If you run a business, no matter how big or small, there’s one thing that will always be true: marketing is how you’ll get customers. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling pies, pencils, spectacles, sports cars, flowers—you need customers to find out about your product and know where to buy it. The good news is that for most businesses this is easy. Here is an easy guide to improving your marketing strategy.
Use SEO Marketing
One of the best ways to get more customers is by using SEO marketing. This type of marketing uses keywords that people are searching for, targeting your business at people who may want to buy what you’re selling.
It’s important to do this properly, though. This digital marketing agency in Brisbane explains that the rules of search engine optimization (SEO) are constantly changing, so it’s important that your brand stays on top of the game through innovative SEO strategies. If you just throw some random words on the Internet and hope they stick then it’ll never work—people can tell when you’re shoving information in front of them like this. You need to make sure your website is well-structured and easy for search engines (and human visitors) to navigate; if not, no one will ever find it!
Use Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the best-known forms of marketing, but it can be tricky to get right. Achieving a good email list will take time and patience, but it’s worth it when you see your sales start increasing.
Make sure that on your website there are subscribe options for people who want to receive regular updates from you about new products or services. This will encourage more people to sign up with you—and once they have done so, don’t bombard them with emails every hour on the hour! Email subscribers are valuable customers because they subscribed to your business out of choice; most companies don’t respect that decision enough and send their customers endless ads through email that aren’t relevant to them, don’t do this. If you follow a few simple rules then your email list could become one of the best sources of new sales for your business.
Host An Event
Events are a great way to get people interested in what you’re selling, even if they aren’t ready to spend any money right now. A lot of businesses will host events as part of their marketing strategies, such as product launch parties or charity fundraisers. You can also host smaller events or ‘pop-up’ shops where customers can come and learn about your products before buying them—and all these things help you build relationships and awareness with potential customers and investors alike.
On the other hand, you need to understand the current situation in the world, and that it might actually be much harder to organize a live event. If you can’t, you should definitely try and create a virtual one. If you choose to do so, you’ll definitely need an event management platform like EventMobi, to keep everything well organized.
Use Social Media Marketing
If you don’t have a social media profile, then now’s the time to start—and if you already do then it’s time to step up your game! Social media marketing is an excellent way to get in touch with new customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones, but make sure that you post things regularly and comment on what other people are doing (calls-to-action like this can be very effective).
Keep in mind that one of the most important parts of using social media effectively is knowing when not to post—such as right before holidays or weekends when there isn’t much going on. You don’t want to annoy anyone by posting too many updates and comments during these periods.
Use TV Marketing
TV marketing is one of the most important ways to get your brand out there—but it’s not just about how much TV you spend, it’s also about choosing the right TV channels. It’s best to go for something that will appeal to your target audience. For example, if they’re tech-savvy then maybe try and find an advert slot on Wired or TechCrunch rather than The Jeremy Kyle Show.
Once your TV advert is ready to go, keep in mind that it’s not just about getting people to watch it. If you can get people to take part in online discussions afterward—for example by asking questions on Twitter or Facebook which you can then address during the next episode, then it will be a much more effective advertising strategy.
Use A/B Testing
A/B testing might sound like some kind of complex mathematical equation, but it’s not—it’s actually one of the easiest (and cheapest!) ways to improve your marketing strategy. All you need to do is come up with two versions of whatever it is that you’re trying to sell, then split test them against each other. Which one gets the best results? Then use that one in the future. You can apply this technique to any part of your business or marketing strategy, so try and think about all the different things you could A/B test when coming up with new products, content strategies, etc.
Be Personal
One of the biggest mistakes that new businesses make is thinking that their marketing strategies have to be formal—whereas, in actual fact, being personal can very often be better. You might think this sounds silly but the truth is personalization works—and not just with names! Talking about blog posts and podcasts as if they were written by friends will make them sound more appealing.
A great example of personalization is the content strategy used by MailChimp, a popular email campaign platform. They will always use your name when sending you an automated email, but they also do other things like make infographics featuring information from your business and even share images of your product on their Instagram page.
Keep Up With Industry Trends
Industry trends can make or break a business and something like the rise of iPhone apps could mean either success or failure (depending on whether your company iPhone develops apps or not), so it’s really important that you keep up with what’s going on in your industry. This doesn’t have to take long—a quick scan of related news articles each morning can be enough. And don’t just read about upcoming trends—you should also follow the ways in which businesses are changing their content strategies too because these will give you lots of great ideas for coming up with unique content of your own.
These are tips and tricks that you can implement right now to improve your marketing strategy. Start by using one at a time and make sure that each one works before moving on to the next—that way you can see exactly what difference they made and whether it’s worth rolling out across your entire business. Once things are picking up, don’t be afraid to experiment with new ideas as well—just make sure that everything ties into the same marketable goal.
About the Author
Magnus Gael is an experienced freelance technical writer, specializing in content related to sales and marketing. He also completed programming courses in “UI / UX design”, iOS, and Python in Mansfield, OH.
Emily Elizabeth says
very interesting guide about marketing. Thanks for sharing. Effective marketing strategies help you to show your potential customers why your product or service is unique and better than your competitors. By following different strategies of marketing more audiences can reach.
Elaina M says
Glad you found the article helpful. Feel free to browse through our blog for more interesting and good reads.
Globe Valves Musaffah Abu Dhabi UAE says
It’s a nice blog with nice post. Keep writing, thank you for sharing this blog.
Elaina M says
Glad you enjoyed reading it, there’s more to explore, just keep browsing.