When running a small business, there are many aspects of the business that need your attention. While every aspect of your business operations is essential, marketing is essential as if you don’t have customers, the rest of the business will crumble. If your business has a good business plan, you should already have a marketing strategy. Still, there are a few areas of marketing you should highlight that can make a world of difference and drive customers to your business. Here are five simple marketing strategies you can implement that will boost your business.
Know Your Customers
Knowing your customer should be a given when it comes to business. Surprisingly, many business owners don’t take the time to get to know who their target customer or demographic is, which hurts them tremendously. First, no matter how big your business gets, you need to realize that your customers are responsible for your success and growth.
While it is understood that some businesses have a wide or unlimited target consumer, most businesses have a specific target clientele. Having this knowledge will direct your marketing strategies to have a laser focus on the intended target. This strategy will gain you customers, but it will save you valuable marketing dollars if you direct your marketing strategies this way.
Use Your Social Media
Social media marketing is perhaps one of the most popular marketing strategies because it’s free (or low cost) and easy to execute. Most people have an online presence on one or more of the three major platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. All three can be effectively used to promote your business and specific products and services you offer.
Facebook has some fairly inexpensive adoptions, and you can create free business pages that will allow you to reach potential customers and interact with existing customers. Twitter and Instagram allow you to interact with customers and potential customers in real-time and inform them of what products and services you offer. You can also answer questions or concerns on all of these platforms and receive reviews on your business page on Facebook.
While you will need to supplement social media marketing with other marketing types, if you have a strong online presence through social media, you can focus the majority of your marketing attention on this area and have great success.
Reward Your Loyal Customers
Sometimes business owners and marketing strategists get hyper-focused on gaining new business and forget about loyal customers. Just take a look at any cable/internet provider and see how many offers they have for new customers and how many they offer loyal customers; those large corporations don’t have to care for you after they get you because they already have your dollars and regular payments. Small businesses should never take on this mentality even if they grow to be a corporation. If you take care of your loyal customer, you can trust they will tell everyone they know about your business. So place in rewards, make them feel loved and cared for at every turn, and keep them happy. Your most loyal customers can be key to ideas and changes that will improve your business, product, or service.
Build Your Network
Networking over the years has almost taken on a negative reputation. When people think of networking, they dream up scenarios of people wandering around, drink in hand, handing out business cards, and having pretentious and shallow conversations. Today’s networking is done more in the digital world and, when brought into real-life, usually culminates in meeting for coffee one on one or social events that have more of a “getting to know you better” vibe than hitting as many people as possible in the palm with your business card.
With this in mind, when building your personal network, keep the word personal in mind. Your network needs to be filled with true “go-to” people you can call upon when you have a need, and they will do the same. Some of the best businesswomen and men have strong relationships, even with their competitors. There are times when your business or theirs cannot fulfill the need of a client, and if you send them their way, that will be bankable networking credit that can prove useful and profitable.
Change Your Strategy
Change is good, especially when it comes to marketing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it is an old adage that carries over in our business world today. However, if your marketing strategies that were working before are now letting you down or not as effective, change it up! Nothing says you have to do the same marketing you did at the beginning week over week or year over year. Your business should be a living and breathing thing, and so should your marketing strategy. Why do you think large and even medium businesses have entire marketing departments? Do you think they would need them if they were doing the same things repeatedly?
Conclusion
When it comes to marketing strategies, something is better than nothing, but if you follow these simple strategies, there will be a large and positive impact on your business. None of these take a lot of time or focus, but they do take some time, focus, and strategy. Try these ideas and see what happens. What have you got to lose?
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