SEC-S20W3 | My Business Ideas |Marketing Strategies.

Steem greetings all the way from the motherland-Cameroon to able businesswomen and men on the platform.
It is yet another week for us to showcase our thoughts on business with the main focus on “marketing strategy”.

^{Image designed on Canva}

My analysis will focus on the sub-themes as seen below👇👇👇.

Customer support

In every business adventure, the customers play a key role in either boosting sales or bringing a major setback that can cause your business to collapse. Thus, the adage that “…customer is king”. Of course, the customers are always right in their opinions and as a businesswoman, my customers are my priority. I make them a priority and take into consideration all their queries.

I take all complaints from my customers seriously because, through their complaints, I will be able to rebrand my goods, restrategize my operations and lay off some bad conduct of the company.

There are moments when I place orders for goods from China and expect a higher-quality product and unfortunately, some of the goods will arrive at low quality. I have to quickly communicate with my client and apologize for the mix-up before returning the goods for a refund.

There is a famous slang used in Cameroon by customers “…what I ordered versus what I received”. This is usually when the product they ordered arrived of low quality. As a business person, these are the types of feedback from customers that I do not take for granted. When I see such slang from my customers, I immediately apologize and assure them of a better service. This will help to slow down the bad publicity on social media by angry customers and regain trust. Take, for instance, I sell Dutch cast iron posts imported from China and there are about 8 different kinds with varied prices. A customer might pay for a lower-quality cast iron pot but expect a higher-quality and when you deliver, they are quick to rush to social media to pour out their fears about the product. I usually give them a listening ear and ensure to enlighten them on the different products and prices.

^{Sample of the Dutch Cast iron pots I sell based on pre-order.}

Treating your customers well by listening to their problems is another way of letting your real customers promote your business and attract potential customers.

Professional Hiring

My business is a joint business with my mother-in-law, and our goals are to reach out to a larger market, satisfy our customers, and diversify production. Notwithstanding, age and sickness are gradually affecting her and productivity is low.

At times, I see myself everywhere, doing everything to ensure that business is moving well. This is a lot of stress for me and we are considering recruiting a sales manager, a driver for pickups and delivery, and a publicity person and an accountant.

Expansion plans

We have been running the business for over 3 years now and from experience, we want to extend the market to other regions of the country.

To expand the market, we need to run ads on different social media platforms. This will help to boost our product visibility since most people use the internet nowadays.

We also intend to create a sales season where we will send out some of the products on sale (that is at a discount of 30-50 %). This will attract more customers to our shop.

I also intend to create a website where customers can easily place their orders. This will add to the Facebook page and the WhatsApp community we already created to advertise our products.

In sum, in the next 3 years, we will fully gain our import license and can import in larger quantities and supply to other smaller shop owners.

Aggressive or soft marketing strategies

Soft marketing is preferable for me because it is an indirect way for me to use it gain trust and credibility from my customers and the customers will also advertise the products for free.
Our first strategy to attract more customers is the fact that we sell quality products. Quality is our priority and I think is what makes the business move forward. Our products do sell itself and attract more potential customers.

As I earlier said in the post, we create a sales period where we place some products on sale at a discount rate of 30-50 %. This will act as a pull factor to many potential customers and turn them into real customers after having a taste of our products. They will also help us to advertise our products after enjoying the products from the sale season.

It will be two-way traffic, giving my customers satisfaction by providing quality products, once they gain the trust and credibility of my products, they will help advertise the product and boost sales.

At this juncture, I have come to the end of my presentation and will invite @mesola, @goodybest, @m-fdo, and @crismenia to share their business ideas with us.