Getting the word out about your business is a critical component in helping it grow. An airtight marketing strategy is the best way to get your small business in front of more eyes and draw more customers.
So what are the best ways to market your small business?
There are more than a few ways to get your message out there. From SEO best practices to social media influence, here are the seven best strategies for marketing your small businesses.
This article provides seven key strategies for small businesses looking to optimise their marketing efforts:
The author emphasises that no matter the size of the business, marketing strategies are crucial for growth. The right combination of these seven strategies can help small businesses thrive.
Knowing as much about your customers as possible helps you better target your marketing to get their attention. It pays off to find out where most of your audience lives, how old they are, and what they do for work.
Build buyer personas for your customers to get a general idea of how you need to market your business.
You’ll have to gather data in order to build buyer personas. Use your website and social media analytics to find out important information. You can also run surveys to learn more about age, location, occupation, and anything else you might need.
Before you begin your marketing journey, learn as much about SEO as you possibly can. You’ll keep learning new things all the time, but it certainly helps to know the basics before you get started.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation.
Basically, all the stuff search engines use to decide what order results pop up in when someone searches for a particular keyword. Using good SEO practices gets you a better ranking, which gets you seen more frequently.
A lot goes into SEO — keywords, content length, page speed, how often you post, etc.
You want to do everything in your power to get your website on the first page, if not to the #1 result for your chosen keywords. Doing that is a lot easier if you know what you’re doing.
Content marketing is one reason why knowing SEO is so important.
This strategy focuses on consistently publishing relevant, good quality content to your website. It's going to help your small business in the long term as more and more people discover your content. If you think it would be best to hire someone to help with this type of digital marketing, then you may want to think about taking out a loan through businesses such as headway capital, or others of a similar nature, so you can fund exactly what you need.
Content marketing comes in many different forms, including:
And more.
While blog posts are the most common and most popular form of content marketing, they shouldn’t be your only focus. Mix different forms of content on your site to draw even more attention.
Google Adwords is a fantastic service if you’re already optimised for SEO and have a good standing in Google’s ranking system. Otherwise, you could be paying a lot more out of pocket to get your ads up.
With Google Adwords, you are paying for your ad to show up before the regular search results at the top of the page.
When you want to run an ad, Google rates it based on how optimised for SEO your page is. The higher you rank, the lower your bid will be. So if you're not doing so hot in the rankings, you'll end up paying more per ad.
Using Google Adwords dramatically increases your chances of being seen on google among all the other results out there.
That makes it pretty worth the price!
Social media is a powerful tool for small businesses, and it’s entirely free for you to use. With millions of people getting on social media at all hours of the day, there’s hardly a better platform to market your business.
Use your buyer personas to figure out which social media networks your target audience are using the most. Then use that platform to your advantage.
Social media marketing allows you to interact with your customers organically. It’s something they’re familiar with. Seeing your business on their timeline will likely get their attention more than sending things directly to them.
Make sure you create a content calendar to keep track of when and what to post, so you never miss the opportunity to put yourself out there!
While you're on social media, don’t forget about the all-important Facebook ads!
Facebook ads make it easy to send out advertising to your target audience without breaking the bank. In fact, they have some of the most innovative targeting tools on the market, ensuring the people you want to see your ad will see it.
Running multiple ads at once is a great strategy to see how different ads stack up against each other. Eventually, you will land on the perfect ad campaign for your small business.
Email marketing remains one of the best marketing strategies for conversions. It’s stood the test of time and continues to be a reliable tool for businesses big and small.
Acquire customer emails by using a compelling offer that they can’t refuse. Then use it to send out information, deals, offers, and more to bring customers back again and again.
Marketing through email is easy to maintain by using an email service. However, some people struggle with knowing what to write in their emails, you can do a simple search for marketing email templates and you'll find hundreds of results, much like the one I just shared from Hunter.io.
These services let you do things like segment your email list to send different emails to potential or returning customers. They’re invaluable for tracking the success of your email marketing campaign.
Not to mention you will always be at the front of a customer’s mind when they open their inbox.
No matter how big or small your business is, you can't overlook instigating a marketing strategy. You need to put yourself out into the world to bring customers in and keep your business going.
And now you have the tools you need to get a running start!
Any combination of these seven marketing strategies will help your small business grow. Whether you use one of them, all, or something between — you're sure to find something that works just right for your business.
Author Bio: Caitlin Sinclair is the Property Manager at Broadstone Sienna with five years of property management experience and many more in Customer Service. She shares her passion for her community and looks forward to making Broadstone Sienna the place to call home.
Cover Image | Dominika Roseclay | Pexels
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