If you’ve just started running your own small business or you’ve been in one for some time, you probably constantly think about various ways to attract more customers. There are many marketing tricks you can use in order to do that. You just need to decide which would be most suitable for your type of business. In this article, we offer a list of ten most effective strategies for small businesses that will help you run your business smoothly.
# 1 Make Clear Plans
The first and most important step in any business is setting a clear goal and organizing your budget. Ask yourself what you truly want to achieve; what your ultimate goal is. Do you need to think about brand awareness or how to extend your reach? Whatever you decide, make sure you manage your budget carefully and constantly keep track of your money. Also, think about what your needs are at the moment and which objectives you can set aside for now. Prioritizing your goals is the key of success.
# 2 Use SEO Tactics
Search Engine Optimization is used by majority of marketers who want to reach a higher place on Google, Yahoo or other search engines. In this way, they are able to increase visits to their websites and attract more customers. Keyword research is one of the easiest ways you can use to increase traffic. Keyword tools that you can utilize include Wordstream’s Free Keyword Tool, KWFinder and Google’s Keyword Planner. If you’ve just started working on your marketing strategy, best start with long-tail keywords, as they are more specific and much less competitive. Identify a list of keywords that you think will attract relevant visitors to your website and include them in body content, headings, title tags and image file names, so that search engines can recognize the relevance of your content.
# 3 Online Marketing Magic
If you want to boost your business online and get positive results, you’ll have to invest some money in display, search and social ads. Pay to play, as they say. In order to earn money, learn how to strategically spend some first. Hire a professional if necessary to help you with Facebook Ads or AdWords, as this sort of work can be quite tricky if you don’t have relevant experience.
# 4 Pick the Right Social Media
If you spend hours trying to keep your business present on all social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, perhaps it’s time you consider a different tactic. It might be more effective to stick to one channel your customers follow most regularly and invest more time and energy there. By analyzing your current social media presence you can find out where the highest customer engagement is. The best tip you’ll ever get proves to be true in this field, too – less is more.
# 5 Turn the Creative Energy into a Blog
Publishing a blog on a regular basis can be truly effective. It can help you promote your business by telling potential customers all about your expertize and providing them with useful guidance and tips. Apart from that, you can always use blog to announce projects you take part in and awards you’ve received. Blogging can be fun, but also time-consuming. Make sure you always stick to quality over quantity and that you’re being consistent – one blog per week sounds perfect!
# 6 Email Marketing
Email marketing has proved to be an incredibly effective way of promoting your small business and attract larger number of potential customers. The subscribers to your email list are people who intentionally want to hear from you on a regular basis, so you need to pay special attention to what, when and why you send. Include sending a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter with interesting, creative and relevant content. Personalize your emails by using customers’ first names and using friendly, yet professional tone. Writing a good subject line that will invoke recipient’s curiosity is of extreme importance. However, be careful not to use spam trigger words any spam filter of high quality would recognize. You want each of your messages to end up in the recipient’s inbox, not spam folder. Also, make sure your emails are mobile-friendly, as nowadays majority of people check their emails on their mobile devices.
# 7 Stand Out from the Crowd
Don’t hesitate to be original, creative and unique. Your audience will appreciate your effort to stand out and be different. If nothing else, this is what makes a marketing strategy great and successful – its uniqueness, freshness and originality. Write an attractive “About Us” page to state your mission and tell everybody why you’re best at what you do.
Next to all the strategies mentioned above, no matter how truly great they are, don’t forget that connecting with real people offline can also be extremely effective. Perhaps in the era of digital technology, we tend to forget that one and amazing “word of mouth” tactic. There’s still nothing more powerful than that.
