Promoting your service can appear to be a challenging task, but if you know approach marketing the value in what you sell, you should see sales climb quicker than you think.
Instructions
sell your service.
1. Examine what you are selling.
Before you can attempt to market your service, you need to identify why customers would need your service and what makes your business different from your competitors.
For example, if you are a personal trainer, you need to make a list of why customers would need personal training versus training on their own. You should identify at least three other trainers in your market area and examine how they run their business. What are their customers like, how and where do they advertise and what do they say they will deliver? You should also take into consideration their price structure and compare and contrast hourly rates and what types of services customers can expect in return.
Once you have a grip on what your business can offer and what the competition can offer, you can create a clear picture of your selling points.
2. Identify your target audience.
It is important that you know who is most likely to need your services before you begin to market it. For instance if you are a pediatrician, you would want to target parents and possibly schools.
Once you have a handle on who needs your service and why they need it, you can begin to build an external promotional campaign.
3. Formulate a marketing strategy.
Promoting services can be a fun way to market. You can tap into nontraditional means to campaign for your service, which can be extremely beneficial as well as fun for everyone.
Whenever you market your service, stick to your list of differentiators and what sets you apart from the competition. Be sure you are clear about what service you deliver in your message, too.
Create a list of communications avenues that you plan to explore. This will possibly depend upon budget constraints and audience, but you should look into newspaper ads, TV, radio, direct mail, events such as parties and free demonstrations, on-line advertising, e-mail blasts, telemarketing in-store specials and discounts, in-store promotion and referral programs.
4. Execute and track your marketing campaign.
Once you've launched your media campaign, you should track the results. That way you can determine if your channels are effective and also what kind of business results from that method.
For instance, if you are a manicurist and you run a $10 off special coupon in the newspaper, you would want to take quick notes on who brings in the coupon, what kind of additional services they request and the volume of incoming coupons.
Other ways you can track your campaign is to ask customers where they heard of your service and keep a spreadsheet with the totals. If you have a sophisticated software tracking program, you can use that to develop trend graphs in addition to tracking numbers.
5. Review and possibly revise.
When you initially run a media campaign you want to ensure that it has a beginning and an end. You don't need to cease all advertising, but find a way to give yourself some space to digest and review how the campaign progressed.
Examine the return each channel produced, and explore why you received that return on investment (ROI). Ask questions and get employees or friends involved in the process. It's always good to have another opinion.
Identify why the campaign was a success (or not) and why you think it was or wasn't. Figure out if there were one or two things that brought people in the door and if there was one particular channel that worked better than others.
Asking the important questions and coming to conclusions will strengthen your campaign and prepare you for the next time you market your service. This will be an ongoing process, and in many cases it takes several passes through communication channels before you receive the response you desire.
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