Small businesses have many marketing challenges, but one of the hardest things small business owners need to do is determine what makes their business stand out from the competition and present it in a way that attracts their ideal client. Being able to differentiate your business by communicating your unique capabilities that your competition does not have is paramount to attracting your ideal client.
Everyone likes to talk about creating a marketing plan. It’s the fun part of marketing, the creative aspect of your planning process. But strategy without execution won’t help your business succeed. In fact, marketing execution is how you achieve results.
Marketers like to talk about the benefits of creating a marketing plan for your business. While doing so is important, how does that plan turn into individual marketing campaigns that drive actual revenue?
A simple marketing plan is your road map for achieving your goals and guiding your decisions throughout the year. The strategic part of the plan is where you define your vision, goals and target audience for your business. But once you have that piece in place, you need your action plan that will guide you forward and help you adjust when necessary.
The best way to improve your marketing results is to set marketing goals. Without goals that can be tracked and measured, how will you know if you are successful?
We spend a lot of time discussing how to select your target audience as part of creating an inbound marketing plan. Hopefully you know who your target audience is for your small business. But have you taken the time to further divide that target audience into smaller market segments?
Choosing the right marketing communications channel strategy to distribute your messages to your target audience and create a stronger relationship with them is now more complicated. With all of these choices, what’s important is to focus on selecting the right media channels for your business, both online and traditional.
There are many people who offer online marketing services. There are also many people who call themselves online marketing experts because they know how to execute a particular marketing strategy like Google Ads or Facebook advertising. All good stuff and important because digital marketing is complex. But do these experts know marketing? Or are they experts in executing a particular tactic?
One of the things I do for my clients is simplify marketing so it eliminates confusion and enables the business owner to focus on what is important. But there is always a part of marketing that stresses many small business owners – i.e. determining their mission, vision, goals, strategies and tactics. These concepts are important …
How do you view marketing when it comes to your business – an investment or an expense? If you pick investment, then spending money on creating a powerful web presence is something you will do willingly because you know it will help your business grow and succeed. If you pick expense, then you will cut marketing when things get a bit tight (if you spend on marketing at all) and make irrational decisions when it comes to your web presence.
Marketing personas are fictional representations of the different segments that make up your ideal customer. By understanding the unique characteristics and needs of these segments, you can structure your web presence – website, blog and social profiles and inbound marketing activities – content, social and search, that will better support the goals of each segment of your prospective buyer.
Customer service is more important to your marketing strategy today than many business owners realize. Because of brand exposure via social media, marketing needs to be concerned with the entire customer experience. Companies that provide excellent customer service strengthen their marketing by simplifying the task of tracking and managing the perception of your brand.
Why are business owners gun shy about selecting a target market? You can’t appeal to everyone. Then why do business owners drive themselves crazy trying to work with clients they just don’t connect with? When you identify people or businesses that you just love to work with, you enjoy your work more and you can focus on …