"Marketing." The word itself can cause pressure for entrepreneurs. As a small business owner, it can be all too easy to feel this way about marketing. You want to spend your time on your business, not on Facebook, and the hardest part is that you’ve never even used most of these social media platforms in the past! Don’t fret; after you read this article, you’ll be able to pick up some weapons to beat your competitors in this digital age. So, get ready to learn about marketing, and let’s dive in.
Know your audience
Understanding who your customers are is crucial because you need to know how to target them. Think of your buyers as characters: If you were to create a customer-based fictional person, how would they be? Can you think of more than one individual? You can dig deeper by performing surveys and interviews to really get at the root of why people buy from you, but you need to also understand that not everyone is a future customer.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing means paying and encouraging influential people in your community to get the word out for you, instead of explicitly selling to your target audience yourself. Influencers are the best recommendations the company can have out there when it comes to social media users. Because microinfluencers have smaller, more niche audiences, you will most likely have to partner with more than one to achieve a sufficiently large scope. Having endorsements from more than one influencer is a powerful message, especially when you collect them on a simple campaign microsite.
The 80-20 rule for content
The 80-20 rule suggests that 80% of your success must come from 20% of your efforts. The rule applies to just about everything, including your content. It is possible to create content across a variety of platforms. Keep in mind that these metrics do not apply universally to all types of industries, companies or materials. Instead, it is a theoretical benchmark that should try to emulate most other companies. While we cannot fully control all aspects of popular content, we can base our content creation on careful analysis and where the existing content succeeds or fails.
Build and maintain your email subscriber list
By sending a weekly or monthly newsletter to provide offers to your subscribers, you can build and maintain customer relationships. You can also create and email video content. Just make sure that your content is helpful, insightful and trustworthy in order to develop your reputation, not deteriorate it. There are affordable tools that can do this for you if you don't have time to keep this list yourself.
Rely On SEO
Know when to rely on SEO. Every small business owner joining the digital marketing world has learned about SEO. It's still the best way to drive free traffic to your website. Did you know that something as basic as the name of your company could affect your search engine ranking? Businesses with a powerful keyword in their business name rank 1.5 spots higher than businesses with no keyword in their business name, according to Local SEO Guide.
Many small-time businesses waste their digital marketing budget on PPC advertising when they launch. Instead, try concentrating on a long-term SEO plan. Wondering how to write content to rank for your keyword? Check out how we utilize headings and keywords on our asset-based lending page.
Practice your video skills
Yeah, it's weird to film yourself, and you'll hate to see your face and hear your voice at first. But it works. Initially, you won’t be great, and that's all right! Start enhancing your camera appearance and editing skills and your content can exponentially increase in value over time. Creating video content provides an opportunity for people to connect you and your personality to the brand, and this content also performs better on most social media channels than static images or text. This also applies to live broadcasts!
Monitor and review
To assess whether your promotional efforts are producing the desired outcomes, such as increased sales, it is crucial to monitor and update your content regularly. To guarantee that your actions help your approach, you must update your marketing plan at least every three months. Make sure to review your strategy as your company develops, when you introduce a new product or service, when a new competitor enters the market or when a problem arises that affects your industry.
Claim your Google My Business (GMB) page
Research on mobile search engine usage shows that over 80% of consumers use Google for their online search queries. Google makes browsing very convenient and easy for almost everyone. After all, it's the go-to search engine. Google gives small businesses everything they need to answer consumers’ questions, yet research shows that many don’t even set up their GMB profiles. GMB gives you another tool to fish for more customers and review potential customers, as well as help via business marketing tools.
Tell a unique brand story
You can always rely on solid content. Good content comes when information is not just written because it’s required, but when information is presented in a way that can be consumed by every person. It's like sharing your own life story about a unique brand that shows thoughts and feelings, a story that tells us something. Likewise, your brand should also have that special, specific story that makes people eager to know what your brand is all about.
Set aside a budget for paid advertising
If you create great content but don’t pay to advertise it, your total exposure will be limited to 2% to 4% of your potential audience. Why invest in creating quality content if you don’t invest in getting it out there? Just a couple bucks a day can go a long way. Don't be afraid to create online product coupons and specials, and to pay for them to be seen! But be careful to not only rely on advertising with discounts or specials, otherwise, your customers will come to expect them while they shop and your brand's reputation could be tarnished.
Maximize the use of your social channels
To leverage your current network of friends and family, incorporate blogs and photos from your company to your personal profiles. Build relationships with individuals with whom you want to do business or who can help your company grow. Like, comment and share your content on social media. Go and make some friends!
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Having that first real breakthrough in a marketing campaign can be an exciting experience. Whether a piece of content goes viral or a social networking site helps you achieve an objective, it feels great when you can demonstrate proven success and count it as a credible revenue stream. Yet, just because you've found a good marketing strategy, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket.
When you try to launch multiple campaigns at once, you will not only be overwhelmed, but you’ll also find it difficult to assess which marketing campaigns have been successful. The worst mistake a new business owner could make is trying to handle everything at once with too many new social media accounts. But the lesson we want you to know for now is that less is more. Focus and consistency should be your primary goals when you just start to find a few ways to improve your marketing campaigns.