Being small does not have to be a barrier to success. In fact, it can be a strength. Large organisations may seemly have marketing prowess and advertising reach. But their one-size-fits-all approach is not for everyone. Customers are increasingly wanting greater personalisation and a genuine human interaction.
Much like a CV to a job seeker or a show reel to an actor, a marketing plan is the DNA of a small business. It’s what you can use to differentiate yourself from your competitors. With a strong marketing plan, your current and potential customers can understand who you are and what you offer.
A successful marketing plan consists of 3 steps:
Having a polished and professional website is an essential in today’s world. You can build one using templates from platforms such as SquareSpace or WordPress. Ensure you explain your brand. What do you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand? What is special or different about your product or service?
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Social media is a cost-effective way of engaging customers. There’s a variety of platforms to choose from, you just need to work out which one(s) your customers are most likely to use
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Search engine optimisation or SEO is fine-tuning a website so that customers looking for businesses like yours can quickly find you on search engines.
Search engines index and rank websites according to content and the number of hits they get. A free technique you can try on your own website is modifying the content and structure of the text to match likely searched keywords.
It’s not just keywords that matter, though. Links are important too. Because search engines also look for words that match your website content, your website ranking may be disadvantaged if the content and links don’t match. To take an obvious example, if you’re selling shoes, it boosts your SEO to have links related to footwear. For more information on SEO, click here.
Social media platforms offer an ad service and pay-per-click service is used by many companies to successfully improve their visibility on the search engine. Some ads only require you to write text. Others allow images and/or graphics.
Promotion is two-fold. You need to think about all the different ways you can promote your business, e.g. where can you be seen and what you can feature on (often referred to as ‘brand awareness’). What incentives you can offer, e.g. discounts and exclusive previews? These will help people move from seeing to buying.
Irrespective of whether you have started building an email list, here are some tips and tricks.
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