Marketing Advice For Small Business Owners

Even when most of your business comes from referrals you will still need a high quality website. The first thing most people will do if someone recommends your business is look for you online. If they can’t find your site or it doesn’t look professional then they are much less likely to call you. To reach new customers who are actively looking for your services, your site must also be optimised for search engines. 

 

One of the best ways to improve your online performance is to think about the key words people are likely to search for. There will be a lot of competition for the most popular ones, so think about any specialist products, services or approaches you offer and test content using these key words or phrases. It’s also important to regularly update your website pages or to publish news or blogs so that you have fresh content. 

 

There are likely to be quite a few businesses that, on the face of it, provide similar products or services. By explaining what you do, how you do it, and why, you will help people to understand what you’re like as well as what you do. Telling your brand story openly and honestly will give them a reason to choose you, rather than your competitors. 

 

You don’t need to have a presence on every social media platform – that can be time consuming and, if you use a third party to manage it for you, expensive too. Instead, think about the social media channels that interest you and most importantly, the ones that are most likely to attract your customers. Which platforms are they likely to use? They are the ones you need to be on. 

 

It’s better to be consistently active on one or two channels than to post occasionally on multiple channels. When you set up social media pages for business keep them separate from your personal ones or, if you do use a personal page like your own LinkedIn profile, make sure it is clear and professional. Think about your customers’ interests and the style and type of content that will attract them. Images are important so make sure you choose high quality ones and use your branding to support your content. You can use hashtags to attract new audiences and to track your campaigns. 

 

Make sure you monitor your channels and respond to comments and questions promptly. If there are any negative comments deal with them professionally and politely and suggest you resolve the issue in a private conversation. 

 

If you’re already selling online, it’s also worth looking at social commerce for your small business, because eight out of 10 people are already researching their purchases on social media channels. 

 

It costs a lot less to keep your existing customers than to attract new ones. Prioritising customer retention with loyalty campaigns is a good way to help your business grow. You can also look for opportunities to sell your customers additional products, services or subscriptions to increase their lifetime value to your business. You can also encourage them to refer other people to your business by offering a discount or bonus. 

 

Whatever marketing initiatives you’re planning, it’s important to have measurements in place. It’s the only way to understand what works well and it will help you to invest your marketing budget wisely. In many cases you can do this for very little or no cost. 

 

For example, most social media platforms have built-in analytics tools and you can use Google Analytics to see the performance of your website landing pages. For printed promotions you can use campaign codes or quick response (QR) codes to collect valuable information. 

 

Finding a small group of ideal customers will help you to focus your marketing efforts, although this won’t work for every business type. 

 

One very effective way to do this is to establish yourself as an industry expert by answering questions posted online by journalists, creating a blog of useful and informative content for your niche, or by contributing to expert groups on social media. You could soon find you are invited to comment on specific subjects or to take part in events, which will certainly be good for your reputation. 

 

Video content is very popular and many people prefer it to written posts on social media, for example. It can be especially helpful if you’re starting a new business or launching a new product. ‘How to’ and other styles of explainer video are especially popular. There are some free and low-cost video editing tools available and plenty of online tutorials to help you make use of the video function on your smartphone for basic videos. 

 

Please get in touch if you would like to give your business marketing a boost in 2022. 

 

Until next time ...