Imagine you’re standing in the rose section of your favourite retail garden centre. The selection has you feeling dazed and confused. Suddenly a friendly salesperson appears and asks if they can help. “Yes, please. I realize the sign overhead says Roses – but there are hundreds of choices here. They can’t all be roses?”

The salesperson smiles and begins to educate you on the basics of roses, gently suggesting that you study each species before you make a decision, since some require more or less water, different soil and lighting conditions. It would be a shame to randomly pick one, take it home and plant it only to watch it die a slow and painful death, wouldn’t it?

As with roses, once you have researched and made your decisions strategically, it’s time to choose the species to communicate your message with - and get those plants to bloom! At The Art of Marketing, we help small business owners understand how each marketing tactic and idea will work with their business. From there the client is free to implement ideas on their own – or we can! It’s just another way we help clients control costs.

Here are 5 species of promotion techniques you can use to communicate your message:

Personal Selling

Concept: the personal form of presentation designed to answer questions and secure orders
Examples: how you prospect and sell, presentations, quotations, networking groups
Key to success: realizing that people buy (a) people first, then (b) products and services, then (c) the company.
You have a weakness if: you think it’s impossible to sell with just a business card; or believe you’ll have to make cold calls.

Sales Promotions

Concept: short term incentives to encourage retention of your message
Examples: advertising specialties, gifts, contests, demonstrations
Key to success: matching the incentive to the desired goal
You have a weakness if: you attend trade shows without pre / during / post plans

Public Relations

Concept: to communicate a company’s image to its publics
Examples: media kits, media releases, seminars, awards, social media
Key to success: communicating – not selling
You have a weakness if: you believe that whatever you send should be published

Advertising

Concept: the non-personal paid form of presenting products and services
Examples: corporate identity, brochures, flyers, business cards, website
Key to success: presenting a consistent brand
You have a weakness if: you throw money at print advertising and then are frustrated with low or no response.

Direct Marketing

Concept: delivering a message direct from seller to consumer.
Examples: mailings, email, SPAM (ouch), fax broadcasts, website banner ads
Key to success: having mechanisms in place to monitor results
You have a weakness if: you've placed the wrong message in the wrong place to the wrong target (nothing happens)

Maybe you already have a few ideas – but you’d like to bounce them off someone other than a well meaning friend. No problem! Contact us today. We can meet in person, by phone or email to review.

Don’t wait another minute to get growing!