Category - Marketing

You wouldn’t put on athletic shoes without socks — or you shouldn’t — and you wouldn’t run a small business without a marketing strategy in place. It allows you to develop a brand image and create lasting relationships with your customers. No matter what type of company you run, marketing gets the word out and drives new leads your way.

Marketing encompasses a wide range of activities, both online and offline. However, smart marketers have a cohesive strategy that includes different platforms with an end goal in mind.

Types of Marketing

Your marketing strategy is likely made up of several different types of marketing efforts:

• Website content: Content drives people to your site and keeps your website fresh and unique. You can also repurpose it into free e-books you use to collect user emails, for social media posts and as a part of free courses.
• Social media: Social media marketing is a beast of its own. You must understand your target audience, where they hang out and which social media platforms perform best for your business. Tools such as Buffer and HootSuite help track results and keep posts scheduled. Know where younger people are online and where older people spend their time.
• Videos: Around 91 percent of marketers feel videos are an essential element of their promotional plan. People absorb them quickly and the information stays with them longer.
• Advertising: Advertising online and offline requires an eye to detail and an understanding of how ads perform in the digital age. Use strategies such as free offers and new information to drive traffic to your website.
• Events: Attend and host events to get the word out about your brand. Invite top customers and local reporters to a gathering. Set up a booth at a trade show in your industry. Figure out ways to reach those most likely to purchase your products or services.

Keep in mind that more people are conducting zero-click searches on Google. About 61 percent of mobile searches result in no clicks, with users simply reading the headline and feature boxes, and never going to a website other than Google’s search engine.

How Marketing Works

When it comes to marketing, you get what you pay for, but what you pay for needs to be effective. You can throw a lot of money at marketing efforts without any success. However, if you approach it with a specific plan and knowledge of what works well for others, you’re much more likely to find success. Tracking campaigns to see which ones have a good return on investment (ROI) is a must. Once you know which techniques convert well with your buyers, you can repeat efforts and improve your ROI over time.

If you run a small business, you might not have the funds to invest in a team of marketers, so you’ll do much of the work yourself. There are tools that help keep you organized and track the success of different efforts.

Getting Consumers to Care

One of the biggest challenges for marketers if getting consumers to care about what they have to say. There is a lot of noise in the marketing world, and the average person is drowned in ads every day. They wake up and listen to them on the radio, see them in their email inbox, watch them on TV and deal with them on social media. Advertising is nonstop, and most people learn to tune the messages out and focus only on what they care about.

You must tap into emotions if you have any chance of getting consumers to take action. Think about the things you care about and how they relate to your brand. Use factors such as fear, emotions and pain points to grab users and draw them into your world.