Many small businesses don’t place enough emphasis on marketing. Marketing your business takes time and effort and is an ongoing process. You need to set your foundations and get the basics of marketing sorted before you can start to see results. Here are some of our Small Business marketing tips you to help you get on track.
Write a marketing plan/strategy.
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” Planning helps you develop products and services in your business that meet the needs of your target market. Your marketing plan will include objectives that you want to achieve within your business and how you will reach them.
Define your target audience.
You need to understand the needs of your audience – who they are, what they want, how they would interact with your business, what is the need for your product/service. Your business may cater to everyone but is impossible to market to them all the same way. To get your message across you need to know whom your marketing to. Create personas for each of your target audience Start with one core persona and build from there. Personas are generalisations of your ideal clients, group them based on individual goals.
Get your branding sorted.
Create a style and communications guide to ensure consistency and clarity for your brand. Your guide will include not only design specifications such as colours and font but the tone and format of writing across print and online material.
Set a budget.
You must set a budget for marketing – and stick to it! A budget is critical to your marketing success as it allows for you to properly execute your strategy and to measure the results. You can then re-allocate funds from areas that didn’t bring return into the areas that worked well.
Get a great website.
Build your site for your target audience and not yourself. Make sure it’s mobile responsive and is linked to Google analytics so you can track and measure how people are using your site.
Only create accounts on the social media that work for you.
Don’t go and create accounts on every social media platform available, you only need to be on the platforms that suit your business. If your target audience isn’t on twitter then there is no point you being on it.
List your business on Local Directories.
Don’t just rely on your website to rank in the search engines. Local Directories will show your listings in search results so it’s important to create accounts on these directories and have consistent content, images and contact details.
Try Email Marketing.
If you have a database you should consider email marketing and if you don’t have a list – start working on one. Email Marketing is one of the easiest ways to reach your existing and past customers. Use a mail management program such as Mailchimp to send out your emails and manage your lists.
Undertake Partnership Marketing.
Identify businesses who have the same target market as you but don’t compete with you and see if you can collaborate together. You could add something into their newsletter, provide a discount or incentive to their customers if they purchase your product or use your service.
Create Compelling Content.
Regardless of whether its on social media, your blog or e-newsletter, creating compelling content will increase reach and engagement. Plan out a content calendar for your blogs and articles, your social media and your email marketing and identify topics that will educate your target audience and provide them with useful information. Syndicate your blogs to other sites and publications so they have an opportunity to get featured – this will increase your brand awareness.
Look at Sponsorship.
Sponsorship is a great way to get exposure for your business. Find sponsorship opportunities that have access to your target market (who you want to be selling to). Sporting clubs, charities and events are a great starting point.
There are hundreds of ways to market your business but if you have developed a plan and know who your target audience is, it is easy to define what you should do to see results.
