On a recent Saturday morning I visited the Jozi Food Market at the Pirates Sport Club in Greenside, Johannesburg. Small-scale entrepreneurs were selling all sorts of products from organic coffees, Earth powder, bacon jam, smoked salt to Parisian-style pancakes. One of the entrepreneurs told me that his main selling channels were Saturday morning markets and local farms where he lives who have tearooms and sell their products.
“What about delis and other similar outlets?” I asked.
With a sarcastic laugh gained from bitter experience, he told me that it wasn’t worth it because the delicatessen outlets wanted his products at such low prices that his margin would be stripped down to virtually nothing. It’s probably because they are paying for staggeringly high rentals in shopping centres.
Start-up owners use morning markets to promote their products. This works well because it gives them exposure to a variety of potential customers, possible variants for their products and new ideas.
Saturday morning markets are limited because they mostly happen only on one day a week and the hours are only from 8 AM to 1 PM. The local market is not like the UK where a small producer can promote their products at morning markets on several days of the week with different towns being fairly close. Travel to markets does not become prohibitively expensive.
How do you promote your products in ways that increase your customer base and do it without spending a fortune on promotion and marketing?
One thing you must understand upfront is that acquisition of a new customer costs up to 6 times what it cost to retain existing customers. This makes it important to find low-cost, no-cost ways to promote your products. You may not think it’s possible but small business owners are doing it all the time. They have learned to use imaginative ways to sell their products and know the most effective channels to promote themselves and their products.
If you want to learn how to promote your business and products with no-cost, low-cost methods, then what I reveal in “Breakthrough Ideas” can change the way you promote your business to make more sales. It devotes two chapters to promotion and selling to help small business owners with no or very little marketing budget.
I realised just how important promotional methods are when I spoke to the small business owner who didn’t even know about how I had heard of the Jozi Food Market. Using a no-cost method could have brought many more customers to his stall.
Besides this method there are many ways to promote your business and its products and services that are extremely effective. These techniques build a strong desire for your products.
How?
Because they match your product with trends and identify you as the expert in your field. This credibility positions your products as the sought-after solution.
If you want to know more, here’s that link again.
