Best Answer in LinkedIN Answers

A sweet surprise from LinkedIN Answer. My answer was selected as a “Best Answer” by the person who asked the question. So I’m going to share the answer with everyone. You can also read the question from LinkedIN Answer.

And here’s the question

What is the best marketing option?

Our company sell Hi-Tech products for business. We sell and install control ( lighting, AV, sound,..), sound system, conference room, trainning room, interactive white board, LCD and Plasma display…

The businesses we target are Hotels, Stores, Restaurants, Offices. Now we want to do publicity to get some serious leads but we don’t know what type of media we should use. We don’t have big marketing budget and we want to reach people who make decision with our publicity. So what is my best option and why?

My answer is:

Just look at who’s the one making the decision to buy your products. And once you know who they are. Then you can try the following

1) Identify ways to get to them.
2) Identify what are the key things that they look for in their purchasing decision.
3) Identify the media that they frequently access. So you can target those media.

One key thing to take note. Don’t wait till their equipment are faulty then you make your sale pitch. Make sure you are the first company that they will call when they need the equipment.

Few options that you may try

1) Email marketing
It’s one of the easier and cheapest way but not easy to get through as your decision maker will surely have tons of email to go through.

2) Trade fair
The intention to buy and explore is there when they visit the trade fair. So easier to market your products. Let them take away something from the fair that they will remember so that you are the first company that comes to their mind if they need anything.

3) Ad in trade magazine
Expensive and it might not get any result

4) Provide free assessment of their equipment (if it’s possible)
Well, I’m sure they will call you when they need anything because you have done an assessment of their equipment and understood their need better than any company.

5) Using email newsletter ( required more efforts but more benefit in the long run)
If you are using internet as one of your media, then you might want to consider having an email newsletter for all your potential client and existing client. The content of the email is NOT a sale pitch but informative articles on the products (like how to maintain, do’s and don’t etc).

This is for building a longer relationship with your client. Furthermore, they can forward your informative article to anyone who needs it. A potential word of mouth marketing.