There are advertising opportunities across all the major social media platforms to drive demand for your products and services that are well in the reach of many small business budgets. Whether you choose to advertise on Facebook, focus on Google AdWords or branch out into Twitter or LinkedIn, your ad needs to click through to a landing page created specifically for that campaign and designed to convert visitors into leads and ultimately into customers.
Did your marketing help you increase visibility, generate more leads or find new lucrative clients? Whether you feel your marketing was successful or not, it is the perfect time to conduct a marketing review prior to putting your marketing plan in place for the new year.
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.
Your value proposition is an important part of your marketing strategy that is often misunderstood. Although a key concept in marketing for decades, it is now just as important in the online world where you are trying to get people to click on your ads or convert on your landing pages into qualified leads.
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 your small business is very much like playing golf. In golf, the goal is to play each hole to get the ball from the tee into the hole on the green in the fewest number of strokes possible. To achieve that goal, you need a strategy for each hole such that you get to your destination successfully. Your action plan is to execute each shot as planned, resulting in the par score.
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.
Recently I wrote about the true value in your value proposition because small businesses need to understand what it is they offer and why their market needs it. And you really need to define your mission statement is so you can communicate it to your target audience. Now we need to turn our attention to creating a strong brand, one of your most valuable business assets.
Your value proposition is the value a client gains from working with you. If you have trouble explaining to people what you do and why you are the best to help them solve their most challenging problems, it’s time to identify the one thing that really makes you different from your competitors. Then you can be crystal clear about why you are uniquely different and will be able to communicate it with confidence.
Planning Your Road to Success 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, goals, strategies and tactics. …
We just returned from our vacation in Aruba. We’ve been there many times and own a timeshare at the Marriott Surf Club. We go to just get away and relax – no site seeing, no golf – just reading, sunning, swimming and oh, yes a bit of gambling at night for entertainment. Of course, no …
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