10 Strategies of Zero Cost Marketing

10 Strategies of Zero Cost Marketing

What is the most important aspect in a new business? Is it a product or marketing?

Most entrepreneurs think of what to sell rather than how to sell and to whom they should offer their product or service. The business ends up in failure because they create a product which has non existent customers. The mistake of many entrepreneurs is he or she thinks and decides the product customer should buy.

Truth is, you need to know what product to sell without your customers telling you. Entrepreneurship is not only about you but the product, type of marketing and how you can improve the lives of others. What problem you could help to solve?

Here are 10 strategies that could help you excel and succeed in your business.

 1.Identify who? 

• You have to focus and identify on the who(customer) and what they want from us, the sellers. As an entrepreneur, you should refer to who is the main target that is willing to pay for the service we have prepared. In fact, we do not want to deal with people who are not willing, not interested, doubtful or always give us excuses. Instead, research and identify customers that you want. If you really want to know who you need, you need to observe. 
• Meanwhile, to ensure your product is suitable for a targeted group, you should do a temporary sales trial. You have to set the time to sell your selected product in a month first. This is for you to identify who buys and why they purchase your product. Collect information and feedback. This technique is called test and measure. There are four types of target that you’ll meet. 
• The one you really want 
• Less wanted 
• Usually wanted 
• The one you don’t want 
• Once you have completed your observation, categorize your customers according to each category. 
• The second most important, you also need to have questions in a survey format. You need to question and conduct a survey to your customers. The survey should cover on what they want, what they don’t want, what they like, dislike and what they like the most. When you question, you should also listen, understand and take action. You must act based on their answers.. Understand how you can earn money based on the surveys. The most important thing to do is ask. The best means to carry out a survey is to have a contest, compete or to have a lucky draw. The thumb rule here is, customers need to answer questions to qualify for a contest. You can attract prospects and new customers and you will also get to complete your survey. 
• In marketing, certainty is very important to minimize losses. The survey document should be saved and analysed, so you can design your next marketing strategy. You also need to be good at storytelling. You need to describe yourself in a very persuasive way. Who you are, your expertise, your value for customers and new customers, your mission in business and the most important part is setting the right tone and emotion while telling your true story. 
• Next, critical issues and problems. As a business person, you should identify the issues whether small or big that make a customer to pay any price for the product and service we offer. Identify and understand the issues that trouble their lives because it involves emotional pressure. Emotions are the most important matter for us to identify and empower. The issues that trigger your customers’ mind should be understood and make full use of them as a bait, model and make it the main title for an email, caption or even your article.
•  Another aspect to be considered in the realm of marketing is consequence. Before you decide to do something, do it properly. For an instance, you decide to do copywriting. You should remember to credit the real author if you are quoting them in your article. You have to introduce him or her to your readers because it relies on your ethics as a copywriter and also how much you respect another person to receive respect in return as well. 
•  The last important aspect is potential probability. What is the potential solution or result? What is the solution, result and hope to the public and also how it connects to you. 

 2.The Power of a Brand 

• A brand is the only way to identify your business. How does your customer know and experience your business? A strong brand is more than just a logo. It describes everything about business from your customers, how you serve them, employees clothing, business cards, premises until the marketing resources and advertisements. 
•  The objectives of a brand are: 
• To deliver a clear message 
• To show your credibility 
• To connect target prospects with products or services through emotions. 
• To encourage buyers to buy 
• To create customer loyalty. 
•  A brand should represent you and your company and should also have the quality of unique distinctive proposition. Unique distinctive proposition means the brand should be unique to stay longer, stronger and successful in the current market. The product should be better, unique, faster or even bigger. Unique also means the brand itself. 
•  A brand’s characteristics are 
• logo, 
• colour, 
• typefaces, 
• slogans, 
• music, 
• character, 
• celebrity, 
• taste, 
• smell, 
• shape and 
• ad style. 

 3.Data is king

• One of the main objectives when collecting data is to create the buyers’ wishes and to see the perspective of a customer. If you have a clear picture about who and what you’re marketing, you can create the best strategy to interact even closer to your customers. 
•  You can collect data and information with asking customers to give phone numbers, email and house address to contact them about offers or new products in the near future. 

 4.Show Evidence 

• Imagine a guy telling a policeman about a current case that happened without any evidence. Will the policeman believe that man? The same goes for your business. If you tell the customers and public how good your product is without any testimony or result from previous customers, the public will surely doubt your product. Testimonies can actually help to strengthen your reputation because customers have trusted you and the business you provide for the public. 

 5.Content is Queen 

• Content is a resource to ensure your business runs smoothly and successfully each day. From pictures to video and then podcast, text and graphic information, content plays a big role in a business especially through digital. The content you create has to be attractive, entertaining and could help readers in their daily living and to gain knowledge. When you have interesting content, your products will be more recognized and a strong message will reach your readers. 

 6.Ask 

• Humans will feel happier if someone talks about him or her. Like customers, they will feel excited to interact about your product or business. 
• Keep asking your customers or your followers about what they like about your product or service and why they buy your products and what they really need. 
•  With asking, you can collect information and at the same time keep your customers happy by interacting with you. 

 7.Do less for more

• Business is something that is easy but looks hard when we really want to do it. Some of us may think, if we use more strategies, we will get what we want. You have to think differently. In business, zero cost marketing is sufficient. Believe it or not, online business needs more energy from all options including distributor to customers or even consumers. 

 8.Organize campaigns 

• You’ll definitely think of spending more money for campaigns. Campaign doesn’t mean to do it big. By using the social media platform, you can already organize a campaign for your products. It’s like how the community was exposed to viral sources such as videos, pictures or news, this helps a lot in marketing a product or service. 
• Create an online product launch. Give your consumers new free trials for new products or make them sign up for a contest to give chances to customers to interact and to see the product that is going to be launched. 

 9. Follow up and after sales service 

• The field of customer service is merely important. It is to take care of relationships and customers’ expectations towards you and their feedback is uttermost important. Customer will be happy if you ask them how they feel after using your product. 
•  As a matter of fact, give attention and show your interest with following up or after sales service with asking customers about their experiences and their responses. 

 10. Research on your efforts 

• Most businesses thrive due to research. You should always have the time to observe in detail the result of your marketing campaigns. If there are several promotions to create minimum results then what you need to do is focus for the future with different strategies. 
• Before starting a marketing campaign, you should fix a sales target based on how much your dream income is. Then, decide the strategy that is going to be implemented with zero marketing cost methods or whether you have a budget to spend more, you can use it to do online advertising. 
• Once you start using the strategy appropriately, you will get the results you want in your business. If use the strategy and the results are still the same, research your strategies and improve on your weaknesses.

Credit : Azizan Osman.com