Although I am not professionally qualified to talk extensively on the topic of marketing and advertising, permit me to talk about it based on the little experience I have had as a business owner. Because of my lack of qualifications, I will not belabor you with definitions of what marketing or advertising is or what it is not and the rest of theoretical nonsense, I’m just here to share an experience with you on how much I have seen advertising turn around a struggling business with no sales to booming business with so much sales.
Let us assume that you have a good product or render impeccable services. Everyone who has patronized you all attests to that fact but the problem is you are struggling to make sales despite your excellent product and impeccable service. You do not have many clients or customers; nobody knows about you or about your product. If that is you, you should definitely consider advertising.
The above problem of no sales or low patronage has been the major problem after finance/funding facing many entrepreneurs and business owners. These are the major killers of businesses and entrepreneurship in Africa. So many folks have good products and services they offer but nobody is buying, nobody knows about them or their products, not to talk about patronizing them.
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Ironically, there are thousands of people out there who are in dire need of the product or services you are offering, they have been looking for who offers that service and who sells the products you have. You as the seller are worlds apart from the potential customer and the only way they can get to know what you sell or offer is through either referrals or advertising. Once people get to know that you are offering that service or selling that product and some other persons who are your existing customers can vouch for you that what you offer is solid, that’s all potential client needs, your business will boom.
I have seen advertising; specifically social media advertising take a struggling business into a booming one within a short period of time.
The proven truth is if you want your business to scale quickly and grow exponentially in a short period you will need to consider advertising. Letting the business grow organically without advertising may work but it will definitely take some time hence why advertising is there to save the day.
Let us not forget that this can only work and will be sustainable if you have a good product. So the formula is; to attract new clients through advertising and retain old and existing clients by offering great products and services.
Social media has even made it easier to run cheaper and well targeted advertisements so you don’t shoot and miss or waste money and time advertising to the wrong people or people who do not need your product. For instance, If your target market are the youngins and trendy people your platform should be Instagram, if your target is older people, consider Facebook, if your target audience are professionals and those in the corporate world, you should focus on LinkedIn etc.
Social media Influencer advertising is probably the best way to get more customers on social media faster. It is getting a popular person on that social media to endorse your product. It is more like putting a stamp of endorsement on that product from a popular person and it also introduces your product to the influencer’s millions of followers who from that moment become potential customers.
Help your struggling business today by spending some money on advertising, the return on investment is always huge especially when you target the proper audience, even if you did not target the proper audience, no money spent on advertising is a waste.