Understanding marketing strategies can spell success or failure for a business, and depending on the market in which you operate, you may be faced with a lot of competition. It can be easy to get overwhelmed and not know where to go next – this may be especially true if you’re trying to tackle marketing yourself but have little to no experience, but this list may serve as a guide in helping you get started.
- Understand the process is trial and error – Whilst there are plenty of guides out there for those looking to handle their own marketing, as well as many that will handle your marketing for you, it’s important to understand that whichever direction you take there is a lot of trial and error involved. Some are fortunate and hit the right spot from the offset, but that’s not always the case and discovering what works and what doesn’t takes some time.
- Identify your service strength – It’s easier to market if you have a strong point to push across to your audience – one example can be found in online casinos as an initiative within the UK called Gamstop aims to block users from the services if they opt-in, but there are more non gamstop sites than you think as many operators choose to register off-shore, they then market this as a key point to their audience, capturing an easier grouping of users as they directly market to that service.
- Find what makes you unique – Whilst it is important to market your strength, even if it is something you have in common with all of your competitors, it’s also just as important to identify what sets you apart from them. It goes without saying that you would check out your competition to see what they’re not doing, but it’s also often overlooked to see what they’re doing very well – find out how both sides of the coins to your competitors and looking and it may offer a good marketing point for what makes you unique, and what makes you stand out.
- Ask for feedback – With social media and the huge amount of tools available online, it has never been easier to ask for feedback through surveys – many are happy to answer these questions without any need for reward. Without asking the questions, it’s difficult to see just where your marketing strategy is currently landing without a lot of analytics data, whereas just a small survey can reveal a lot about what is being done well – don’t be afraid to ask questions, and be sure you take the feedback in a purely constructive manner.
Marketing is a tricky area of business and as mentioned it’s extremely difficult to get right on the first time, even if you know what you’re doing – different people will react in different ways, it may take some time to receive the results that you want but keep things simple and try not to do too many things at one time and over time you will find your marketing strategy begin to fall in to place.
