7 Tips for a Better Small Business Website
As a small business, your website needs to tell potential customers why you are worth shopping with. You don’t have a large, well-known brand to fall back on, after all. So, whether you are in the early stages of setting up a business website or you’re looking to improve the one you already have, use these seven tips.
1: Make it User-Friendly
Users will not stay on your site for long if it isn’t user-friendly. You need to ensure the navigation is as smooth as possible, allowing users to get from one page to the next without any issues. Users need to be able to find the information they are looking for quickly and without interruption. If it takes too much time to find your contact page or to browse products, they will likely leave the site.
2: Incorporate SEO
Optimizing your website for SEO is crucial. These days, most businesses use at least some form of SEO, so not doing would put you at a disadvantage. To rank higher in search engines, you should do keyword research, produce long written content, speed up the page loading times, and use backlinks. It’s important to understand the best SEO techniques so that your efforts don’t go to waste, so follow this link to learn more about this SEO practice: https://linkflow.ai/white-hat-link-building/.
3: Invite Customers to an Email List
Building an email list is useful, especially for small businesses, so use your website to invite people to join your email list. Provide incentives for people to join, such as a shopping discount or free trial when they sign up. Just make sure the pop-up is easy to click off for those who aren’t interested.
4: Use Images and Videos
On a good business website, words are important, but they aren’t enough. For an engaging, attractive site, you need to incorporate high-quality images and videos that represent your brand. You could film a video for your ‘about us’ page, telling customers your business development story. Or, you could include a video of testimonials from previous clients and customers.
5: Include Call to Actions
Calls to action are important for getting potential customers to take action and shop with you. Some examples include ‘see more’, ‘click here,’ and ‘find out.’ Use these consistently throughout your copy to ensure more users turn into customers.
6: Make it Mobile-Friendly
In terms of ranking, Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites over ones that aren’t. Not only that, but not having a site that runs well on mobile will send otherwise interested customers away, as most people search and shop on their phones these days. For a mobile-friendly website, be sure to keep text concise, ditch pop-ups, and limit image sizes.
7: Declutter
A good website isn’t one packed to the brim with endless information. For a site that keeps users engaged, declutter each page to ensure it’s easy to read and navigate. You want an orderly layout that presents all the necessary information to users without too much clutter.
With these seven tips, your small business’s website will rank higher on search engines, look more attractive, and have better navigation.
Small Business Marketing Strategies That Work
Your small business may just be in its infancy, or you may have been on the scene for a while now, but either way, a solid marketing strategy is crucial for your company’s growth and success. It isn’t enough to set up your shop and implement a casual marketing strategy, regardless of how excellent your goods and services are. Thanks to low barriers to entry for small business owners, each market is relatively saturated and sincere efforts must be made to get your company’s offerings in front of the right clients. This guide will help you to develop and carry out a strong marketing plan to bring in new customers, grow your business and ensure your company’s success.
Social Media
Perhaps one of the most powerful small business marketing strategies is one of the easiest to launch. Small businesses can expand their reach and attract more consumers through a clean, well-branded and regularly-updated social media presence. Social media allows small businesses to solidify their brand identity, promote products, share user-generated content, announce promotions and sales and even address customer concerns and feedback. Social media is a great way to reach customers where they already spend a great deal of their own free time. A large number of consumers will experience your company first through social media, so it’s important that you update your presence regularly on whatever platform you choose.
Partnerships and Collaborations
Many small businesses have the same or a similar target customer base, yet their products don’t directly compete for their business. Through partnerships and collaborations, you can team up with another company to expand your influence while using fewer resources to do so–and promote another member of the small business community at the same time. Such partnerships may involve bundling a product or service from each company at a discounted rate, collaborating on a new product together, sponsoring one another or teaming up for a cause you both believe in.
Email Marketing
Small businesses can use email marketing strategies to reach existing customers, bring in new ones and maintain loyalty with those who know and love your business. An email list is typically populated with customers who have already expressed an interest in your business and what you have to offer, which can increase the likelihood that your email marketing efforts will result in conversions. You can use emails to send out newsletters, advertise limited-time offers, remind customers about an abandoned cart or release promotions that will drive sales and invite customers to visit your shop with an exclusive offer.
Paid Ads
It takes time to develop a loyal customer base who will visit your company naturally and encounter your content organically. In the meantime, it’s important that you push your content so that it reaches the largest number of people possible. Paid ads offer a short-term way to push your content toward buyers most likely to visit your shop. Google ads are great to reach your target customer through specific search terms and queries that might result in a sale much sooner, while social media ads can increase your impressions and expand your audience while encouraging buyers to visit your shop or profile.
