These days, it is imperative that businesses of all types and implement killer digital marketing strategies if they wish to prosper and profit. This is especially true for small and medium businesses, who realistically cannot compete with large retailers on certain points, such as pricing and promotions, but can provide unique selling points, such as personalization, service and support.
Here are some tips to help you market your SMB online, expand your reach and boost your revenues, like never before.
Tip #1 – Before you get started…
Before you jump right and in start spending time and effort on your business’ marketing strategy, step back and do your due diligence. Research the market, your target audience and any existing competitors, then use this knowledge to set marketing goals you can practically achieve. It is important that these goals and the work they entail fall within your business budget: marketing is not something you should go out of pocket for.
Tip #2 – Create a clear, simple website
You’ve likely heard of KISS before – Keep It Simple Stupid. This saying very much applies to designing your business website. You want your target audience to instantly understand your offering and how they can purchase it, so save the flowery language and detailed descriptions for your next whitepaper or blog post. In a nutshell, all your website needs is a clear-cut homepage, individual pages for different product groups or services provided, a FAQ page, testimonials or reviews, an “About” page and a “Contact Us” page. If you want to add additional pages for relevant resources or a blog – great, but not entirely necessary for your website to drive conversions.
Tip #3 – Invest in SEO/PPC
When it comes to ensuring your business website is viewed by your target audience, money spent is money earned. As such, it’s a good idea to make room for search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) spend in your online marketing budget – they are, after all, the most targeted way of reaching those who want your offering most. In addition, for your website to appear as one of the major search engines’ top results, be sure to include high-ranking SEO keywords in your URL and content and partner with industry-related sites and blogs to write content as a guest contributor.
Tip #4 – Create unique, value added content
Speaking of content creation, another great way of marketing your online business is by creating new and exciting content related to your offering – blog posts, case studies, webinars and more. Be sure to use real-life examples of why and how your product or service will benefit your customers and don’t be modest – when new developments arise, put out an informative press release and tell the world all about them!
Tip #5 – Leverage social media
Social media is a vast and (relatively) unfiltered wealth of information for internet users and potential future customers from all over the world. Consumers are already spending much of their day on social channels; all you need to do is show them that you’re there as well. Choose one or more social networks to market your business on and post often. Create a business page, launching business ads, use images, videos and any other eye-catching tricks you may have up your sleeve. Pinterest and Instagram are currently all the rage – make sure your presence is felt and the click-throughs will come though.
Tip #6 – Geo-target
What shoppers love most about SMBs is the fact that they’re small, local and personable. Use this to your advantage and geo-target your customers based on their location. This could involved custom shipping pricing for consumers in your vicinity, the option to shop online but pick up in-store at a discount, or even different shipping dates presented up-front for residents of various locations within the store’s shipping reach. Doing so increases transparency and will therefore increase customer satisfaction, guaranteed.
Tip #7 Remember email marketing
Engaging in email marketing and sending out email reminders are great ways to interact with and retarget existing customers, as well as cart abandoners who provided their email addresses before leaving your site. Integrate your email marketing campaigns with your other online marketing efforts to create a comprehensive, customer-centric service experience they won’t be able to resist.
Are you making the most of your SMB’s online presence? Navonline can help you create your engaged online community – today.