Marketing today is much different than it was even 15 to 20 years ago when I got started in this industry. If you were trying to find new customers in 2000 we might have talked about print advertising, direct mail and radio ads. We might have been mentioning email marketing, but at that point, people were tired of SPAM and the horrible tactic some people were using. We would have definitely not been talking about Social Media (as it is today) as Facebook was not available to the public until 2006. So what are the best ways to market your business?
In a very short period of time marketing as we knew it prior to 2010 has changed to be almost completely digital-centric. At the very least all of your marketing activities if you are a good marketer flows both ways from your main digital asset, your Website. With that being said, all decorating businesses should have their digital marketing plan at the forefront of their marketing efforts. Here are my 2 favorite digital marketing tools:
- Social Media Marketing – The key is to be hyper-focused on your niche market, become very social as a person, not a company and realize and be prepared to pay a little bit of money to get your message in front of new people. Remember Social Media is about being SOCIAL, not selling!
- Email Marketing – The key to this medium is to make sure your list includes people that want to hear from you. You do this by providing content and value that they want and targeting the right emails to the right people. Plus if you add some personalization and direct information about what they might want, you have a much better chance of stating out of the dreaded SPAM filter.