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How To Market Services: 7 Steps To Stand Out Success

3 mins read

Creating an effective brand image is a difficult task all new businesses need to master, so we’ve collected the best tips for you to get started, you can thank us later.

Overview

  1. Create A PR Campaign With Specific Goals
  2. Look To Your Competitors
  3. Use Social Media
  4. Email
  5. Go To Networking Events
  6. Blog About Your Business
  7. Your Employees Are Your Brand Managers

1. Create A PR Campaign With Specific Goals

If you’re starting out on a business venture, you may want to consider a PR campaign, especially if it's your first. You need to get your name out there and get people to see you and hear about your business and your services.

There are so many opportunities available; websites, social media, newspapers, magazines, radio and television are all excellent channels for an advert telling people about your company.

Before you start any campaign, create a goal you want to achieve so you can measure the results and then determine which types of campaigns work best for you. Using outbound techniques like television and radio adverts can be very costly, yet on the other hand some marketing channels may post an article for free such as newspapers or magazines.

However, whichever route you go down, there’s no doubt that you need to go digital. This is the age of the millennials (those born after 1980), they are a social generation and look to social media and the web to answer all of their questions, you can’t afford to ignore that.

2. Look To Your Competitors

Successfully improving the awareness of your services can depend on what industry you’re in. You will need to create a strategy that will engage with your market audience.

Look at your competitors and their marketing strategy, what are they doing that works? Adapt their strategies into your own game plan. Follow or like them on social media, keep an eye on their website, sign up for their newsletter or blog... be a spy.

3. Use Social Media

Social media is an effective means for you to talk about your services to people who are interested. Use social platforms to share helpful information and images about your business.

It’s easy for businesses to use social media to promote their services (and it’s cheap), but you need to take the harder route to get noticed - be smart with how you advertise your services. You don’t want people to slide their eyes over your social media posts, you want them to read and remember.

Create unique social media messages like educational infographics and professional designs to increase awareness about your business.

You can also create paid ads on social media to promote your services in front of the right people. Sometimes they just need a well crafted paid ad to see you.

Social Media:
46% of web users look towards social media
when making a purchase.
Source: marketingtechblog.com

 

4. Email

You have to be careful with email. With great power comes great responsibility. Once you get your customers’ email addresses you can send them weekly email updates but this ability is only successful if you use it right. It’s so easy for people to redirect emails to the junk folder.

To improve the awareness of your services via email, create concise and interesting content people will enjoy reading and learning from. Make sure you give them a reason to look forward to your next email and not want to hit the unsubscribe button.

Personalise your emails - simply by using your subscriber’s first name, keep it short and to the point, don’t make it all about you, add social sharing buttons.

Think about the emails you receive, which are your favourites, which make you want to unsubscribe? Why? 

Email Marketing:
“91% of people have unsubscribed from company emails they previously opted into” 
Source: business2community.com

5. Go To Networking Events

Want to know a little secret?

Face-to-Face communication still exists, hard to believe isn’t it in our ever digitally expanding world? Networking events, lectures and award ceremonies are held all over and there’s bound to be one for your industry. People remember people, and it’s always nice to put a face to the name.

This is the perfect opportunity to talk to other businesses in the industry, these could be companies who could even benefit from your business. Make sure to take some business cards with you and talk about your business.

6. Blog About Your Business

Blogs are useful tools for businesses. As over 46% of people are now reading blogs to solve their problems and discover new information, they are excellent platforms for you to talk about your services.

This gives you the opportunity to breakdown all your services and apply them to real-world scenarios so customers know what to expect when they work with you.

7. Your Employees Are Your Brand Managers

Brand Management:
More than half of employers (59%) believe employer brand management
is key to HR strategy. 

Source: hrmagazine.co.uk

You might already have a sales team but have you not thought about your other employees? They are your brand managers. If they like your services and believe in them, they will have kind words to say about them and will likely recommend them.

More importantly their work will be filled with determination and purpose. Work with your employees to make sure their knowledge of your services is up-to-date.

There are many ways you can increase the awareness of your services, you just have to make sure they would be relevant for your company. You don’t want to invest in strategies that won’t work or are just a waste of money.

See what your competitors are doing and find out what engages best with your market audience, then create a strategy to improve your customers’ awareness in your services. 

Another way to find out how to market your services using the inbound approach is to read our ultimate guide to inbound marketing and sales:

Download guide to inbound marketing & sales