Specialized Promotions
While evergreen content is valuable and necessary for your small business, short-term or specialized promotions and products can encourage buyers to take quick action as you capitalize on a fleeting circumstance to drive traffic toward your business. Take time to identify your audience and their demographics and try to create advertisements and promotions that appeal to their evolving needs and interests. You may want to release holiday-based or seasonal sales, or you may find it helpful to generate content that centers around a trending current event or occurrence to ride the wave of social momentum at the time. Think, as well, about the types of buyers you need to appeal to. You may want to begin a blog that subtly features your products, create gift guides that pull in a variety of products from other shops as well as yours, form relationships with influencers or affiliates or start a side-venture such as a podcast, video series, eBook or course enrollment to expand the space you occupy within your own niche.
Referral Programs
One of the best ways to bring in new customers is to mobilize existing, happy customers to do so. Invite customers to share your products or services and incentivize their efforts by offering a discount for their next purchase, a gift card, store credit or access to an exclusive product or service reserved just for referrals. Referral marketing works best when both the existing customer and the new customer receive some sort of compensation or incentive for their patronage, which can encourage both parties at once to make a purchase.
Loyalty Systems
Though your high-quality goods and services are rewarding enough for customers, it helps to boost the benefits for repeat customers and compensate clients who visit again and again every further. Loyalty programs can include a punch card that offers a free product or item after a certain number of purchases, a points system that will provide a discount or product after the customer reaches a certain tier, cashback or rebate programs or exclusive discounts reserved for those who have already shopped with you to encourage them to return for more.
Third-Party Press
Consumers are less likely to shop with a company in which they know little about, so it’s important to invest in the acquisition of social proof for your small business. The grand majority of consumers look to reviews and recommendations before they make a purchase. Make sure that your customers can leave a review for your stellar products, and try to feature as much praise on your website and social media accounts as you can. Try to reach out to publications, bloggers, influencers or even other companies to share your small business and its products and services to earn a little positive media and develop more consumer trust. The more clout your small business has, the more established and reputable your company will seem, both to existing and new customers alike.
How Small Business SEO is Changing - Check it Out Here
As search engines are constantly changing, the trends are also changing rapidly. To gain a competitive edge, you need to know how the small business SEO paradigm is changing. This article will help you get acquainted with the present-day SEO trends.
Mobile optimization is the future
In a recent survey, it was found that there is a significant difference in the number of mobile searches and desktop searches. People are not going to spend their time searching for information on a desktop when they can find them easily on a mobile device. This means that if your website is not optimized for mobiles, then you will lose out on a lot of revenue opportunities. It would be advisable that you optimize your site for mobile devices so as to provide an exceptional user experience to visitors across all mediums such as computers, laptops, and mobiles.
Faster loading sites is a trend
Another important SEO trend that all small business owners need to consider is the speed of their website. Many websites have a very poor page loading time and this is something they cannot do anything about. However, if you own a web design or development company, make sure that your clients' website loads in an exceptionally fast manner. Loading time does not only affect the bounce rate but also affects the readership numbers for a particular article on your site. If people visit your site and find out that it takes too long to load then they will not be ready to wait and will simply move on to another site that is faster. You can check the speed performance of any website by using tools like 'GTMetrix' and 'Pingdom Tools'.
Keyword density: Is it still relevant?
Keyword density is definitely not what it used to be. A lot of experts in the SEO world feel that you should not obsess over keyword density anymore and focus on writing content for your users rather than search engines. If people come to your site, they will naturally get a chance to see certain keywords which you have been targeting throughout your page. In addition, Google has also started integrating semantic search into its algorithm which means that it can understand phrases and sentences instead of just words. So, if you want your website to appear in the SERPs then try and use multiple keywords naturally within your content instead of stuffing them into a single post or article.
Does social media impact your SEO performance?
Social media has become an inevitable part of our daily lives. In terms of SEO, content shared on social media gets indexed quickly by search engines and helps you increase your visibility to a wider audience. It also helps you connect with influencers within your industry which could turn out to be extremely profitable if done right.
Linking out To informative content
Link building was considered a very effective way to drive traffic from other relevant websites but Google has started penalizing sites that are participating in this kind of acting aggressively. Many webmasters have been forced to de-link numerous websites from their sites in order to remove the penalty. If you want to drive traffic through other websites, then the best way is to create a list of relevant resources and submit it to directories like Yahoo! and Business.com so that people can find out about your brand easily.
Search engines are crawling social media sites now!
Web crawlers have started crawling social media sites more aggressively than before which means that if you share an article on Facebook or Twitter, it will affect your SEO performance drastically. Google has already started giving special preference to social media sites in its search algorithms because pages shared on such platforms get indexed within hours whereas it takes several days for other websites to show up in SERPs. So, if your content is good and engaging enough, it will get shared on social media sites easily which will improve its visibility.
Time to switch from link building to link earning?
