Are you a small business owner seeking to update your marketing strategy to get more clients? Or perhaps a wannabe entrepreneur, planning to set up a business and looking for tips on how to optimise your marketing efforts to build an easily-recognisable brand?
Then you have come to the right place. Here are five tips for effective marketing that you can apply to your business, whether you are selling a product or a service.
1. Listen. Listen. Listen. It is no good putting out endless pages of content, advertising and leaflets just because this is what classic marketing textbooks and business schools teach you. Why not create a detailed survey for your customers and potential customers and gain their feedback, listen to their needs and concerns, and identify how you can fulfil them. Seek out potential customers via social media channels and listen to what they have to say and only then create your marketing campaign and materials. And don’t just aim to satisfy existing demand for your product or service – aim to ‘create’ demand but always while proactively listening and engaging with your client base.
2. When building your website, aim to use pictures and create engaging content so that people are inspired to read past the ‘About’ page and explore your offering in more detail. I would suggest re-reading through all of your company pages on a monthly basis to adjust and amend the content based on feedback you receive from talking to customers. Clearly spell out your brand’s unique selling points and the ways you are different (and similar!) to the competition. Try to use simple language so that people can easily relate to you and your brand, and avoid overuse of specialised jargon.
3. As a small business owner you may end up spending a lot of time online and on social media channels meeting customers and prospects and building your network of wider contacts. But there is nothing better and more effective than meeting your contact offline and discussing business issues over a cup of coffee. So aim to arrange a certain number of face-to-face meetings each month, to make sure you are not relying just on online channels for networking.
4. Invest in good content marketing that you post on your website and social media with predictable regularity and consistency. Good and valuable content will entice website visitors and inspire them to come back for more. One of your main targets for your content marketing strategy should be to inform, educate and through this to build your credibility and expertise in the minds of your potential customer base.
5. Avoid sending blanket emails to customers and prospects from a bland corporate email address. It is much more effective to send customised emails from your email address or that of another employee in your company. And don’t forget to respond to people who write to you. This customised approach will increase your engagement with customers and build stronger relationships between you.
I hope you have found the tips above useful. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur and need assistance on marketing, sales, relationship management or other areas related to running a small business, please get in touch on dasha@careercoachingventures.com
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