Some small businesses today will be the big players of tomorrow. Unfortunately, others won’t make it that far. Many factors can determine whether a company will grow or crash. One critical metric that shows whether a business will stand is its ability to sell. A marketing strategy that works can be the difference between success and failure for many small businesses.
Some of the marketing strategies that small businesses should use include;
1. Branding
Branding is a powerful way of connecting with customers. It starts all the way from product development. Are you a trusted reseller, a great cook or a skilled mechanic?
With a great offering, the next thing is to create a narrative that will appeal to your prospective market. To craft a compelling brand narrative, create buyer personas. Fist, do your market research using various free and paid tools.
After creating your brand, ensure its visibility. You can do this through blogging and advertising. Customer engagement is also essential in maintaining brand awareness.
2. Go Digital
Time and again, businesses fail to grasp the potential of online marketing. Some local businesses still believe in word of mouth and reputation. These are great, but for future growth, going digital is vital.
Various channels exist. Notable ones include:
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Blogging
- SEM and SEO
Going digital means you need a great website. It costs little but allows you to try out any of the above channels. As a small business, test the waters by using channels that promise the best marketing ROI for your business. Doing too much can stretch you thin financially.
Create lead magnets like freebies to boost traffic and build a customer database for targeted messages and ads.
3. Clean Data
The effectiveness of marketing campaigns is pegged on two things, the quality of the campaign and the authenticity of its audience. This means one thing; obsolete data must go.
Cleaning up data falls under the category of those tasks to be performed when nothing else is pressing, which is often never. This is a mistake.
Marketers need to analyze their database regularly and weed out obsolete data. This needn’t be a tough ask. It makes sense to check the database periodically. For instance, some recipients on an email list could have moved out of the locality, or they no longer open your emails.
This also explains why building mailing lists is better than buying. The open rates can be atrocious for purchased email lists, and emails from your website are likelier to set off spam filters.
4. Check Out the Competition
What is a business that doesn’t know the competition? A monopoly. There are two perks of studying your rivals; the first is acquiring new information about markets by looking at their campaigns.
Secondly, by looking at how the competition behaves, you can improve on what they are doing. Various tools exist that can crawl your competitor’s websites and monitor their campaigns.
Checking out the competition is not an excuse to go all out James Bond, business laws and ethical boundaries need to be respected. The lessons you can learn from the competition range from trends, weaknesses, and even customer perceptions.
5. Stick to what Works
Each business is unique; yours might reap more from Instagram because the customer base chooses by looking at pictures, for instance, in fashion. Tailor the marketing campaigns to maximize on image and video marketing.
It can take time before you find out what has brought you the most business, but it will save a lot of money and bring optimal returns in the long run. Cheap marketing techniques like email marketing and customer testimonials are useful for most types of business.
One time-tested strategy that works is reputation. In addition to your great product, craft a reputation for excellent customer service and efficiency.
Final Thoughts
Since all businesses are somewhat unique, it is upon each owner or manager to do the groundwork and find out what has a higher likelihood of delivering results. Central to this process is the customer.
Leveraging technology is a great way to run some marketing campaigns. With all the channels, digital marketing can be time-consuming. Stay up to date with the latest marketing trends and findings too; the knowledge can help you get ahead of the pack.