There is a subtle but significant difference between link building and link earning. In the past, search engines used to give webmasters a lot of importance to links that were built manually but now they have started giving more weightage to links that are earned naturally. If you want your website to rank higher in SERPs then start writing quality content on a regular basis so that people can come across it without having to rely upon any external source. However, if you have been using PBNs for backlinking purposes then it is time for you to stop doing so because Google has been targeting such spammy activities aggressively over the last few months.
How to build links for beginners?
While it is true that people no longer obsess over link building like they used to do in the past, webmasters still need backlinks in order to improve their site's authority and gain visibility. Finding high authority sites that allow you to contribute guest posts regularly can be a daunting task but if you know the right way to approach them then it's not an impossible task. You should start by finding relevant communities where you can share your content because such platforms give quality backlinks without forcing users to follow any rules or guidelines. The second step involves reaching out to individuals who run certain websites and asking them politely if they would like to include a link to your website within their next post.
Don't spam forums!
Google has started manually penalizing websites that are participating in link schemes by marking their domain as "Spam" or "Malicious." So, if you want to stay away from problems then it is advisable for you to avoid posting links on discussion boards without providing an anchor text. It is also not a good idea to share the same article multiple times because search engines are smart enough to detect such spammy behavior which can end up hurting your brand's reputation. Spammy backlinks can get removed easily so make sure that you don't post anything new on the internet without submitting the old ones first.
Wrapping up!
SEO is ever-evolving and to stay relevant in the industry, your business needs to follow the latest trend to boost SEO and customer experience. Keep these aspects in mind to grow your small business through the power of SEO.
Author Bio –
With over 13 years of experience as a leader in digital marketing, Mansi Rana is Managing Director of EZ Rankings. Passionate about all things data; providing actionable business intelligence in digital, future tech; and venture bubbles categories for everyone, everywhere.
Effective Ways To Begin Strengthening Your Small Business Today
Running a small business is rarely an easy task. Not only do you often have a lot on your plate just trying to keep things running, but it can become extra difficult when you are working to either strengthen your business or create more business growth. The good news is, though, that there are many things you can do to help spur new growth that will help make your business stronger in the long run as well. If you're looking for ways to run your business more efficiently as you move forward, then here are some things to consider.
Do New Research
While you may have done plenty of research initially when beginning your business, over time things can change, and doing some new research can be beneficial. When you do new research, you may discover that some marketing strategies aren't as effective as they were initially, or you may develop a clearer picture of who your target audience is. Additionally, it can be helpful to do new research about things like revenue management or office organization, that can help you to get a better handle on how to structure your business, especially if you plan to take steps to expand it. With this new research, you can get a clearer idea of what your business needs, not just in the moment but as you move forward as well.
Revamp Your Business Plans
After you have done some new research, it can be a good idea to revamp your business plans as well. Through doing some new research, you may have found that there are better or more updated ways to go about achieving your goals, and you may have realized that you need to set new goals altogether, too. In some cases, your original goals may have been more ambitious than what you are currently able to go after. In others, it could be that you have surpassed some of your goals and need to set new ones to ensure that your business is growing like it should. Either way, reassessing goals and tweaking your business plan as a result can help you focus on the best ways to move your business forward, and can re-invigorate your vision for your business overall.
Understand Your Financial Options
Along with doing more research and assessing your plans, taking some time to understand all of your financial options can be helpful, as well. This can be particularly true if you intend to obtain a loan for your business anywhere in the near future. If you have reassessed your business plan, then you should be aware of the financial situation of your company, and more in tune with what kind of loans or financial options would work best with your business structure.
For example, it can be helpful to have a thorough understanding of the difference between a traditional loan, and a line of credit. Traditional loans can be great for businesses that need predictability in their finances, and that are stable enough to be able to make regular payments each month. A traditional loan can be a great option for those who are prepared to make payments for a well into the future, as well.
However, for those who need more flexibility or who aren't able to plan long term yet, a traditional loan may be cumbersome, and could be harmful in the long run. In these kinds of situations, a line of credit may be a better option. With a line of credit, you can spend as little or as much as you need to, which can be great for small businesses that are just getting started, or for seasonal businesses that have varying amounts of cash flow throughout the year.
Budget Better
Another way to begin strengthening your small business is to begin budgeting better. While some may think that their current budget is fine for their business, the reality is that in many cases it could be improved. Some may think that a budget that covers costs and nothing more may be good enough, but in truth many businesses would benefit from making significant cuts to their budget. One way to start budgeting better is to take your current budget, and cut it in half. Even though this may seem like a dramatic cut to some, the truth is that even if you can't cut your budget quite that much, a dramatic cut in your budget can give you a new perspective on how you are spending your money.
Some may realize that there are things they are expending funds on that they don't need at all, and others may realize that there are areas where they could easily trim their budget that they hadn't thought of before. Beyond that, by trying to operate on reduced funds, you will often have to find new and creative ways to get things accomplished within your business, which can be a beneficial way to think in other areas of your business as well.
