how to market your services

How to Market Your Services

Prepared by:www.almondsolutions.com

1. Prepare a mission statementThe mission includes a description of (usually in a few sentences):

• Nature of the business• Services offered• Markets served

2. List and describe target or niche markets

Step 1: Create a marketing plan

List and describe potential groups of

users or clients

Identify various segments of a market

Type 1: Specific types of people in a company.

for example, chief executive officer, chief financial officer, or marketing director

Type 2: Department heads.


3. Describe your servicesDetermine what it will take to provide your services in terms of staff, expertise, and costs.

4. Spell out marketing and promotional strategiesMarketing strategy is the goal of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive

advantage - Detailed information will be covered in step 2.

5. Identify and understand the competitionYou can compete based on:

• Value• Price• Product or service• Or some combination of these



Tools to Research Your Competition

1. Alexa

Alexa's been around since 1996. It's a (mostly) free service that will help you analyze traffic on your competitor’s ecommerce store. Type in your competitors URL and Alexa will give you their global traffic rank, number of sites linking in, search analytics, audience insight, average site load time, and a whole lot more. You can really dig deep with Alexa, but it's important to note that there are inaccuracies with Alexa's information, since they get their data from those who have installed their toolbar for IE and Firefox or installed their Google Chrome extension. Take the numbers with a grain of salt.



2. Google AdWords Keyword Tool

This service will allow you to easily analyze keywords and the amount of traffic generated by those keywords. It also allows you to narrow down your search by including URLs and specific categories, such as apparel, cosmetics, or whatever. You can use Google AdWords Keyword Tool to estimate how much your competition is paying per click for their ads. Also, you should use Google Traffic Estimator to find out the number of ad clicks and current bid prices for various keywords.



3. SpyFu (www.spyfu.com)

This is a paid service ($79/month) that lets you spy on your competitor's AdWords and keywords. SpyFu really lets you dig deep. You'll be able to see what worked and what didn't work for your competitors AdWords campaigns. When you can trace the steps of your competition, you can avoid the mistakes they made.. it's like they're doing market testing for you.

4. Open Site Explorer (www.opensiteexplorer.org)

This service has a limited free plan and a paid service that is $99/month. Here you can compare your online store with up to four competitors on page authority, domain authority, linking root domains, total links, and with the pro version, you can also compare social stats.

5. Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts)

With this free service from Google, you can receive email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your queries. You should already have Google Alerts set up for your online store name, but it's important to set up alerts for your competition as well.



6. Establish marketing goals that are quantifiableMarketing goals can include:

1. Setting the number of new clients you would like to acquire.

2. Setting the number of people you would like to reach.

3. Setting the amount of income you would like to generate.

Things to be considered for implementing and integrating your goals into your marketing plan effectively:

1. Skills

2. Resources

3. Budget



7. Monitor your results carefullyThis can be done by:

1. Tracking and evaluating customers’ responses to each marketing strategy.

2. Surveying or interviewing regular users for comments about why they find a service important.

3. Meeting with clients for detailed feedback and ask them for ideas and suggestions.



Regardless of your company's product or service, a strong set of promotional strategies can help position your company in a favorable light with not only current customers but new ones as well.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Step 2: Promotional Strategies


On-Page SEO

Website Content

Page Title

Meta Tags

301 RedirectALT

Name

Page Load Time

URLRewritin

g

Sitemap

Flash

404 Errors



Off-Page SEO

Blogging

Forum Marketin

g

Directory

Submission

Social Bookmar

kingPhoto Sharing

Video Marketin

g

Business Reviews

Local Listings

Article Submissi

ons

Social Media

2. Social Media

Personal profiles: Are designed for people to connect with friends and family.

Group: Is ideal for small communities of people who share a similar interest.

Page: Are created to promote your business.



Twitter FB Page g+ Page In Page

FB Group g+ Group In Group

3. PPC Advertising



Google AdWords

Facebook Advertising

Bing Ads

4. Email Marketing

