23 December 2020
When you’re trying to grow your small business, you may feel a lot like you’re taking shots in the dark with your marketing efforts. How do you know what’s going to draw in new customers and what’s going to keep your current customers coming back for more?
You may know what works for you with marketing, but how do you make sure you’re not just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks?
There are a few time-tested techniques for marketing a small business that can help you grow your bottom line. Read on to discover where you should be focusing your marketing efforts for a maximum return on your investment.
1. Use Google to your advantage
As a small business, you want to make it as easy as possible for customers to find information about your business. You don’t want them guessing about when you open, what you offer, or how to find you. One way you can do this is to ensure your Google business profile is updated.
When you (or your customers) google a business, a small profile of information about that business will pop up at the top of the search results. You need to make sure that your profile includes up-to-date hours for your business, your website, and an accurate phone number.
Making this information more available to customers could make the difference between growing your customer base and slipping off the map.
2. Focus your social media efforts
Using social media for a small business is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have at your disposal. For one thing, more than a third of the world’s population is on Facebook. There are few other areas where such a wide portion of your potential customer base will be gathered.
Social media is also a very affordable marketing platform compared to traditional marketing options.
You can give your customers a chance to know your brand in a more personal way, and you can provide updates about new products, special events, and upcoming sales. Even running ads through social media can cost less than $20 to reach thousands of people, as opposed to hundreds of dollars to run a magazine or radio ad.
3. Hone your content marketing
Having a social media presence is a wonderful thing, but you also need to make sure you’re providing your customers with quality content.
Your posts should give your customers valuable information that they’ll be grateful to learn. One great way to build your social media presence and improve your content marketing all at once is to start a blog.
A blog gives you a chance to display your expertise and build trust among your customer base.
Write about topics relevant to your business; this could include a mix of how-to posts for your industry, updates about the latest developments in your business or your industry, and special messages from leaders in your business. Link to these blogs on your social media platforms and use them as fodder for a regular posting schedule.
4. Use email marketing
Email marketing for small business is another powerful tool you use to maintain and grow your customer base. With email, you aren’t tossing content out into the world and hoping an interested potential customer sees it someday. You can send messages directly to customers who you already know have an interest in your business.
While you should aim to send out emails on a regular basis, be careful not to clog up your customers’ inboxes with too many messages. Aim to send out emails once a week or so with updates from your business, your blog, and your area. Keep these messages short and sweet, and focus on writing enticing subject lines to draw readers in.
If you don’t have a database, check Kompass to build your prospect list to launch your email campaigns. Kompass can also take care of the whole process: segmentation, sending, and reporting.
5. Show off your expertise
When you’re interacting with new customers, you want to do everything you can to build their trust in you. They need to feel confident that when they work with you, they’re getting the best service in your industry. One great way to build this trust is to show off your expertise in your content and social media marketing efforts.
You’re a leader in your field for a reason, so don’t be afraid to show off that know-how. Write educational blog posts teaching your readers something new about your industry. Post common mistakes people make in your industry on social media and let viewers know how you can help your customers avoid those pitfalls and problems.
You may also want to get listed in several directories and marketplaces to reach a wider audience. You can list your business for free through Kompass’ directories.
6. Get your SEO on point
As of this post, there are over 1.5 billion websites live on the internet. That means that if you were to visit one website every second of every single day, it would still take you almost fifty years to visit them all.
In an internet universe this vast, how do you get your business website in front of potential customers?
Search engine optimization helps you push your website to the top of search result rankings. This means customers will be more likely to find your business when they google topics in your industry.
You can list your business for free on Kompass and showcase your products with Booster by Kompass. Booster is your long-term SEO solution that drives B2B traffic.
Make sure you’re following some SEO best practices, such as listing your business in different directories. Many website platforms also offer widgets to help you optimize your website and improve your search result rankings.
7. Listen to your customers
Perhaps the most important thing you can do when you’re trying to market your small business is to listen to your customers. There are some tried-and-true marketing tricks that will work in most cases. But your customer base is unique, and you need to reach them where they are, rather than throwing canned efforts at them.
Send out surveys to your current customers asking which of your marketing efforts they like best and which they like least. Ask what they would like to see from you in the future. You may also want to include some sort of incentive — for instance, a discount code or free gift — to improve how many survey responses you get back.
Discover the key to marketing a small business
Marketing a small business can feel a lot like throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks. Make sure you’re using social media and email marketing tools to your advantage and keep your content marketing strong. You may also want to check out tools like EasyBusiness to improve your acquisition cycle of analyzing, targeting, engaging, and closing.
If you’d like to get the latest in sales and marketing data to guide your small business, check out the rest of our site at Kompass. We’re your route to business worldwide. Check out our solutions today to get your sales and marketing data the refresh they’ve needed.
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