Try New Technology
One simple thing that can help strengthen a business of any size is trying out new forms of technology. At the beginning, introducing new ways of doing things at your business may slow some processes down while everyone is adjusting to the changes. However, over time, new things like better inter-office messaging and AI to support your customer service team can help get your business better organized. The better organized your business is, the more that you and your employees will have the time to devote to projects that are truly important, and that can move the company forward, rather than continually dealing with small, menial tasks.
Get the Most Out of Social Media
Something else that is effective for strengthening your small business is doing what you can to get the most out of social media. At times, maintaining multiple social media pages may feel like a chore. However, in reality social media can have many benefits for your company, and can help spur meaningful growth. Social media can not only be great for better understanding and connecting with customers, but it can also be great for building brand awareness, too.
One of the benefits of social media is what it can allow you to learn about customers. Not only can you respond to comments that they leave on posts, but you can also post surveys and ask questions about their preferences, and what interests them in your brand. This can not only help create feelings of loyalty with customers, but it can give you valuable information about them as well.
Another of the benefits of social media is that it can help you to better define your brand, and find your voice as a company. The more that you can define your brand through things like your tone and through your values, the better able customers will be to recognize you and identify you with your products, which can ultimately lead to more sales.
The Bottom Line
Running a small business can be difficult, especially when you are taking active steps to improve and expand it as well. The good news is, though, that there are many straight forward things you can do to help generate positive growth for your company.
5 Ways for Small Businesses To Start Advertising on Social Media
Small businesses often have a difficult time breaking into the world of advertising. However, the internet has created more opportunities than ever before for anyone to advertise to any demographic of people you wish. Social media advertising is one of the most powerful tools that every company can use for free, and many of those platforms also sell advertising space available to any company for any reason as long as you follow their policies. Here are five ways to grow your small business through marketing strategies that are attainable almost entirely through social media platforms.
Basic Advertising
If you do not already have at least one social media page that customers can visit to learn more about your business, you are missing out on so much free advertising. Make social media posts promoting any sales, events, or other reasons potential customers may want to visit. You can also use it as an extra customer service venue. Encourage your customers to send you messages on social media. It is quick and easy both for them to send and for you to respond.
As mentioned above, you can also buy as little or as much advertising space as you want from various social media companies, such as YouTube and Facebook. You can make an ad yourself and then select for how long you want to run each ad campaign so that it fits your budget. Most of these platforms will then provide you with analytics so you know how many people saw your ad, what demographic those people were in, and how many people clicked.
Brand Ambassadors
The number one job that kids want to have when they grow up today is social media influencer. Regardless of how that fact makes you feel, you can probably capitalize on that desire. There are millions of social media profiles on various websites run by people with dreams of becoming influencers. If you find someone who exemplifies the image that you want your company to project, try reaching out to him or her to see if he or she is interested in working with your brand.
The best part is, you can offer them products in exchange for their services instead of money. There are hundreds of small companies who pay their brand ambassadors in products or store credit, and there are thousands of people willing to work with you for minimal payment. If you have ever wondered how to start a brand ambassador program, you can start easily as long as you are following the laws in your jurisdiction.
Medium
You may have wondered at some point why there are so many social media platforms that all seem so similar. Most of the time, the answer is either specialization or medium. Certain subgroups within social media platforms break off from the larger platforms to create smaller communities that specialize in certain topics, and each social media platform has a different medium of content that its user expects to consume. When you visit YouTube, you expect to see long-form videos.
When you visit Twitter, you expect to see short text posts that might have pictures or short videos attached. When you visit Instagram, you expect pictures to be the main focus. Learn which platforms appreciate which types of posts and curate your content to fit the whims of that platform's algorithm. Also, keep in mind what websites your demographic is more likely to use. Older people tend to use Facebook, young adults spend time on YouTube, and, right now, children and teenagers use TikTok.
Engagement
When you open your social media or website statistics for the first time, you might be confused about what you are looking at. If you are only looking for a surface-level understanding of the numbers, the three most important figures to look at are views, engagements, and followers, and of these, engagement is the best indicator of your success.
The number of views a post or webpage gets is the most self-explanatory of these. It is simply the number of people who have seen your page or post. Sometimes, these figures will be separated into total views and separate viewers. Followers are also easy to comprehend. The people who follow or like your page, depending on the platform, have signed up to see everything that you post soon after you post it. Engagement tells you how many people have interacted with your post after seeing it. This could include liking the post or clicking a video, and you can usually check what these interactions are.
Brand Recognition
Brand recognition has been important for as long as brands have been around, but that rings even truer now. Logos are plastered everywhere you look today on billboards, on clothing, and, of course, on every screen you interact with. A company with a logo that imprints itself in the mind of its customers is likely tied to a successful business.
