Marketing for the Short Term and the Long Term
By Andrew Michaels
If you want to have consistent sales throughout the year while growing your business, you need to do some short term and long term marketing. Short term marketing usually make sales increase, but the increase only lasts a little while. Long term marketing keeps your sales steady and gives you that constant customer presence that you need to keep your doors open.
To market your brand and product consistently you must use short term and long term marketing strategies to keep consumers thinking about your brand all the time.
If you’re not sure what constitutes short term and long term marketing, read on.
Short Term Marketing Strategies
Mentions: If you can get your product mentioned in a forum, newspaper article or on some kind of television news program, your Web site traffic and sales could soar for a week or so. These are the hardest type of marketing strategies to employ, because you don’t have much control over the occurrences. Having someone on board to write good press releases to get you news coverage is your best bet.
Discounts: Direct mail campaigns that offer coupons or discounts for a limited time can generate immediate product interest. It’s important to use these types of discounts in moderation because long-term sales can be affected by customers waiting for the next sale or coupon to come along. You can still use direct mail; just make the message more long-term, meaning you’re using postcards and brochures to remind consumers about your product, or to introduce your new product.
PPC: Pay-per-click advertising online is an easy and fast way to garner product interest. Of course, it can also be the most expensive. And, when your budget is used up, your ads end. The good thing about PPC is that you can drive targeted traffic to your Web site, which can result in new customers who return to your Web site to buy your product after your paid ads have expired.
Long Term Marketing Strategies
SEO: Search Engine Optimization is one of the most time consuming, yet effective ways to market your product and your brand. SEO refers to optimizing your Web site for search engines. Most people research and buy products from the Web and they search by inputting keywords into Yahoo! or Google. By knowing your audience and what keywords they are likely to search for, you can fill your Web site up with those search words so that your Web page returns at the top of the search results.
The bad thing with SEO is that it is an ongoing process so you might not see results for months. You have to wait for Google and other search sites to “crawl” your site and index it into their search engine. There’s really nothing you can do to speed up this process. You can submit your Web site to Google, but that won’t make the crawling process any quicker.
Give out free info
If you give out free info in the form of blogs, newsletters and informative emails, you can keep your company’s name in the front of your customers’ minds. If you don’t have a newsletter printing budget, you can create an e-newsletter that you post on your Web site or email to subscribers for free.
Another way to do this is to write free articles for local newspapers or magazines or to post your articles on forums and article-driven Web sites. By providing valuable, free info, you’ll not only be regarded as an expert in your field by sharing your knowledge, but you’ll build trust with your customers.
By incorporating some of these short term and long term marketing strategies year ’round, you’ll ensure your sales are consistent and that you won’t have any down times during the year.
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