Marketing your business in Birmingham? 5 things you need to know

Confused on how to successfully your market your business in Birmingham? Looking for great results whilst having a cost effective strategy? Well follow these 5 simple steps to help you achieve effective results.

Already you may know that Birmingham is one of the biggest cities in the UK and is home to some huge organisations that have helped increase tourism and profitability for the area. A really great example of this is Cadbury World, which attracts millions of visitors every year!

Based in the ‘Heart of the UK’ means that businesses and consumers based in Birmingham have easy access to major motorways and travel routes to get around the country with ease!

A really quick fact is that Birmingham is home to the ‘Balti’ curry. There are over 100 Balti houses in the city that attract over 20,000 visitors per week!

What that means to you as a business is that you can target a variety of different demographics with ease!

So why target in Birmingham?

1) Big Companies to target

Birmingham has over 24,000 companies based within the city which gives B2B businesses a wide target market. This means as a business you can target your ideal customers, from small and medium sized businesses to larger corporate organisations. Doing your research into the area will help you find the ideal prospects for you.

- Target audience; making sure you do the correct research into who your target market is.

- Connections; making good business connections and good relationships with the correct people within the organisation is crucial.

2) Exhibitions to look out for

With a big city comes many exhibitions and events you can attend and advertise at. Keeping up to date with the latest events going on in Birmingham at arenas such as the NEC, will help you choose which event suits you the best. There are many different routes to take when it comes to picking an exhibition;

- Location; you need to make sure you are attending the best possible Exhibition as some may be more popular than others.

- Time of year; make sure you are attending events at the right time of year for your industry. For example if you are in the wedding industry you wouldn’t want to host/attend an event when it isn’t wedding season.

- Target audience; make sure that the people likely to attend the event, are the people that you target as a business.

- Competition; whilst you may see some of your competitors at an event, you wouldn’t want to attend one that is solely your industry as it would make it harder for you to stand out and make an impact.

Keeping these factors in mind when looking into an exhibition will give you a more reliable chance of success. Although exhibitions are a traditional form of marketing, if the correct research, preparation and event is chosen it can be effective for attracting new business. So even though less people attend exhibitions it can still be used as an effective marketing tactic. The really crucial point you need to consider however, is that having your own effective internet marketing strategy is much more cost effective and will bring in more people who are searching for you already. The investment with exhibitions is significantly higher.

3) Good Networking Groups

Networking is an excellent way to meeti new prospects and business links. It can be as simple as attending a meeting such as the Birmingham Professional Network. This allows likeminded business owners to meet in a relaxed environment, where you can meet fellow business owners and prospects looking for your particular service, complimented with drinks and food. Networking is a great way to show off your company without the hassle of setting up meetings. While networking you still need to make sure you do your background research into the event;

- Checking the location of the event

- Target audience is important as you want to meet with the correct prospects who are looking for your service, e.g. an engineering company wouldn’t want to attend a photography meeting.

- Competition; you wouldn’t want to share certain information with your competition, although in some respects you could want to discuss industry matters with them.

- Time/Cost effective; you need to make sure that you are seeing effective results from attending the meetings, you wouldn’t want spend all you time and money on the meetings if it didn’t give you the results you were after.

The main key to an effective networking meeting is to follow up with all the potential prospects you meet.

4) Festivals to get involved with

Festivals are another great way to market your business, working on a similar basis to exhibitions and other events. Getting the company name or brand out there is easy at events like festivals. With the attendance being high you can target a large number of potential prospects, but all may not be your target market.

5) Internet Marketing

Having your own Internet Marketing Strategy is much more successful at bringing in more enquiries and sales for your business. To market your business successfully in Birmingham this is going to be a great opportunity to get found in front of a variety of businesses, consumers, commercial cliental and cultures!
Targeting Birmingham as a specific local area for people to find you is going to bring a much higher return on investment unlike more ‘traditional’ marketing strategies.

So if you are wanting to target Birmingham effectively and if you are looking for a way to dominate the local area to achieve new enquiries and sales - Internet Marketing is going to be the perfect way to achieve that! So don’t delay! JDR are here to help you find out how you can get this to work for your business!

Article by Nick Harper