There are countless studies pertaining to which aspects of logos are the most effective, but as a general rule, your company name or the equivalent should be displayed in a custom font, and it should use a vibrant, eye-catching color, preferably blue or red. If you can afford to get your logo designed by a professional artist, you should do that, but there are also several online resources that can help you create your own professional-looking logo. Make sure you put your logo somewhere on everything you produce including your social media profile, flyers, and merchandise, especially clothing items.
Social media is one of the most efficient marketing tools that any company, especially small businesses, has ever had at its disposal, so do not brush it off as a fad. Successful businesses need to keep up with the ties, and that means embracing trends as they come, even if they disappear after a few months or years. Do not allow your arrogance or hubris that discriminates against new trends to prevent your business from becoming the best it can be.
3 Tips To Help Your SME Stand Out And Stay Ahead
Leading a distinctive business in today’s climate can seem like a nigh on impossible task.
As The Telegraph rightly note, there are millions of SMEs out there, with each serving as part of the backbone of the British economy. For others to hear your voice among all the noise, a few choice strategies are required. To stay ahead of the competition, you first need to stand out, and while it is difficult to fight for prominence as an SME, maintaining your success is challenging also.
Here are 3 tips to help your SME stand out and stay ahead.
Outsource Marketing
You can orchestrate your own marketing efforts, but the results might not be as impactful as they might be coming from dedicated specialists.
To reach its full potential, your firm needs to be exposed to the masses as effectively as possible. You can’t do that with middling results, so utilising the skills of SEO experts and top tier brand design agencies is the way forward. You can strike up a productive partnership with any one of these supporting players and have a more visible firm in your lap sooner rather than later.
To work with the best, look no further than Ice House Design, who have provided a steady flow of brand design strategies for a rich range of clients. They understand that effective branding brings clarity, creates differentiation, fosters loyalty, and influences decision making. Additionally, they also note the fact that their strategies can help attract and retain talent. Ethos, values, and aspiration are at the heart of their efforts, so to work with them will bolster your position considerably.
Hire Dynamic Characters
There are a lot of qualities to look for when deciding who to recruit among potential employees.
Once a brand design agency has given you a characterful framework to accentuate, it’s important that everyone you recruit emulates the quality of that brand. This is especially true in customer or client facing roles, where they must represent not only the needs of the business, but the character of the company too.
But what would a strong character consist of? Proactive attitudes and the ability to take on constructive criticism are amongst many people’s pick of favoured personal qualities in the graduate market, but they can extend to any job candidate too. The best kinds of workers are flexible, with a demeanour that organically adapts to each situation appropriately. Don’t just hire a nice person or a productive worker; instead, focus on recruiting more dynamic talent. It is no use being nice if the employee has a poor aptitude for work, and it’s no use being productive if their personality turns customers off from the firm.
Customise Delivery Services
The more unique your delivery service is, the better.
Shipping out goods effectively is the opportunity for your firm to put its money where its mouth is. For example, Uber Eats use their delivery service to show support for the black community, offering free delivery from restaurants run and owned by black people. They are also offering discounted rides too. Staying ahead can sometimes mean matching the public mood, pushing hard for a social good.
Free next day delivery and order tracking are also highly appealing prospects for many. It all shows that your SME isn’t just standing to make a profit by any means necessary, but to legitimately improve everybody’s quality of life. Proving that intent will undoubtedly help your business to stand out and stay ahead.
The Why and How of Social Media Marketing Budgets for Small Businesses
Social media marketing, SMM, is quickly becoming the best way to reach your audience with both advertisements and organic interactions. Most platforms even offer a way for customers to shop your store from your profile, giving convenient access to your products and services for engaged customers. Companies of all sizes are increasing their social media presence as well as their marketing budget for these platforms and your small business should take advantage of this trend as well.
Why Should Your Company Have a Social Media Marketing Budget
Your company can gain many benefits from not only being on social media, but from having a portion of your marketing budget dedicated to these platforms. Because many of the customer interactions on social media are organic in nature, even a small budget can go a long way. You can find companies offering Social Media Marketing for small business software and management to help you make the best of any budget.
Brand Awareness
Social media is one of the best platforms for brand awareness because any interactions you have with customers are shared with their followers by the algorithms controlling their feeds. You can boost this awareness by encouraging your audience to share content through contests where individuals need to tag friends or share posts to enter. You can also incorporate off-line interactions through asking customers to post pictures of themselves with your products, leave reviews on your platform profiles and much more.
Audience Research
Because your audience is on social media, you can use marketing analytical tools to research what is trending among your current and potential customers. You can also post surveys on your page to determine what customers are looking for now and what things they would like to see your company offer.
Staying Competitive
Your competition is on social media and probably has a budget for advertisement, social media management and the tools needed for data analysis, so you need to have one as well to stay competitive. You can also use these platforms to get an idea of your market share and what innovative ideas the competition is using to get ahead.
