Structures To Jumpstart Your Business
Do research
Before you start promoting your business it is important to understand what your customers want. Investigate your industry and do customer research, establish how your customers shop and buy, talk to your potential customers and formulate a strategy that is structured around the needs of your customers. Create a promotion strategy to induce consumers and convince them that they need your products or services over your competitors.
Learn from competitors
If your competitors seem to be ahead of you in the game it’s no reason to feel discouraged, see it as an opportunity for you to find your niche in the market. If they are successful, they must be doing something right and you need to find out what that ‘something’ is. The aim is not to copy them because their practises might not work for you but purchasing their products, checking their ads, subscribing to their mailers to see the kind of content they use. Are they targeting a larger audience? Are they only catering to a niche? Makes it easier for you to differentiate yourself from your competitors and stay on top of your game.
Implement
It is crucial to do research and learn about the competitors in your environment but too much time spent learning can be counterproductive. After you have discovered the niche you would like to target or the edge you would like to take over your competitors you need to take action and implement immediately. Waiting too long could deflect your plan or strategy. You should strike a good balance between learning and implementing, one way to do this is to dedicate 25% of your time learning and researching and 75% of your time should solely be focused on implementation to bring your vision to life.
Stay consistent
Consistency brings you to next level marketing, it is not a tool that focuses on convincing consumers to visit your store or buy your product, consistency is important for consumers to connect with your brand on a personal level. The fact is that consumers only use the brands they trust. Your social media voice should match your ideals to make your brand identifiable. For example, most South Africa will recognize a new Nando’s advertisement on TV before seeing the Nando’s logo at the end because they are known for making controversial ads about current events in South Africa. They always changing catch phrases they print on napkins and take-a-away bags, but the font consistently remains the same. From ground level focusing your brand recognition strategy on getting consumers to know your brand on a personal level and maintaining that relationship throughout is key.
