Marketing a service, unlike marketing a product online is actually much more difficult. The reason? You are essentially marketing yourself; your knowledge, skills, abilities as well as your reliability and dependability. Unfortunately anyone can go and say “I am the god of software and I can do all things software related”, but really have little or no knowledge of software. A service is in fact, invisible. You can talk talk talk all you want, but talk is cheap and anyone can basically say they are good at something, without actually being good at it. It takes a lot to get someone to trust you enough to sell them your service. However, there are things you can do market the service, as well as gain trust from people.
Customer Service:
Obviously customer service is always an important aspect to any company. But, it becomes even more important and valuable when you market a service online. People will need support when it comes to your service before buying. Make sure you are always (always!) courteous to present or potential customers. Always be professional and speak in a professional manner on the phone, in emails, in your newsletters and even on chat. No matter how close of a business relationship you have with someone, don’t use slang and never ever curse. If you do not have an answer for a question, find someone in your company who can answer it. Never leave a customer exiting the conversation more confused than they were originally.
Target Your Customers:
For example, say you are selling something that would better reach males from 16-30, don’t target websites that cater to women 40+ years old. It’s a waste of time and money to advertise your service on these sites. Instead, take a site like Google or Buy Sell Ads that lets you put in criteria and find sites that are more suited for the targeted audience you are looking for.
Needs and Wants:
Make sure that you know what your potential custom needs and what they want in your specific service. This means shopping around at your competitors and possibly doing some spy work in the background. If you have a competitor that has the same or almost the same service as you, find out why they are so popular. Do they show up on search engines more than your site does? Are they using better keywords? Lower prices? Adding add-ons to the service? You need to check these things out to find out how you can be more successful with marketing your service. If you don’t have a lot of time for something like this, hire a SEO firm SEO Firm in NJ or a SEO specialist to do the background work for you.
Tracking
No matter what type of marketing campaign you have set up for your efforts, it’s important to always track what you are doing. In order to do this, you might think about only doing one or two campaigns at once. However, you might also think about using tracking links for certain sites. For example, your website coffeecupz.com is your main website. You are using Facebook ads, Twitter ads, article marketing and social bookmarking. You will want to use 4 different tracking urls – 1 for each website. That way you can see where your clicks are coming from. Also, if you use a control panel via your host you should also have a stats area that shows you where your traffic is coming from. HostGator, for example, uses Awstats and it keeps tracking of every little visit to your website. You can also use add-ons and extensions to keep track of where people are coming from TO your website, which posts they are reading on your blog, which pages/services/products they are visiting, how long they are staying, etc. The whole point to this is to see, okay I spent $5 on Facebook ads and I only got 1 visit from it. On the other hand I spent $10 on twitter and 50 people came to my site. Well, then obviously you would cut back on Facebook until you can come up with a better plan and ramp up and pay more attention to your Twitter efforts.
Demos:
When you first start out with your service, every penny will probably count. But, sometimes you will have to do things that might seem difficult at the time but will pay off in the end. One of those features is a demo. A demo is of course a free “usage” of your service. Maybe you are a digital marketing company and you are just starting out with your service. You want people to buy different packages you offer such as SEO, content writing, creating backlinks, keeping up with social networking posts, etc. What you could do is offer them a free demo of your service. Create a small package that won’t break the bank and offer it for free or for a VERY big discount for a one-time use. You would be surprised at how many people will jump at the chance to try something out, and even more surprised at how many people will buy a larger package or service if they see how well the free one worked. You can do demos of services with anything.
Writer – Offer a free article.
Logo Designer – Offer a free logo.
Web Designer – Create a discount layout for their website or a header.
Voice Actor – Offer a free 45 second demo.
Transcription – Allow a potential customer to get 1 page of content or 1 2 minutes video transcribed for free.
Etc.
Create Urgency:
Surely you have seen one of those infomercials at night. The “Order within the next 20 minutes and receive a free….”Commercials like that create a sense of urgency for a reason! It makes people want to do whatever the commercial is offering so they can get that free gadget or 25% off or free shipping and handling. Thankfully, you can also create urgency when marketing a service online. Offer things like limited time offers and small promotions to your potential customers and see just how many of them bite at the chance to get something for cheap or free. Just remember to always follow through with the promotion or offer!
Hopefully these tips and tricks helped you out and you can start using them right now to get more sales for your services. Just remember, that unlike a product that can sometimes sell itself, you need to always remain professional, kind towards all and keep your word when you say you will do something. It’s also a good idea to NOT spout off untrue things that your service can do.
