Marketing a product or service is the life blood of any organisation and if you do not know how to so,it will be to your detriment. You can have a superb product, however if nobody knows about it then it is going nowhere.

The tools that a company uses or should be using is the focus of my article. Irrespective of the company, its size or structure all company's should have an arsenal of marketing tools.

All marketing material whether it be a business card, brochures, websites, blogs, flyers, billboards, web advertising via banners, emails, press releases, commercials, radio advertising, media articles, television exposure all help in making the company's presence felt in the market.

Each business will choose the tools that their budget can afford. A new startup will not be in a position to have an ad at the Superbowl, unless they have deep pockets. So all the marketing has to be in tune with budgetary constraints. Every avenue should be sourced by the company to showcase its products and get it in front of the buying public.

Tools start with your business card and include items such as brochures, flyers, email campaigns, and your website. Many businesses are now using social networks as a method of marketing. Bottom line, you should be equipped with every tool available to give your company the maximum marketing exposure

Businesses select their advertising based on their goals, strategies, target market , segmentation, demographics, vision and most importantly their bottom line and that is the spending dollars. You cannot blow all your budget in one area so allocation is the name of the game.

So how can a business use marketing effectively.

1)Customer Education

I believe an educated customer is the best bet. If you spend some time to teach your sales force and they in turn can pass this information to the buyers, this will help sales as an educated customer is what we need. It will prevent a lot of returns, which is a time waster.

How do you educate your customer:

a) Fact sheet: listing the facts about the product an overview

b) Articles on the product

c) Lay down the uses of the product

d) How it will help and benefit the consumer

e) Why it is the best product in its class without knocking down your competition

f) The ingredients used: if it is friendly to the environment emphasis that.

2) Customer Contact

Have a template set up to reach out to the customer at least once a month to keep them focused on your product. If they are regulars users then a thank you note goes a long way. If they visited your site and looked around and did not buy then send them a thank you, ask for feedback, however do not spam them.

3) Promotions

Send out advance notification of sales. Make sure that you follow up closer to the date by another mail-out reminding them of the start of the sale and the duration. This will keep their interest. Make the sale fun as everyone wants something for free. So you could ask then to refer a friend, and for that offer a prize for the most referrals.

4) Centers of Influence

Reaching out to centers of influence. Example, if you are selling a beauty product you can approach a beauty salon and ask the owner if he/she can showcase your product and maybe give them an incentive to promote your product.

5) Survey Your Customers

Surveys are a good evaluation source for your product . Use an incentive to get the surveys back or else if you do not get them back it is useless. Find out their likes and dislikes and what products would interest them as you can then meet their other needs. It will also tell you if you are matching the product with the customer as you do not want to sell ice to the Eskimos.

I am no marketing guru, nor do I claim to be one, I do know that these tips have worked for me and I hope they work for you too.