How to market your service business
First step: Business objectives
Where is your business now and where do you want it to go over the next few months/year?
To define this you may use the SWOT analysis test which will help you identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats of your business. Make sure your objectives are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound).
Step 2: Marketing objectives
Ask yourself; what are MY marketing objectives? They could be any of the following; to create awareness of your service, to generate customer leads for your service, to increase website clicks, to get 50 referrals for your service etc.
Step 3: Discovering your target audience
Your target audience is the people who will buy/purchase your services. Be as detailed as possible when drawing out your target audience, include demographics (age & gender) and psychographics (interests and behaviors).
Step 4: Key marketing messages
With each marketing plan, you need to outline what you key marketing messages are. Think about what differentiates you from your competitors. What is your unique value proposition?
This is the message that will form the theme for your marketing communications. It could be centered around the affordability of your product, convenience or even quality.
Step 5: Brand positioning
This is basically what you want to be known for. Take these examples
- The best coffee house in all of Africa
- Quality leather bags for all women
- Exotic travel destinations for young travellers
- The most efficient tax consultant in South Africa
Now it’s your turn, how will you position your brand so that it’s attractive to your target audience?
Step 6: Deciding which marketing channels to use
How/where will you reach your customers effectively? This could be via Facebook, Twitter, email, your company’s website or YouTube. It doesn’t have to be entirely online though, think of where your target audience is. Other marketing channels include SMS, posters, and word of mouth.
#MotherlandMogul Tip: Choose a channel that will reach your ideal paying client to increase purchases. Choose a channel that will reach the highest number of potential clients to increase visibility.
#MotherlandMogul Tip: You don’t need to be on every social media platform; select a maximum of 3 that you can deliver effectively and consistently.
Step 7: Your content marketing plan
Now you know what marketing channels you’ll be using, what kind of content will you share on them?
Think about utilising lots of images of your product/service, DIYs on how to use your service, tips and informative information about your service, articles and blog posts related to your service. Also, consider how much content you will publish and how frequently. ?
#MotherlandMogul Tip: Use education marketing to educate your customers about your services
Step 8: Keeping in touch with your customers
The most effective keep in touch strategy for the service industry is email marketing. Grow your list of customers by collecting their email addresses and purpose to send a newsletter to them every 4-6 weeks.
Step 9: Evaluating your efforts
How many people do I want to reach on Facebook? What’s the number of new sign-ups I am targeting at the end of each month? How many monthly website visits do I want? How many people do I want to read my e-newsletter every month?
Ask yourself questions like these to determine your key metrics as they will help you figure out if your marketing plan has been a success or a flop.
In summary
Before you start typing down a marketing plan, you need to know
- What you want to achieve with your marketing
- Who you want your marketing efforts to reach
- Why you want to market your services
- How you will be marketing your services
- When you will implement your marketing plan
EM Consulting is a communications firm based in Nairobi, Kenya dedicated to helping businesses grow by creating impactful marketing and communication strategies.
The marketing experts at EM Consulting are offering a 50% discount to all SLA readers who download the template before June 30, 2017.
Fill the form below to get your marketing template!
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