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Marketing hinges on creating awareness and demand for your business so you can:

- Retain existing customers.
- Encourage customers to switch from a competitor.
- Create new demand from customers who haven’t thought about buying from you before.

|Advertising and promoting is one aspect of marketing that creates awareness and demand. Other aspects are having a great website, helping out in the community, being environmentally responsible, having a recognisable brand, and developing a core competitive advantage. Placing an advert in the local paper is not marketing. You need to consider who you are targeting, what you are selling, who you are competing against, what your key benefit is, your price point, and the most logical way to get in front of your targets before you even think about placing that advert. Marketing is also getting more and more complicated as technology creates the ‘hyper connected’ customer who is online seemingly 24/7.

The first thing you should do is complete the range of free online training modules on marketing, which will help you create an overall strategy for your business. Then, check out the information relating to the Internet, and look at new markets and customers.

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 SMEs contribution to employment in Hamilton stands at 33% which equates to 25,810 employees.  The growth of SMEs in Hamilton city between 2000 and 2008 was 31% which is above the   Hamilton will host the New Zealand round of the prestigious V8 Supercar Championship in the city for the fourth year in 2012.  Hamilton is the home of the mighty Chiefs and Waikato rugby teams and the 26,000 capacity Waikato Stadium.  Over 100,000 people annually visit New Zealand National Agriculture Fieldays held at Mystery Creek (10 minutes south of Hamilton), which is the largest agricultural event held in the Southern Hemisphere. Each year generates around $290 million sales.  As the centre of the thoroughbred industry, Hamilton has an excellent racing venue at Te Rapa. A national trotting track is 15 minutes drive from Hamilton in Cambridge.   Raglan is 40 minutes by road from Hamilton and home to one of the world’s longest left-hand surf breaks.