There are people who will only drink Starbucks coffee or diet Coke (not Pepsi).  Some people will only do their grocery shopping at Safeway or gas up at Chevron. Most likely you have certain brands that you gravitate to and stores you frequent.  These are products and services that you wouldn’t stray from.  They are the obvious choice for you.  You can take this same concept and apply it to your business.

Business owners often complain that they don’t know how to market themselves.  They whine that consumers aren’t spending like they used to and that competition is fierce.  Instead of working on differentiating their business from the other one down the street, they basically throw their hands up in the air and declare – “I give up!” Maybe they don’t say those actual words, but their actions make this statement.

It starts with your marketing message.
Too often, business owners engage in nothing more than random chance marketing. They look at what all the other businesses in their area are doing and copy them. The problem is how do you know if these marketing messages are working? Just because other people are shouting the same message, it doesn’t mean it is an effective one.

As a business owner, you need to position yourself so that you are the one and only choice for your prospects.  You can accomplish this by creating a compelling marketing message that will provoke your prospects to call you first.  When you draft your ads, think about what would get them to stop their search and contact you. Is it a free offer, such as a CD or a book? Is it something else that they will consider valuable?

It continues with your follow up marketing.
Once you get your customers to walk in the door, your work doesn’t stop there.  You need to stay in front of them even when you are done helping them.  That means you need to remain in constant contact, whether that is through a newsletter, social media or mailed postcards. You need to keep your position as their obvious choice – one in which they won’t stray from.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.