According to the Small Business Administration, Small Businesses were responsible for creating over 60% of the net new jobs since 1993 in the United States. However, with the advent of the Internet and the large scale adoption of various technologies by the masses, various aspects of running a business have changed. Be it Finance or Marketing, the way things were done ten or even five years back, are no longer applicable now. In this post ‘5 Marketing Tips for Small Businesses‘, we will understand the five most important contemporary marketing trends and how businesses can use these marketing strategies for getting better results.
5 Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
Use the power of Email Marketing
What is Email Marketing?
Email Marketing involves sending emails to a group of people, hoping that they will buy a product or service from your current offerings or they will buy products or services from you when you launch them in the future.
Email Marketing is still one of the best ways to reach out to your prospective clients. By landing in their Inbox, you have a chance to grab more attention as email ids are considered as private information and when you have access to someone’s email address you have a chance to give a more personal feel to your marketing campaign.
However, you have to be very cautious in your email marketing campaigns as you don’t want to abuse it by sending too many emails.
You should also try to add a personal touch to your emails and should not be promotional at the beginning itself. Try to add some value to your email subscribers by giving them tips that might genuinely interest them.
If you are into a product-based business, at the beginning of your email, let your readers know all about what’s happening around your product. Similarly, if you are into a service-based business, you can let your readers know about the latest problem areas in your area of business and then gently let them know how your offerings might help them solve their problems.
Email marketing is one of the oldest marketing techniques and looking at the current trends, this will remain as one of the most effective marketing technique in the foreseeable future too.
Focus on your Website’s SEO
What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
Simply put, Search Engine Optimization is the act of optimizing your business’ online presence so that when someone searches for a keyword related to your business, your business name appears in the search result, preferably on the top.
SEO should be one of the most important aspects of your marketing strategy. No matter how good your product or service is, if it does not appear in search results, it is no good. You might be the best Interior Designer in Los Angeles, but if your business name does not appear in the search result for the keyword ‘Best Interior Designer in Los Angeles’ or ‘Top Interior Designer in Los Angeles’, probably you are losing out on a lot of business.
SEO involves long term dedication and constant work. You have to constantly work on the various aspects of SEO.
For example, you have to regularly look out for keywords that are performing good for your business type and then you need to produce timely content for those keywords.
You also need to update your old content from time to time. While sharing important Marketing tips for small businesses, Marketing Guru Rachel R. Noall in her article revealed some valuable SEO statistics too. For example, 75% of consumers never scroll past page 1 on Google! That should ring some alarm bells if you are not already focusing on your SEO.
Leverage the reach of Social Media Marketing
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social Media Marketing is the process of finding your targeted customers on popular social media marketing platforms including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn among others. Your marketing campaign on these platforms can be promotional i.e you pay to these platforms so that your post’s chances of appearing on the walls of your prospective clients increases with the assistance of algorithms of these platforms or it could be non- promotional where you expect your prospective clients see your posts. For non- promotional campaigns, there are various groups that you can join and promote your business without being too pushy.
Social Media Marketing can be a very effective weapon in your Social Media Marketing arsenal. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn provide the option of targeted promotion of your content. In traditional marketing campaigns, it is hard to achieve this level of targeting.
According to Statista,” As of January 2020, it was found that ten percent of global active Facebook users were women between the ages of 18 and 24 years, and male users between the ages of 25 and 34 years constituted the biggest demographic group of Facebook users.”
If you are a manufacturer of men’s grooming products, you would probably want your advertisement to be displayed to men of a particular age group in a particular location. Being a small business owner, you would want to spend your advertising budget wisely and social Media platforms allow you to achieve this level of targeting and that too at a nominal cost.
Become a sponsor for Local Events
By participating in local events, you increase your business contacts. That’s good but instead of just participating, try to sponsor one or two events and in return advertise your company by placing your banners at strategic locations. Small businesses thrive on local clients. Local events can be business conferences, charity events, school functions, etc. You should aim at building contacts and letting people know through your banners that you mean business.
For a majority of Small Businesses, local business means everything and local events give an excellent opportunity to promote your business.
Build an awesome Lead Magnet
What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is what marketers or businesses offer to their prospective clients for free in return for their contact information so that they can be converted in to buyers later on. You might have visited several websites where you see pop ups asking you if you are interested in downloading a Free E-Book. You just have to enter your email address and you are done. You get the free E-Book as promised in your inbox. While you definitely got your free E-Book, the marketer or the business owner just got your email address which can be later used for marketing campaigns and if you liked the free content, you are likely to pay if the same business comes with an E-Book but has a price tag on it.
Therefore, it is important that you have an awesome lead magnet. What you are offering for free should in no way be low in quality and should genuinely add value to your prospective clients. Even if the client does not buy anything from you, the experience that you provided might turn him or her into a client in distant future too.
In order to build an effective lead magnet, focus on the problems of your clients. Try to provide some free solutions to their problems through e-books or videos and focus on genuinely solving their problems. This way, you will build trust with your prospective clients.
