A well-defined marketing strategy can help with brand awareness and brand recognition of your small business. This can help attract customers, boost sales, increase profit, and ensure that your business continues to grow and expand.
Before you dive into conceptualizing and strategizing how to market your business, it is important to recognize your unique selling proposition (USP). This is something that sets your small business apart from other brands and gives you the edge you need to market your product or service as a differentiated offering.
First, you should focus on getting the hang of what you want to communicate and the customer base you want to attract. Then you can begin researching and formulating an effective marketing strategy for your small business.
Digital Ad Campaigns
Regardless of the kind of small business you own, a solid online presence will be a gamechanger. 70-80% of people research a company online before visiting a small business or making a purchase with them. For this reason, you can be assured that you are putting your money in the right place.
This is why you need to invest in digital advertising to create highly targeted ad campaigns using AI technology. To optimize your brand reach across multiple digital channels such as Google, Facebook, and Instagram, consider hiring a professional agency that can also help you assess key metrics. These metrics will show you how well your marketing strategy is optimizing conversion rates and encouraging repeat customers.
Social Media Marketing
With over 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, you need to ensure that your small business has a strong social media presence.
A social media marketing strategy helps to meaningfully engage with customers, measure brand sentiment, offer customer service, and market your business. Using specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals, you can create the ideal social media marketing strategy.
For example, if you are on Instagram, but struggle to get followers, you should consider hiring an Instagram growth service to organically target and build a community of followers. You can also leverage social media analytics to create audience or buyer personas. Additionally, you can gather demographic data on your followers to evaluate and further refine your marketing strategy.
Influencer Marketing
An effective marketing strategy doesn’t just end after launching a digital marketing campaign or maintaining a strong social media presence. To have an impactful digital footprint, you also need to engage in influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing is when business partners with online influencers to promote their brand, reach a particular target segment, and increase social engagement and interaction. Your business doesn’t necessarily have to collaborate with an influencer with the largest following. Rather, it needs to seek out the right influencers who align with the brand values.
With the right kind of influencer, you can expect a boost in traffic, an increase in brand mentions, and a rise in sales and lead generation.
Google My Business Listing
As a small business, you should always focus on increasing your visibility locally. This is where Google My Business can help you create your business listing and provide you the opportunity to appear on Google searches.
With an increase in “where to buy” and “near me” mobile queries, Google My Business is more relevant than ever. You can easily create an account for your business, add a location on Google maps, link your website, and include important details such as opening and closing hours. You can optimize your Google My Business listing by adding images, collecting reviews, responding to reviews, and having a Q&A section.
Referral Marketing
A great way to market and grow your small business is by adopting referral marketing. This involves using word-of-mouth to help expand your business sales within your existing customers’ networks. Think of it as using your current customer base as business advocates to help promote your brand.
One example of referral marketing is the refer-a-friend scheme which allows a buyer to send a personalized code to their network to avail a discount when they shop next time. This requires strong coordination with your sales team to identify what kind of discount you can afford to offer.
The best part of referral marketing is that it can give you a huge boost in terms of trust and loyalty from your customers. This can accelerate your growth and establish your credibility even in the most saturated markets.
Content Marketing
Ever heard of the phrase content is king? If you have, you probably know that content marketing is one of the best ways to market your business, attract customers, and build brand loyalty.
Content marketing involves using the power of SEO to create meaningful and engaging content. You should define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), identify your target audience, identify content gaps, explore the most useful content channels and curate content. Don’t forget to regularly monitor and track the results to see what aspect needs improving.
You can create videos, publish interactive images, make useful and helpful resources, and hire freelancers to contribute with blog posts.
In Conclusion
A great marketing strategy that is well thought out and executed can change the entire course of your small business and set you up for success. Just remember to account for your marketing budget, consult and hire experts. It’s also important to effectively utilize your funds to launch a marketing strategy that is fresh, relevant, and unique to your brand.