How You Should Spend Your Budget
Having a budget for your SMM is only as effective as how you spend it. Looking for the most cost-effective marketing strategies for each platform and your targeted audience may take some trial-and-error, but the more you refine your data analysis, the easier it will be to make your budget work for you.
Content Creation
Just like in Search Engine Optimization, the relevance and type of content you put on social media will have a big impact on your customer engagement and your conversion rates. While you can spend time creating your own content, it is also important to include a budget for high quality photos, videos and advertisements for these platforms. You can work with SMM firms to generate daily posts or have a dedicated social media team member to generate content fitting with your brand identity and marketing strategy. Remember that your cover photo and profile pictures are content that your audience will interact with more frequently, so spending the funds on quality pictures can help your online presence look more professional.
Advertisements
While organic engagement from posts is one of the best ways to stretch your marketing budget, having some paid promotions on social media platforms is a good way to increase your audience and get sales conversions. Some platforms will let you pay to boost posts in addition to pay-per-click ad options so the algorithms can work in your favor more often. When you are just starting out on social media, running an advertisement on each platform for a month can show you whether that is a good outlet for your company or if your audience is elsewhere, it can also help build an initial audience for your profiles and give you valuable audience research.
Analytics
Data analytics is how you get reports on how your advertisement campaigns are performing, how your audience is reacting to your content and how you can improve your Social Media Marketing strategy. You can find analytical tools through the social platforms or through third parties to help you gather and interpret this information into concise reports and actionable insights. While some of these apps are free, you can usually get more insightful tools by paying for a Social Media Management app which offers analytical tools.
Social Media Management
Hiring someone to manage your social media and your SMM campaigns can be one of the best investments you make with your budget. Not only can you benefit from the experience and expertise these firms offer, you can also free up yourself and your staff to focus on core competencies instead of spending all day in the office monitoring your company social feeds. Even apps designed to manage your social media can help make your SMM campaigns a success with the ability to time uploads and monitor post engagement on multiple platforms from one portal.
Influencer Collaborations and Promotions
Paying influencers to collaborate with your brand or promote products can help you reach a wider audience and increase your follower counts. Many influencers will do unboxing videos advertising your products if you reach out to ask, and some will be willing to collaborate with you for the cost of the items you send or in exchange for promoting their page in return. It is important to look for influencers with overlapping audiences for the best effect and to include time for planning and creating the collaboration in your budget.
Social media platforms are becoming the best place for marketing campaigns, no matter the size of your business. These platforms can increase your audience reach through both organic interactions and paid promotions with the right content, analytics and management. You can start your SMM campaign for free, but having a budget to spend on paid ads, influencer promotions and management tools can increase your online presence and sales conversions. Starting small and working up with your campaign can show you the most effective ways to spend your budget as well as which platforms reach your target audience best.
Tips for Building Your Small Business With Solid Marketing Strategies
When you have a small business, watching it grow can be rewarding. However, if it isn't growing like you want it to it can be easy to feel frustrated as well. The good news is, though, that there can be many easy ways to help build your business, especially when it comes to the marketing strategies that you use. If you are looking for some marketing tips that will help you develop your small business properly, here are some things to consider.
Get Into Your Research
Some of the most important work you can do will often happen before your small business gets off the ground, or before you even commit to a marketing strategy. The research that you do, or don't do, can lay the ground work for so many aspects of your business, and can have a lasting impact on its overall success. To make sure that you end up developing a sound marketing strategy, you will need to make sure that you have a strong understanding of the product or service that you are offering. You need to not only be certain that there is enough demand for what you offer, but you also need to know how you fit in with your competition, and how you compare to them.
Along with doing research to establish what the market is like for your product and using commercial utilities to help, you also need to do plenty of research about your target customer if you want to be able to build a quality marketing plan. Even though in some situations advertising as much as possible in as many places as possible may be the best approach, most of the time it is best to tailor your marketing efforts to your target audience, and spend the majority of your time and marketing efforts zeroing in on them. When you spend more of your efforts on those who are most likely to make a purchase from you, you can not only save yourself time, but funds as well.
Make Plans That Will Last
Once you've done adequate research, it is time to start putting together a lasting plan. Even though some may think that they can just do their research and wing it, the reality is that having a plan in place will make it much easier for you to set meaningful goals and reach them, and ultimately have a successful business. When you begin planning, it can be helpful to create both a formal business plan, in case you intend to seek loans or other kinds of financing, and it can also be beneficial to write less formal plans for your own reference, as well. When you do both, you are better able to see how others will be viewing your business, and what you will need to do in a practical sense to make your goals a reality, and you will also be able to be in better touch with what is most important to you when it comes to the growth of your business.
