Developing a promotional strategy

News: March 2012

Developing a promotional strategy

Many business owners and managers think about developing promotional strategies for their firm but fail to put those strategies into action. Effective promotional strategies can prove profitable if executed properly; however, it takes a lot of work to get it right.

Here are three steps to help you develop an effective promotional strategy for your business:

Step 1: Target audience

You must ensure that you are targeting the right people. Once you identify your most appropriate audience you need to work out what it is they want from a product or service similar to yours. You need to determine what it is that keeps them awake at night. If your product or service offers a solution to their problem, you need to highlight this in order to make you firm appeal to your target audience. You can’t sell your product or service to your target audience – instead, you need to sell the benefits of your product or service. In doing so, you must educate your potential customers as to how your product or service helps them solve a problem, or makes their life easier in a way that they will value.

Step 2: Do your research

In order to develop an effective promotional strategy, you need to research all of the possible combinations of products and / or services that you can offer to your target audience. Don’t just copy a competitor as you won’t stand out from the crowd. Instead, make your promotion more of an “event” than a simple promotion. You want your promotion to be a topic of conversation – make it interesting, fun and attractive.

Step 3: How and when

The final piece of the puzzle is to determine how and when to run your promotion. For example, if you have a list of prospects and customers, you could develop a multi-step email campaign that might run for a week or so. If you don’t, you can do direct mail or advertising. There should be a specific deadline, a specific call to action, and a specific reason as to why you’re having the promotion. If you include all three of these, along with making it a fun event, you’ll have a much better chance of making your promotion a success.