Find the best way to promote your business

Different types of promotions (also called marketing communications) have different objectives. But, they are all part of how you interact with customers and promote your brand and your products or services.

To share the right messages, at the right time and through the right channel, think carefully about which type of promotion suits your goal, budget and audience. You will likely use different types at different times, eg direct marketing for customer interaction, sales promotion for a short-term bump in sales.

To choose, it helps to weigh up your options based on the 4Cs of marketing:

1. Communication: consider if you want to reach a large audience vs deliver a personal message, level of interaction.
2. Credibility: level of trustworthiness, how seriously the audience takes your message.
3. Costs: overall costs and cost for each customer gained.
4. Control: can you target specific audiences? Can you alter the promotion if something changes?

Advertising

Advertising involves creating adverts and making sure people see them.

To reach broader audiences, consider:

• Billboards or poster campaigns. Think carefully about location to get a return on the money you spend.
• TV or radio ads, timed around programmes likely to be popular with potential customers.
• Web adverts.

To reach specific audiences, consider:

• Social media adverts, which can be targeted to reach people most likely to buy from you.
• Newspaper or magazine adverts placed on pages potential customers will likely read, eg gym advert on sports or lifestyle pages.

Adverts can lead to an increase in sales, but it may be harder to see a direct link.

How it scores on 4Cs

Rates highly for communicating with a large audience, low for credibility, medium for control. Costs vary depending on the channel, eg online vs TV.

Advertising to online customers

Sales promotions

Sales promotions are short-term offers like discounts or coupons to attract selected groups of potential customers.

For example, Manu’s Mowing could:

• exhibit at a home and garden show, offering new customers half-price lawn mowing vouchers
• deliver discount vouchers to certain neighbourhoods.

Other options include handing out vouchers at in-store demonstrations, eg food tastings in a supermarket, or giving away branded items such as pens and calendars. Useful items can remind customers of your business every time they use them.

Sales promotions usually lead to a short-term increase in sales. Think about how to build longer-lasting relationships with people who buy special offers.

How it scores on 4Cs

Rates medium for communicating with a large audience, medium for credibility and costs, high for control.

Direct marketing

Direct marketing means selecting people to directly offer a product or service, using a personalised approach over channels like phone, post or email. You then build a relationship or make a sale, depending on how they respond.

For example, Manu’s Mowing might email customers who haven’t booked in six months to offer an appointment within the next week. To personalise the message, Manu could give each person a tip based on what he knows about their garden.

How it scores on 4Cs

Rates high for communicating personal messages and interaction, medium for credibility and costs, high for control.

Personal selling

Personal selling involves you, or someone else in your business, meeting potential customers in person, eg at a trade show or during face-to-face visits. The aim is to build relationships as well as make sales. It’s a good way to:

• collect real-time feedback on your product or service
• check if your product or service is fit for the market
• learn what specific customers need or want.

Because it’s expensive, personal selling is best for:

• high-value products or services
• customers likely to spend more or who value customisation.

Building a relationship makes customers more loyal, so personal selling can lead to long-term increases in sales. For example, a winemaker or honey producer might host tastings at supermarkets. People can try out new products and learn about the business. Some may buy on the spot, others may buy in the future.

How it scores on 4Cs

Rates high for communicating personal messages and interaction, medium for credibility and control, high for costs.

Public relations

Public relations (PR) covers managing your business’s image. PR includes being featured positively in the news and handling any bad publicity in messaging that helps rebuild trust in your brand.

Free media coverage can be great promotion for your business. It’s best to use this method when you have an interesting or unusual story to tell. For example, a courier business partnering with a food recovery charity could contact the media to tell their story.

How it scores on 4Cs

Rates medium for communicating with a large audience, high for credibility, and low for costs and control.

It pays to plan, no matter which type of promotion you use.

Start by working out your “why”, the goal or purpose of trying to attract people’s attention. Then you can make sure each step helps achieve that goal, and helps you get the most from the time you invest.

Before your promotion goes live, check for errors or tone-deaf messaging. It’s always a good idea to get someone else to look over it. A checklist might also help.

Use our template to follow these steps and create your own piece of communication.

Template: Six steps to create effective marketing communication [DOCX, 58 KB]

The internet and social media bring new opportunities for marketing your business. Digital promotion allows you to personalise and target your message to make it more effective and better value.

It’s worth considering two powerful new techniques:

• Remarketing identifies customers who browse your website and start buying, but do not complete the purchase. Remarketing services send them reminder ads after they leave your website.
• Micro-targeting, offered by companies like Google and Facebook, allows you to use data to target potential customers more accurately.

For small businesses, targeted advertising is often more affordable and effective than advertising to a large audience. For example, a new café might use micro-targeting to only promote to people who live or work within walking distance.

Social media offers a wide range of opportunities. Different platforms appeal to different groups of people, and suit different messages. You might choose a platform that’s popular with younger customers, or one where you can work with influencers to reach an audience with shared interests. For example, LinkedIn is ideal for reaching professional audiences. Instagram or Pinterest suit businesses with visual appeal, eg florists or eateries.

Using digital promotion allows you to easily measure the effectiveness of a campaign. This helps you:

• try several methods
• find out which works best
• track what people do in response.

Digital tools can make you more efficient. For example, automated email marketing allows you to stay connected to customers even when they’re not actively engaging with your brand. It might also nudge undecided customers to buy your product or service.

At times business.govt.nz refers to specific businesses to make our resources more effective and easier to understand. We do this on the advice of our independent expert partners, including the New Zealand Business Performance Panel. However, we do not endorse any third-party private-sector businesses.