Use New Technologies and Tools
Along with doing plenty of research and planning, using new kinds of tools and technology that are available to you can be a great way to take your marketing to the next level, and make your job easier as well. Some great tools for marketing can include using programs that help you to define who your target customer is, as well as how they respond to marketing you have done in the past. Additionally, other tools you use for your business like accounting or organizational software as well as surge protection devices to help keep business running smoothly, can be beneficial for your marketing in the long run as well. This is because when you streamline other areas of your work, you can free up you and your employee's time to focus on marketing and trying new strategies, rather than small daily tasks.
Get Engaged With Your Social Media
Something else that is important for marketing, especially when it comes to building up a small business is getting engaged with your social media. For some, social media may just feel like a necessary evil, or a chore that they have to do. The reality is, though, that social media is a great resource for marketing your business for free. Not only can you spread the word about your business, what it offers, and any promotions or sales you might have, but you also have a great opportunity to define your brand as well. When you define your brand through doing things like using the same tone across all of your posts, or discussing the causes that are important to you and your company, you help your business to become more distinct, and to stand out in customers minds. When your business is more distinct and recognizable, it can lead to more attention from customers, and ultimately more sales, too.
Use Email Marketing
Another simple way to market your business that can be very effective is email marketing. With email marketing you have the opportunity to turn someone who has already expressed interest in your business into a customer, or to turn a one-time customer into a repeat one. The key to having a strong email marketing strategy is making sure that your emails are interesting, and that they provide offers that appeal to customers. Beyond that, it is also important to make sure that you strike a balance and do not send emails too frequently, or too little. If you send them too often you can end up becoming a nuisance to those on your mailing list. However, it is important to send emails with some regularity, as customers may otherwise begin to forget about your business.
Some Last Thoughts
Watching your small business grow can be rewarding. However, if it is stagnating or simply not making progress at the rate that you would like, you may find yourself feeling frustrated instead. The good news is that there are many simple and effective ways that you can help your business to grow, through your marketing strategies. By doing things like being thorough in your research and planning and making sure that you approach customer service the right way you can help ensure that your small business will being growing for a long time to come.
How small businesses can utilise social media marketing in 2021
Social media has turned out to be an absolute game-changer when it comes to marketing in the 21st century. In the 2000s, users worldwide marvelled at social media's ability to connect them with their long-lost friends. Today, social media has grown to be much bigger and the features they provide continue to be unrivalled.
Besides flaunting their lifestyles and scrolling through hours of content, people also use social media to get to know new products and brands. Do not assume that a well-planned social media marketing strategy can only be carried out by a massive corporation with dedicated teams. Even if your business emerged in the market relatively recently, and your workforce is comparatively smaller, you can still use social media in your marketing strategies.
Why should you use social media marketing?
In this digital age, people live a large part of their lives virtually. This shift to the virtual world was accelerated in 2020 when real-life interactions became risky and social media seemed like the best alternative. Users started spending considerably more hours on their phones, and it was only natural to keep jumping from one app to another. Even if they were playing a game online, they would often open up Instagram and Facebook to see if they have any messages or replies. Social media also became the source for news from every corner of the world.
The accounts followed by social media users are not limited to friends and celebrities. Many brands with rock-solid social media presence have accumulated tens of thousands of followers who enjoy engaging with the content they publish. With the power of shares, likes and sponsored posts, these brands also acquired more and more followers each day. Read on to understand how you too can get the most out of social media for your brand.
Social media marketing goals
Each business would expect a different outcome from using social media marketing. Figure out if you want social media to bring in more customers to your digital marketplace, if you're going to engage in discussions and receive feedback or if you want users to become familiar with your branding.
Once you understand what you want from these platforms, you can create an appropriate plan.
The content
Once you have an idea about how to proceed, you must decide on what you will be uploading on your social media pages. The best way to do this is to examine the pages of companies who have achieved remarkable success on social media. Understand the various techniques they used and the type of content they created for their audience base. You could also get familiarised with what your competitors and other businesses in your field are doing on social media.
Social media provides you with the opportunity to upload many different kinds of content, such as text posts, images, videos, live streams, etc. You can always use a mixture of all these and keep things interesting. But if you desire consistency, stick to one attractive format, complete with your brand logo, design, and colours and occasionally switch things up. Though your brand aesthetic must be present in your posts, they shouldn't be too overpowering and make your page seem like a massive advertisement.
Being regular with your uploads will help bring in more followers. This does not mean that you upload five mediocre posts every day. Once you have settled on the content you will be delivering, create a long-term plan that includes upload schedules and the topic covered each day. Being systematic with your uploads will ensure that you will always have quality content at the ready for regular uploads. Deviate from the plan only if a noteworthy event has taken place or you come across an idea that can significantly boost the engagement.
Advertising
Advertising on social media can be comparatively less expensive and more effective. Social media platforms make use of specialised analytics that understand the behaviour and preferences of its users. So when you create an advertising campaign on social media, your product will be introduced to those who are more likely to develop an interest and become potential customers.
