Marketing For a Service Based Business

For service-based businesses, it is your knowledge and expertise that you are selling. The most important thing is to identify who would be interested in your expertise, and would be willing to pay for it. This is called your target market.

Secondly, the most important thing is to show that you are knowledgeable in your area of specialty. This gains trust and respect, making the end sale of your services easier.

So, let's look at an example. If you are a match-maker (I chose this as it is a bit more interesting than some professions), your target market are single men and women, maybe aged 30+, who are looking for a long-term relationship. Someone who is going to pay for this service is probably a professional or has moderate-to-upper disposable income. They may be single parents, but we know that they are not married or in a relationship, and they may live in the Wellington region, say. This has painted a picture of the target market for us.

The second point was to find avenues to show our knowledge and expertise. For a service-based business, writing articles, columns in local papers or magazines, websites, radio appearances etc, all build up your profile and, with this, your perceived knowledge.

For a fun subject such as match-making, you could approach a paper and say, 'I will write you an article on "First date no-nos" or "How to attract Mr Right without looking like you are trying" or "The 5 steps to ensuring there is a second date" etc. At the end of each article, make sure that you reference yourself with name and company name and either phone number or website. So without even spending any money, we are building you up as the expert in match-making for the Wellington singles.

The third step is cost-effectively marketing a service to hook them in.

So taking our match-maker again, if she has been referencing her website at the end of articles and radio spots, she has driven traffic to her website. What we now want to do is create a database of ever-so-slightly interested singles.

On the website, there could be a free report on "How to put your best foot forward" or "You are not alone - statistics on singles in NZ in 2008". To get this free report, you have to put in your name and email address. This then gives the match-maker a way of reaching this person in the future when she has a speed-dating night on or a singles event on.

What we have done is instead of contacting every man and his dog, we are building up a library of people who are interested in the services that this match-maker has to offer. It is quite obvious that whatever is offered from here on in is going to have a lot greater take-up rate than by just placing an ad somewhere.

So, a few other little tips. To get people to email or phone you to know more about your service, again just make sure that these fit in with your target market, for some of these it will be a waste of money for you if it does not fit in to what your target market reads or watches or listens to.

* Ad in local school newsletters * Notice on noticeboard at local kindy, school or community halls * Be part of forums on websites that are related to your business. Don't go on to sell your wares - use it as an opportunity to share your knowledge and expertise to build up that expert status. We have a lot of great websites with forums in New Zealand - Homebizbuzz.co.nz is great for small businesses, grownups.co.nz is great for the 50+ market, kidspot.co.nz for children's information etc. * Get involved in your community - if you are the secretary of the local squash club, then everyone knows who you are and what you do.

Service Marketing Tips

1. Know what your target market look like

2. Identify how you are different than the competition

3. Establish yourself as an expert

4. Capture details on people interested in your knowledge

5. Stay in regular contact with your target market

For weekly free marketing information from Nicky Bowden visit: http://www.adconomy.co.nz/signup.html

I hope this article has been of some help to you.
For more Free information on Cost Effectively Marketing your Small Business, visit http://www.adconomy.net

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