What can small businesses do to stand out in a crowd? The market has become extremely noisy. Getting your ideal client to notice you is difficult. But correctly positioning your brand and communicating it to your target audience can get you noticed.
Small business owners tend to view their businesses very tactically. A SWOT analysis can help you evaluate your small business and the surrounding business environment that can affect its overall success.
A service bundling strategy is a marketing tactic that involves offering multiple services as a package for a single price. Usually the price is a discounted sum of the pieces and the services are complementary.
Before you add any new marketing activities to your plate, make sure you know the following 5 things about your business. This will help you determine the most effective marketing strategies for your small business.
Whether you choose to advertise on Facebook, focus on Google AdWords or branch out into other social media platforms, your ad needs to click through to a landing page. These landing pages are created specifically for that campaign and optimized to convert visitors into leads and ultimately into customers.
Marketing is an investment in your business. Creating and implementing an inbound marketing plan can increase your visibility and strengthen your expert reputation. But marketing mistakes can be costly to your small businesses in terms of dollars, reputation, visibility and results.
How is your marketing working for you? Did it help you increase visibility, generate more leads or find new lucrative clients? Even if you feel your marketing was successful, you should conduct a simple marketing review every 90 days. Find out why.
If you want your marketing to be effective, you need to treat marketing as a process – a series of actions to achieve your particular marketing goal. But unless you create a marketing system, your marketing process could be inefficient and inconsistent, producing results that are less than you had hoped.
Review your website to ensure it is an effective hub of all of your marketing efforts. Use this website review checklist to walk through the important areas of your website, including design, content, SEO, security, device support and performance.
Writing content is hard and a lot of work. Some people make it look easy, but not all of us are naturally talented writers. If we were, we’d be writing the next bestseller. But with all the benefits of blogging, we need to overcome the objections and add this task to our marketing activities.
Selecting the best target market for your business is the most important but difficult part of the marketing plan. Business owners will make many excuses when asked why they have not chosen a target because they believe that targeting limits their opportunities.
Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing is different. Understand the differences and develop marketing programs that are appropriate for your audience.
If someone is willing to invest in your business, what do you promise to do that provides value to them that matters? This promise, or value proposition, needs to be based on something you do that is uniquely different from your competition.
Many small businesses feel that having a brand is not something necessary to successfully market their products or services. Some think it is something only large companies need. And although some might invest in a logo, they miss the fact that a brand identity is so much more than just the visual impression of your business.
Every 90 days you should conduct a marketing review in order to measure and track your marketing effectiveness. By reviewing your results every quarter, you can determine what is working and what is not.