Today I am going to let you in on 8 marketing strategies for small business that can bring you traffic, clientele and ultimately bring sales success. Many of these strategies will probably become a viable source for the growth of your business and I would encourage you to even try a few of these out over the next month. You very well may even see one of these strategies help boost your traffic efforts quite drastically!.
A Simple Marketing Strategy
Connecting With Your Clientele
The goal of marketing is connecting with your business clientele, adding value to the right customer. This may even seem like a simple idea, but it can take on business relationships in so many different levels.
- What demographics make up your customer base?
- Where do your customers live?
- What are their favourite social networks online?
- How are they looking for products in your niche?
- Who are influencial to them when making decisions relative to buying your product?
Answers to these questions will decide which marketing strategies are best for you to take on and which ones will be a total waste of time.
There are so many ways to market your business product and service online, the key to success for your business is not just relying on Facebook Ads, nor SEO, nor conference networking.
There is no special, unique strategy that will revolutionize your business, fortunately, after you’ve finished reading this article, you will be more aware of other exciting marketing channels for your small business, any of which could hold the key to your future growth.
Some of these marketing channels are strictly digital strategies, which will be conducted online. Others are a bit more general, with strategies that can be conducted offline although many now have web applications.
OK – let’s get started!.
1. Facebook Ads
Social Media networks is the hive of ‘business to consumer’ marketing, and in Facebook business is booming with over two million small to medium sized businesses that advertise on Facebook alone. It’s an inexpensive and effective way to market your business, product or service to virtually any audience, whether locally or globally.
Not only are Facebook ads inexpensive, Facebook ads are great for advanced targeting. Advertising on Facebook helps you target a specific audience based on location, interests, age, sex, online behavior, and many other factors.
Running a Facebook ad campaign
Running a Facebook ad campaign is very easy. All you need to do is come up with a great headline, a nice description, one image, and a link, you’re basically all set to go!.
The Facebook Ads Manager makes it simple to run, and a good feature is that you can ‘split test’ multiple ad sets, which gives you the ability to hone in on your winning formula for that particular ad campaign, giving you maximum profitability without the need of using advanced, technical expertise. If it all could be so easy all the time!
Many new small businesses on Facebook have lots of difficulty with their initial campaigns. Like all things, it does take time and persistence though, but if you stay stern and committed, you will get the hang of it.
2. Google My Business
Rank your Google My Business listing
Ranking your Google My Business listing is one of the most powerful things you can do for your business. If you’re running a local business and your market are local clients, then it is a very powerful strategy.
How to Google My Business
For example, if someone searches for a “Auckland Building Contractor”, this is what they see:
What you are seeing here is one paid ad, followed by THREE Google My Business listings before we even see the normal organic search results. If you can rank your GMB listing in these top 3, you can pull in large numbers of highly qualified leads day in and day out without needing to spend a dime on ads.
Your Google My Business will combine all the different Google platforms you have into one place. This could include your Google plus profile, your Google reviews, Google Maps profile, access to data on Google Analytics and Google Insights, and more. Remember, Google for business…simple…there are no but’s about it!.
If you have a unique brand name, you can even get a large display like this to show when people search for that name:
Google My Business almost immediately gives your business credibility and visibility on the internet and this is some thing that should be on your priority list if you run a local business.
Ranking your Google My Business listing is not really that hard but it is definitely worth doing for your business.
3. Google Adwords
Google Adwords for business is a total no brainer. There are more than 40, 000 search queries on Google every second. No other advertising method has the potential to get your business before that many pairs of eyes.
Google Adwords is sort of the godfather of online marketing channels. It’s been around a long time. It’s competitive. It’s expensive. And if you know what you’re doing, it can work very, very well for you.
Despite being a paid channel, Adwords’ goal is still to deliver relevant search results to users, and as a result, it will be less expensive for you when you are utilizing proper on-page SEO.
Google assigns a quality score to your ad, which is dependent on CTR (Click Through Rate), relevance and the landing page your ad sends traffic to. This quality score factors into the bid rate you will need to get an ad displayed, with higher scores lowering the bid cost.
Adwords is a unique channel that can be used with other different marketing strategies to increase your output results. But also as a paid marketing channel, it allows the gain of very quick results that you can scale to your budget.
4. Content Marketing
Nearly 20% of marketers believe content marketing had the most impact on their business out of any other marketing channel during 2016.
Content marketing in the simplest of description is creating and sharing rich, valuable, consistent and most of all, relevant content to ciphon traffic through to a more defined audience, thus driving more customer activity.
Focus On Long Term Results
Content marketing pays more focus on long-term results, much unlike paid advertising. The initial payoff will tend to start off low, but the long-term growth in creating consistent, targeted organic traffic will eventually show in the analytics of your business.
Content marketing isn’t as easy as it sounds. It requires strategic thinking with every element to be met on point, regarding your audience needs and wants with quality content that has relevant topics.
The content needs to be optimized for SEO as well as being optimized for your audience. This, continued with consistent quality content creation and promotion will get you results!.
Content is not just limited to writing a post on your blog. It may include a wide range of other multimedia mediums such as videos, images, podcasts, online courses, pdf’s, Links, references, downloads and more. This is because people simply love consuming the right information they are seeking….so give it to them!.
