Marketing is one of the most essential elements of running a small business. Being great at what you do and selling fantastically innovative products that everyone would want is one thing, but if no one knows that you exist, it will be a hard, long journey to becoming successful. The better your advertising and marketing ideas, the more you will be noticed, and the more business you will generate. Even if you have a small budget and little to no marketing experience, you can still boost your business using the following techniques.
Share Your Knowledge
Giving things such as products and services away for free isn’t always a sensible move when it comes to business because it will inevitably cost you money. However, giving away your knowledge is less of a problem. You can do this through your blog, offering handy hints and tips, letting people know how to use your products, and explaining why your services are so useful.
You might also offer workshops and talks in your local area (or further afield if you prefer) that means you can give advice and information, letting people understand just how much you know about your business, and putting them at ease. It is an excellent way to market yourself because it won’t necessarily feel like you are selling to your customers even though technically you are, as you are selling yourself.
Online forums are another superb way of giving away your knowledge for free. Answering questions (while also mentioning your business, of course), will help not only the people who were asking in the first place but other people as well.
Have A Great Website
Your business website is often your primary selling tool, as this is what people will look for first when they want to know more about you. Therefore, the web design needs to be accessible and simple to use, offering the right amount of information without overwhelming the visitor or leaving them asking more questions than they came with. Great web design isn’t something that should be taken lightly, and you can read more here about how to ensure you get it right.
A good website will allow people to navigate easily, to obtain all the information they need, and to even buy from you there and then. It means that you don’t have to spend so much time dealing with customers, and you can concentrate on other areas of the business, such as marketing. If your website does a lot of your marketing for you, and you comply with SEO techniques that make it more easily found when people Google your product or service, you will find that your website is invaluable.
Relevant Content
Simple, non-technical, relevant content either in the form of a blog, a video, newsletter, or on your social media platforms will boost the visibility of your business and is an easy way to conduct at least part of your marketing.
Your content needs to:
- Be engaging
- Attract visitors
- Be shareable
- Be useful
- Show that you are an expert in your field
If you can do these things in whichever ways suits you the best, then you will be marketing without even realizing it for the most part, as more and more people engage with you and want to know more about what you do and how you do it. Using keywords within your content is also essential, as this will boost your search engine rankings, so once more, learning about SEO and implementing the techniques is vital.
Trade Magazines
Is there a trade magazine that relates to your sector? If so, why not contact them to offer your services as a writer? You don’t necessarily need to be technically proficient as if they are a big enough entity they will have proofreaders and editors to help you, but you do need to have an angle or information that has not been seen before. Make a list of all the things you would be confident in telling people about, and then get in touch with these magazines.
Even if they say no, or that they don’t have room, you may be able to offer some help with other features that they have scheduled or even book some advertising that you might not have thought of before. It is always worth getting in touch with and making contacts at these magazines and publications because they may need you in the future.
Get Reviews
Not having any reviews can be a big issue when you are trying to boost your business. Even if someone is tempted to use you, they may be put off because no one has reviewed you. It could even look as though you haven’t been doing any work, or that no one has been pleased enough to bother to write a review for others to see.
If your competition has plenty of reviews, your potential customers will be more likely to use them since they will be able to trust that they will definitely do a good job.
Therefore, obtaining as many reviews as you can is a good thing to do. Make sure you ask each customer to leave you a rating or write a review. You might even want to offer some kind of incentive such as a coupon for money off, for example. Buying reviews is never a good thing, and if you are found out, then it will look bad for your business, but helping people to write a review that they might have written anyway but kept forgetting about is different, and perfectly acceptable.
Enter Competitions
Entering competitions for your sector is not a difficult thing to do – search the internet, and you’ll find plenty that will allow you to put yourself forward for consideration. Some will be free, and others will have an entrance fee, so it will depend on your marketing budget as to what you want to do.
Even if you don’t win, the fact that you entered can be used in your marketing, in your blog, on your website and so on. It will show people that you are good at what you do and could convince them to try you out.
Community manager at Visual Contenting. Jacqueline loves to talk about social media trends, new technology and how they help businesses accelerate their marketing efforts.
