you can't just use one. You need to combine promotional methods to achieve the most effective results.
Which tools to use when you start advertising
There is a wide range of paid and free advertising tools and promotion methods available, and a new business owner can choose a few to suit their budget.
Free advertising. You can start with free adverts on online platforms that allow it. Post your offers on review sites, message boards, social media groups and forums.
Content marketing. Create interesting and useful content that gets people's attention. If they share it on their social media pages or in private messages, it will be a great result. This will increase the number of people who know or have heard of your business.
Work with opinion leaders. An entrepreneur who is just starting to promote his business will find it difficult to get the support of well-known bloggers. Therefore, you can start with smaller influencers. Microbloggers are a lifesaver for new entrepreneurs. Sometimes you can agree to barter with them.
Exchange customers. Network with related businesses. Find where your customers' interests overlap and organise partnership programmes. For example, you sell sports equipment. You can make arrangements with sports clubs and fitness centres to advertise in their premises and on their websites.
Contextual and targeted advertising. If you have at least a small marketing budget, you can test paid advertising channels. Their advantage is that they can attract a steady stream of customers. The main thing is not to invest the whole budget at once. On social networks, for example, you can run different types of ads aimed at different audiences. Analyse the statistics, choose the most effective ads and invest some more money in them. With a competent approach, the ads will generate profits.
Advertising and promoting a trading platform is a very important and complex part of an entrepreneur's work. In future posts on the Step Link blog, we will look in more detail at the different ways you can tell people about your shop and make it recognisable.
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