For a business to grow, you need to market it, especially if you’re a small business owner, you want to ensure that your marketing efforts are worthwhile since many business owners who manage to invest in digital marketing end up with a bad taste after getting close to zero results from their digital marketing activity.
Not only happens to those who are starting a business but, also, to those business owners who have been getting customers without online exposure.
Now, imagine doing business and generating sales from locals who know what you offer, and suddenly you notice there’s a trend about everyone going online to shop, review, search, engage, etc. You are hesitant to invest money into the unknown world of the internet but you know others are making a lot of money from online sales. Why shouldn’t you give it a try?
Unfortunately, allocating budget for online advertisement is not enough. Many business owners who manage to invest in digital marketing end up with a bad taste after getting close to zero results from their digital marketing activity.
Let’s think about why that is the case in most scenarios.
Starting with the wrong foot
Maybe you graduated to become a professional in your field/industry or you have enough experience doing what you do for a living (i.e. lawyer, driver, designer, programmer, consultant, etc.) but you have not realized that the web has become a complicated, inter tangled universe to interact with.
Each platform that could potentially connect you with your ideal customers (i.e. Search Engines, Social Networks, Web forums, Q&A Sites, Emails, etc.) have different rules, content, context, users, purpose, attention span, etc. So, when people invest money and effort to generate sales from their online activity, they end up getting the perception that online marketing does not work or it is just a tale told by marketing gurus.
Even successful businessmen dismiss marketing investment as a waste of resources.
“Tesla does not advertise or pay for endorsements. Instead, we use that money to make the product great”─Elon Musk
Ready, set, go…
So, what do we make out of Musk’s quote?
People dream of paradisiac islands and beaches abounding with diversified flora and fauna but they never mention how dangerous nature can turn out to be if they don’t prepare with the right conditions and knowledge about the place where they’ll be vacationing.
Something similar happens when you dream of driving a lot of revenue from the ocean of people that exists online. You need to be prepared with the following:
- KYC (Know your customer): Not only you have to be familiar with the typical traits that make up your ideal customers (e.g. social status, habits, wants, needs, etc.) but you have to understand how customers go through their buying journey and behave at each stage of their shopping experience. What online mediums do they typically use and how do they make purchasing decisions. We think that the stage of consideration is the most important to consider when optimizing for conversions.
- Understand your market: Outperforming your competition is not enough when trying to generate more revenue from your existing market. You have to adapt to your customers demands and remove friction from them to make your offer as relevant and accessible as possible.
- Earn a reputation by providing value up front: Trust is the most important factor after pricing when customers prepare for their next buying experience. You really want to ensure that your offer, not only promises, but exhibits value as soon as a prospect puts a foot in your door.
Thus your marketing activity must be nourished by these three essential points if you want to reap profitable results from your next marketing efforts.
Automakers and their dealers spent an estimated $9.3 billion on advertising in 2018. They typically made money back on that investment, and they would be at a competitive disadvantage if they did not advertise when their competitors were spending big.
“Advertising does pay. Good advertising pays better. Great advertising pays best of all,” said Ed Williams, vice president of the insights division at Kantar. “The advantage is you are going to generate additional awareness.”
Not only Elon Musk retracted later on that post by commenting “Maybe so eventually, but it will be information & entertainment, not trickery”, after a user replied to his post with:
The same questioning might take place for Lamborghini & Ferrari who cater to a niche crowd. When you put two and two together you’ll see that it makes no sense for Lambo & Ferrari to spend millions of dollars to put out ads for their products when the only people buying them are rich people who, as several posters put it, have little time to spend in front of social media.
No, they market their products in a better way – by using journalists in magazines such as Top Gear, Autocar or EVO & shows like The Grand Tour with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond & James May.
At the end, knowing your customers is part of a true marketing strategy that gets implemented by successful industry players.