Many platforms give you the options to select the gender, age, region, income, interests, etc. of the people who will be shown your advertisements. This is an excellent alternative to advertising on traditional media such as Television and Newspapers were everyone is shown ads indiscriminately. You will save several bucks and reach the right recipients when you advertise using social media.
Influencer marketing
Another fantastic way in which you can use social media for marketing is by partnering with influencers. With their massive follower base, social media influencers can prove crucial to the success of your brand. Numerous online platforms designed to help you find the most suitable influencers for your specific field can be found online. Once you contact the influencer, you either pay them for talking about your product or send them free products to review.
Only tell the influencer the key points they must mention in their post regarding your product. Social media influencers often use a specific aesthetic or pattern that they follow both for regular and sponsored posts and asking them to design a particular post differently might not work in your favour.
There are several regulations regarding having celebrities and influencers talk about your product. Make sure that they mention that it is an ad or a sponsored post when they upload. Offering them a promo code that can be used by their followers is also an excellent method for conversion and attracting more users to your social media account.
Summing up
When choosing the right platforms for social media marketing, you must figure out where the majority of your customers go to socialise. Social media platform preferences can vary among different age groups, and for some brands, Instagram might be the perfect choice, while Facebook will provide the most benefits for others. There is no harm in cultivating a following on multiple platforms, but you must be well-equipped to maintain your consistency across all the locations. When creating content for your followers, you must also keep in mind your customers and their desires and preferences. Various analytic tools can be used to gather insights regarding those who engage with your posts and products.
Types of Marketing You Should Consider for Your Small Biz
One thing small business owners don't think about enough is marketing. They may assume that highly detailed marketing plans are something only corporations and big chains should be concerned with. This couldn't be further from the truth. Marketing is necessary for a business of any size to achieve long term success. There are plenty of ways to advertise your small business's products and services in today's marketing landscape. Below are just some of the forms of marketing you should consider for your small business.
Social Media Marketing
One thing that can help level the playing field for small businesses in terms of marketing is the internet. In regards to the internet, social media is an extremely powerful tool to wield for marketing purposes. According to statistics, almost 80 percent of the population of the United States uses social media on a regular basis. As such, the possible reach for social media marketing for a small business is truly massive.
One thing social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can do is give you a direct line to the people most likely to consume your products. If someone follows you on social media, there is a very good chance they are already interested in what you are selling. Due to this fact, you get a big bang for your buck in regards to your social media posts' conversion rates. Better yet, using these platforms is completely free. The same certainly can't be said for other advertising platforms.
Localized SEO
In today's mobile internet age, having high visibility in search engine results is more important than ever before. However, small businesses should utilize search engine optimization strategies a bit differently than larger national companies do. Instead, you need to focus your SEO efforts on localization.
Many small businesses either have a single brick and mortar location or cater to a specific local market. If that is true for your business, you need to integrate keywords relevant to your local community into your SEO. Doing so will allow users from your market to find your business more easily in search results. Your localization efforts should also include getting your business listed on all online map services. Obtaining listings on websites like Google My Business and Trip Advisor can give you more visibility as well. Overall, your goal should be reaching the people most likely to buy your products. A generalized SEO strategy that does not include localization cannot accomplish this for many small businesses.
Video Marketing
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. However, using that measure, a video must be worth far more than that in regards to marketing. Traditionally, video marketing was out of the reach of most small businesses due to extremely high expense of running commercials on television. This is no longer the case. Today, you can run video advertisements for free on platforms like YouTube that are frequented by millions of users daily.
However, despite how easy it is to now disseminate video for marketing purposes, you still need to obtain a decent level of production quality to attract an audience. Consider partnering with a firm that produces marketing videos for a small business to create a well polished product. Make sure the video provides something extra to the viewers in addition to informing them of your products and services. Grabbing the attention of consumers is more difficult than ever in the age of the smartphone.
Content Marketing
In regards to providing consumers with something extra in terms of marketing, content marketing is a strategy completely centered on that philosophy. People are inundated with advertisements constantly. As such, they begin to train themselves to ignore them. One way that businesses, including small businesses, can get around consumers mentally blocking out ads is to entice them with content that has value on its own.
Think, for example, of a company that produces retail grocery products. Such a company can publish recipes online that provide value to the reader while also subtly advertising their products as ingredients. It's this kind of clever online marketing that can have the ability to draw in more eyes to your product line. Content marketing is also looked upon more favorably by search engines like Google that tend to punish blatant advertisements in search results.
Final Thoughts
Small businesses have many more options for marketing their products today than in the past. The internet, for all intents and purposes, has leveled the playing field. It's not only huge corporations that can now afford marketing campaigns with real reach, small businesses that only cater to local markets can also use the same internet platforms to reach many more new customers than would be possible without these tools. It truly is a new age for small business marketing.