If you’re going to try this marketing strategy, make sure you invest the essentials needed to get going without any ROI, and most of all…RESEARCH!. Too many businesses are creating mediocre content. Content marketing requires quality content for it to pay off in the long run.
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of oldest, reliable sources of digital marketing, and to this has been a huge beneficial source of communication for businesses marketing to clientele.
Most people who decide to visit your website will not purchase from you straight away. Attaining contact information for communication and marketing is a sure way to utilise their visit more wisely, and email remains the highest converting channel for interacting with leads.
Creating A Lead Magnet:
Email marketing funnels begin with a “lead magnet”. This is something compelling you offer your website visitors in exchange for their email address. Possible options include a free digital download, a free service trial, a “seat” at a webinar, site membership, a coupon, etc.
Here’s an example of a lead magnet:
A person decides to subscribe to an email list that offers a free ‘Local Business Marketing’ ebook. Once the person fills out the necessary details and clicks the subscribe button, a ‘Confirmation Needed’ message is normally sent to the given email address to confirm and activate the subscription. Once this is done, you then have the opportunity to display valuable content to them via email.
Other benefits of email marketing include:
- Easy to automate emails
- Both a local and global audience reach
- Immediate communication
- Easy to setup and run
- Easy to track and optimize
- Perfect marketing channel for any promotion
There are a lot of marketing channels out there, and many may even take a while to master. Going on what I have written in the above list, email marketing is one of the few channels that can be easy to accomplish once you know what you’re doing.
6. Webinars
A webinar is basically a seminar on the web (Web-inar). It can be in the form of a presentation, tuition, demonstration, a meeting conference or discussion.
Webinars are sometimes used as a lead magnet for email marketing. The right topic can bring a huge source of brand new subscribers to your mail list. Webinars can also be used as a way to build credibility and authority with your current subscribers.
Webinars can be recorded and then used as products on their own or even as a series of products. They are a great medium for both live and recorded training.
Webinars tend to be more engaging than simple videos, even if they are used in exactly the same way. The actual start time and live Q&A tends to make people feel like they are receiving significantly more value than if they were watching a video with the exact same information.
Webinar Software
You will need webinar software to run a webinar that utilizes the following functions:
2-Way Audio – the presenter speaks while the viewers are muted, but the presenter can “turn on” individual viewers so everyone can hear their question Screenshare – the presenter can share their screen or switch to video for whiteboard teaching or live demonstration Polls – the presenter can invite viewers to take a poll or provide feedback in other ways
Webinars work very well in certain niches and just may be the thing for your business!. Below are three known webinar software platforms that businesses use. If you decide to use any of these for your business, please let me know how they went for you…pros and cons, etc
7. Advertise In Niche Print Media
While much of the world has moved online to the less expensive digital platform, print media still exist in all business industries, and in some niches, it is thriving. Using a local print media marketing strategy for your business can do wonders for your campaigns, especially if you have a local niche aspect to your business!.
Print Media Advertising Is Still Effective
Retail consumers cited printed materials as the chief sources of information behind their purchasing decisions.
Letterbox catalogue and promotional drops can be a strategically effective marketing channel when done right!
As print media continues to fall in popularity to some industries, pricing for ad placement lowers as well. In the right niches, it is now possible to run effective ads at incredibly affordable prices.
That said, print media is rarely effective as a solo marketing strategy. It is better to combine your marketing efforts with maybe one or two of the online marketing strategies that is listed above. Combining these channels will definitely compliment each channel and create a wider demographic pull on your audience.
8. Join Local Business Groups
Joining local business groups will give you the opportunity to meet up with other business people who already share common ground with you: You all own a business!.
Network And Share Ideas
These local business groups can provide an opportunity to bounce your ideas off to other like-minded people. You can share referrals, perhaps find a certain talent you have been seeking, or identify new opportunities for your business.
They are also a major catalyst in expanding your network around the city in which you live. Connections tend to multiply, and if your group takes networking seriously, you can leverage your seemingly minor connections into much significant ones.
Local business groups can best be found online. I would suggest to do your research, find a group that appeals to you and then approach the head of the group via private message or phone. From there it would be a simple case of attending the business group interactions.
These groups can progress onto great friendship and many profitable joint venture partnerships, so you never know your luck!
NZ Business Community
I have recently created a free NZ Business Community group online. It is a fairly young community that is slowly starting to grow, so if you’re a Kiwi Business and would like to share you wares, your thoughts and ideas on NZ Business then you a more than welcome to join. If you are from another country you are still warmly welcomed, just be aware that most of the content there will be directed around the ongoings of New Zealand Business.
Conclusion & Summary
Well, there you go guys: 8 cool marketing strategies for small business that have worked for thousands of businesses online and can definitely work for you too if they are suitable to your business and you put in the effort.
Here’s the full list:
- Advertising on Facebook
- Rank your Google My Business listing
- Using Google Adwords
- Investing In content marketing
- Building an email marketing list
- Hosting a business webinar
- Advertising in niche and/or local print media
- Joining a local business group
If these have helped in your marketing efforts, please share this post and comment below on how you went!