It is important to understand the process your prospective customers go through before they are ready to buy from you. If you understand that process, you are better equipped to put in place marketing activities that support it, and help lead people through it and towards buying from you. The first step is for people to know you exist, so awareness is the first thing. I don’t just mean people seeing you once or twice, but actually noticing you. Actually registering that you exist. It’s pretty hard to get people to buy from you if you don’t exist, right? ;) But even if they … [Read more...]
Branding: What Is Your Brand?
There is one important aspect of your marketing that you always have, whether you are aware of it or not, whether you consciously create and manage it or not and whether you care or not. You always have a brand. You may want to check out this blog post on what a brand or branding is, but basically a brand is is everything that comes into people’s minds and all the emotions that are evoked when they come across an entity, whether the entity be a company, product, service or person. There is always a brand, because the mere mention of the entity will always conjure some thoughts and emotions … [Read more...]
How Do You Monitor Your Business Competition?
In a previous blog post we have established that you can’t ignore your business competition. But putting them under the microscope once and then just leaving it is not enough. Things change and develop very fast in today’s world, so you always need to keep your finger on the pulse. Analysis of the business competition varies greatly between businesses and markets but there are always basic things to consider such as: … [Read more...]
Why You Need To Analyze Your Business Competition
Recently I met with the CEO of a promising Icelandic startup company. When I asked him how their competitors did things, he said he didn’t care that much about their business competitors, he just wanted to focus on what they themselves were doing. I get it. Don’t get sucked into focusing too much on the other guys. However, here’s the problem: In your marketing, you are trying to convince people to buy from you rather than someone else. … [Read more...]
Sometimes You Should Fire Your Customers!
It is important to find your ideal target group, the people you should be selling to. A way to do this is to find your dream customer, those you absolutely love to work with and for. But have you ever thought about this?: It is equally important to know who you don’t want to work with. As much as you should work on your marketing to attract the customers you want, you may also need to fire some of your existing customers! Bear with me. Some people may think I’m crazy, but the thing is, a customer is not the same as a customer. Not all business is good business. As a rule of thumb, you … [Read more...]