All businesses have a similar goal, success. For sure, every business wants to succeed and as an entrepreneur, you achieve success by creating awareness about your brand to its target audience in order to generate their interest. Now, creating awareness of your business involves marketing and effective marketing demands that you know your customer’s needs.
In a country like Canada, marketing is no different. Basically, learning how to market your business in Canada requires you to take some time to study how Canadians behave in the marketplace. Here, you learn what you should know about marketing to Canadians and how to create an effective marketing strategy based on your research.
What is Marketing for Business?
Marketing for businesses is simply the act of attracting and retaining customers. Basically, it is the process by which a business advertises, sells and delivers a product or service. Businesses use marketing to capture customers’ interest, then they use that interest to drive sales. No matter the size of your business, you need effective marketing to grow and prosper. An effective marketing strategy should communicate major aspects of your company to your customers. Some of these aspects include:
1. Basic information about your business, products and services
2. What makes your company unique
3. What consumer needs you are attending to and why your customers should buy from you
Also, you need to build effective marketing on the information you gathered during your initial market research. Hence, your research results should be able to help you define your target audience and their needs. Additionally, you need to be aware of your competitors, the products they offer, prices and their marketing strategy. This information will help you create a marketing approach that focuses precisely on your target market in a unique way that makes you stand out.
What is the most effective way to market your business in Canada?
When determining the most effective strategy to market your business in Canada or anywhere else, it is helpful to assess four major factors that can impact the purchase decision.
These factors are called the four P’s of marketing. They are:
1. Product: What product are you planning to sell?
2. Price: How much do you want to charge customers for your product?
3. Place: Where are your target customers going to buy your product?
4. Promotion: How are your target customers going to find out about what you sell?
You can write down these factors in a marketing plan, which can be a stand-alone document or included in your entire business plan. Also, ensure that your business plan includes a comprehensive promotional calendar that outlines all your marketing activities and the cost of each activity. Many business owners ignore this aspect, thinking that it doesn’t cost much to execute effective marketing.
How to market your business in Canada
Learning how to market your business in Canada is all about learning what your Canadian customers are looking for. Hence, when trying to market your business in Canada, investigate and assess these issues to enable you to execute effective marketing and sell to Canadians.
1. Charge Fair prices
It is no news that the prices of goods are going up in Canada. This inflation has made it difficult for some Canadians to meet their daily expenses already. Hence, it would be insensitive for your products to be overpriced. Charge a reasonable price for whatever product you are selling. Ensure that the price you choose allows you to make a profit yet competitively. Because of the high cost of living in Canada, your target market may overlook your product if it is too pricey.
2. Recognize the influence of newcomers
According to 2021 statistics, approximately 21.5 percent of the total Canadian population are immigrants. Hence, you need to consider immigrants when marketing your business so you can stay relevant in the long run. Understand how they behave in the marketplace and their shopping preferences. This helps your business to stay relevant even in the long run.
3. Be a safe choice
Past research has affirmed the fact that Canadians are risk-averse. Basically, most Canadians will go for businesses with security and little risk. Hence, you need to ensure that your brand is trustworthy and reliable. Building customers’ trust in your brand does not happen overnight. It is a gradual process that needs you to show them why they can trust your business.
4. Invest in business cards
Ensure that you create business cards with clear and precise contact information. Also, provide a clear description of the products and services you offer on the back of your business card. You can use these cards to create better awareness about your brand.
5. Employ low-cost marketing
Low-cost marketing resources like social media, press releases, networking groups, etc can be very useful marketing tools to help spread your business name. Hence, it is very important to use them to your advantage, especially social media. According to research, 89% of Canadians use social media. So, your brand needs to have a social media presence. You may be able to reach the majority of your target audience on social media, get them interested in your product, and generate sales. Here are some social media marketing tips that can help:
- Do your research on the platform that most of your target audience use. Thereafter, you can set up social media accounts for your business only on the platforms where your potential customers are likely to be. You don’t need to be everywhere before people notice you.
- Start with handling just one or two platforms and grow from there. Basically, this saves you the stress of handling too much at once.
- Make use of scheduling tools like Buffer Hootsuite to schedule posts on your platform. This helps to reduce the stress of always having to be on your computer to post fresh content.
- Use Paid Ads to reach your audience directly and your audience alone. This is a good way for potential customers to see and become familiar with your brand.
6. Ask for referrals from your existing customer
Referral marketing is a major part of learning how to market your business in Canada or anywhere else. Also, this is a very cost-effective way to market your brand to people. You just need to ask your existing customers to refer you to their family and friends. However, there are some rules that guide this marketing strategy. They include:
- Only ask happy, pleased customers for referrals.
- If the referral leads to converts, give an incentive to the referral and the person referring.
- Ask for referrals regularly.
- Never continually bother the same customers for referrals.
- Do not let hot leads go cold. Keep up with all referrals.
7. Offer incentive programs to encourage repeat business
There are several ways to market your business to your customers and offering incentive is one of them. Basically, an incentive will serve as a motivation for customers to remain loyal to your brand.
8. Request an Online Review or Testimonial
It does not matter what your business niche is, online reviews always matter. Experts at Qualtrics have researched and established the fact that 93% of buyers read online reviews first before buying a product. Since you will create a social media account to reach your customers, you can make it open for existing clients to leave reviews.
9. Start Using Video
If you want to get in front of your target audience and bring profitable traffic, start using video. Presently, video converts lead better than other types of content, particularly on social media. Hence, you need to put a lot of effort into creating video content and pushing it out for your audience to see.
10. Create Sticky Customers
According to experts, getting a new customer costs five times more than securing an existing customer. So, you don’t have to neglect your existing customers entirely. Remaining customers may not be as easy as it sounds but getting a new customer is harder.
Tell your current customers about any other products or services you render. Basically, your goal should be to deliver value in several ways so you can remain their top choice. Creating a sticky customer is simply getting your customers invested in various parts of your business. This makes it harder for them to leave your brand and opt for your competitors.
Bottom Line
Learning how to market your business in Canada isn’t difficult. You just need to have an idea of what Canadians really want. Based on recent market research in Canada, your brand has to be trustworthy and your products should not be overpriced for it to thrive in Canada. Also, you need to take note of the needs of immigrants since they make up the major part of their population.
Basically, all you need is to understand how, when, where, and why they consume products and services and provide what they want. In all of these, never underestimate the power of a good marketing strategy. You do not need to be a marketing guru before doing this well. With proper planning and investment, your marketing strategy should work out just fine for your business.
