Marketing Marketing Marketing!

As I ran my wild bird retail business, I always said that marketing was the thing that kept the wheels going around. If you couldn’t find a good way to connect with the public, you could not successfully begin to really build your customer base.

If you’ve been around a while, you have probably built a really nice business with customers who adore you. What’s not to like? You’re personable, and you have fun things in the store that your customers love to see and (I hope) purchase. But are you “leaving money on the table”, in a sort of proverbial way? How many more people might stop in, or be tempted to come by, if you kept reaching out to them?

One of the topics that I love is marketing. I live it and breathe it. Future issues of Wild Bird Marketing will include details on how to incorporate simple and inexpensive (or FREE!) marketing ideas into your overall strategies. The goal is two fold: 1. Keep in front of existing customers so they always think of you, and 2. attract those new customers – the ones that think “all bird seed is the same”. This second group needs to be gently prodded and coddled so that they can eventually see that all birdseed is NOT the same. What’s more, you have a lot more to offer than just birdseed!

One of the most compelling strategies today is called “organic marketing”. What this means is becoming more involved with your customers and the community as a whole. Getting to really know people and letting them know you. Here’s a short list of things you can do today:

1. Set up a Facebook page – easy to do, and our future issues will take you through it step by step. But, more importantly, POST TO YOUR PAGE on a regular basis. By the way, I know that there are lots of social media options out there. Facebook is still the most widely used and the easiest way to connect with the people who matter most to you – customers.
2. Send out regular emails, and not just to promote yourself, but with information that your customers will find fun, interesting and relevant.
3. Update your website. If you don’t have a website, let’s get one soon! If you have one and haven’t updated it in a while, now’s a really good time! Search engines like Google and Yahoo are changing all the time in how they look at and view website information. Nowadays, the information on your site has to be fresh.
4. Join the local Chamber of Commerce and try to really get involved.
5. Go to local networking events. Getting in front of people is not only fun, but really good for business. You never know who you might meet!

Believe it or not, the above are all organic marketing strategies. And, like all organic things, they have to be used and tried over a longer period of time than traditional marketing ideas. However, once someone has found you, you will keep them as a customer and friend for a longer period of time. They will trust you, your store, and the valuable information you have to offer.

You may have to go to more than one networking event to begin to really know people and let them really know you. You have to interact on Facebook as your business (not as yourself) to begin to be noticed.

So, maybe the moral today is: Organic is healthy and natural, and leads to better long term health for your business!

Wishing you the best until next time!