As long as I have been in marketing, I’ve heard my share of excuses for why small businesses don’t invest in marketing. These marketing myths when constantly repeated, become reality. Small businesses have many opportunities to attract their ideal client if they put these marketing myths aside and create a practical marketing plan that will work for their business.
Creating a brand identity for your small business that helps define your brand image is an important task that many neglect. But there are definitely benefits for businesses that take the time to establish their brand and use it consistently.
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.
Most small businesses offer their products and services to a specific geographic market. Being found quickly when someone is in need of your local services is critical to your success. Incorporating local SEO strategies into your marketing activities that complement your other online marketing is important to your business.
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.
Small business owners really don’t need one more thing to think about when it comes to online marketing. To add anything else to our already overflowing plates will make us ineffective. But small businesses, regardless of their industry, should add a blog as the central component of their content marketing activities because creating relevant content for your target audience and optimizing it for search engine visibility is too important to ignore.
Creating a company tagline is not an easy exercise, especially for a small business. A small business tagline needs to communicate the “why” of your business in a few words.
A consistent flow of quality content is critical to implementing a successful inbound marketing strategy that will support your brand and attract your ideal client. But what content do you need and how will you create that content on a regular basis in order to remain visible to your ideal clients?
Email marketing and marketing automation are terms that are used somewhat interchangeably, causing confusion for small businesses who are trying to decide which solution they need. This confusion stems from the fact that both solutions are based on using email as a primary way to communicate with your leads in the hope that some leads will convert into customers.
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?
Search engine optimization plays a critical part in the success of your inbound marketing efforts by increasing the effectiveness of the other three pillars – content marketing, social media marketing and public relations – to drive targeted traffic to your website.
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.
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