Getting the word out is an essential part of starting your own business. In 2019, businesses can deploy some inexpensive strategies to drive their marketing success.
The question is, where to start. Here are some helpful tips to get your business the exposure it needs to drive customer engagement.
1. Know Your Audience
To market effectively, it is important to start with a firm understanding of your customers and prospects. Knowing the social media channels they use, the devices they prefer, the questions they ask, and the sites and influencers they frequent lets you target your message.
2. Find the Right Social Media Channels
There are plenty of channel options for small business marketers. Knowing which channels are most effective at driving traffic to your business often takes some trial and error. Whether it is LinkedIn for B2B traffic or Instagram and better local search engine optimization (SEO), you want to tailor your messages to gain traction and funnel traffic to your own site to improve conversion possibility.
3. Consider Using the Cloud
More businesses are storing data and applications on the cloud, giving employees access to information and functionality no matter where they are. To give your marketing strategy the best possible chance of success, consider whether cloud solutions will give you more flexibility, access, and functionality.
4. Build Relationships via Email
Email continues to be a powerful force for attracting prospects and maintaining relationships with your customers. The first step is to ensure that once a customer is on your website or uses your product or service, you guide the customer to the actions you desire, including the capture of good email information with popups and forms.
Grow your relationship with welcome emails, educational information, special offers and coupons, new product information, and early previews.
5. Deliver Great Content
You need a content marketing strategy that positions you as an expert and your business as the one to deliver products and services that solve pressing problems your potential customers have. Whether it is blogs, white papers, e-books or articles, it is critical to deliver content that adds value to readers regularly and consistently.
As seen in the recent Entrepreneur’s Startup Success Guide for 2019, establishing your expertise is a great way to drive customers to your site. Content need not be static, either. Track which content works best and repurpose it, promote it via other social media and email channels, and get the most out of your investment.
6. Be Aware of Voice Search
The growth of digital voice assistants (Siri, Alexa, Hey Google) means more people are using voice-activated queries. This shift is likely to change the way marketers think about search, which has shifted from the formal (e.g. typing ‘where can I find balloons in Baltimore’) to the succinct (e.g. ‘Baltimore balloon stores’). The conversational approach of voice means understanding how to get your business found via voice search.
Partnering with a Pro
Benetrends provides useful tools to small businesses at every stage of their growth, from powerful funding strategies that leverage existing 401(k) funds to helpful business services like credit card processing. To learn more about funding options – like Rollover for Business Startups (ROBS) – or how Benetrends can help your small business, schedule a consultation.