ENTREPRENEURS SHARE 5 RARELY-USED MARKETING STRATEGIES
Small businesses often struggle with how to market themselves effectively. While there are a number of common marketing strategies, there are also a few that are very effective, but rarely used. We asked our interviewees to name five marketing strategies that small businesses should start using? Here’s what they said:
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Laura Di Franco
Title: CEO
Company: Brave Healer Productions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-di-franco-mpt-1b037a5/
The theme of these ideas is community building — something that will separate successful business owners from the rest of the pack.
1. Publishing a book that brands and markets the business, or
2. Publishing a collaborative book that not only builds the brand and business, but also builds a community are extremely powerful marketing strategies, if done right. Every single business requires a strong, dedicated community for success. There’s power and great strategy in positioning yourself as the leader of your community, and growing that community with dedicated colleagues who help build each other’s businesses. This can be brilliantly executed by writing, publishing, and launching a book!
3. Build a dedicated launch team (and partners) for your book (service, or product). What I love about building a launch team is that you can take this strategic idea and use it for anything you’re doing in your business. Powerful launch parters will guarantee your success when it comes to launching something in a bigger way. Not just for books, inviting partners to help you launch something in your business means you’re getting their commitment, and access to their platform.
4. Create a live talk show that is centered around building community around a specific topic of mutual interest. Notice the community building theme here. A live online event with a strategy to build relationships not only markets your business, but continues to grow the dedicated community that will mean the difference between success and failure for most businesses. This is way more than a podcast, y’all, it’s a way to interact and engage with your community and your prospective clients.
5. Offer a weekly or monthly live Q&A on your topic of expertise. This can be done through social media (like a Facebook group) or through a Zoom event. Any way you do this you’re giving your prospective clients an opportunity to know, love, and trust you, which is how they eventually become clients. If you’re not building the know, love, and trust factor by allowing people to see and hear you and your energy and passion, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to build your community and raving fans who will go out and talk to their friends about you.
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Frederik Bussler
Title: Marketing Consultant
Company: Frederik Bussler
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/frederikbussler
Businesses of all sizes like to use marketing strategies that are tried and true, because they know they work. However, there are a few out-of-the-box strategies that can be very effective for small businesses, and that are not commonly used. Here are five examples:
1. Guerilla marketing is a massively underappreciated strategy that can be very effective for small businesses. This can mean asking local businesses to place your flyers in their store, giving out free samples in high-traffic areas, putting up billboards in creative locations, or even just handing out branded T-shirts.
2. Small businesses often have many mini expenses for things like like coasters, pens, public WiFi, and so on. A creative way to get your brand out there is to offer to pay for these things in exchange for displaying your logo or brand name. White-labeling is another option, where you find products that are already popular and put your own branding on them.
3. Creating an award or scholarship is another great way to get your name in front of high-achieving individuals who may be interested in your products or services. This can be done by partnering with a local school or community organization.
4. If you have a brick-and-mortar location, make sure you’re taking advantage of local SEO. This can mean creating blogs like “5 Best Coffee Shops in [Your City]” and adding your business to local directories.
5. Get involved in trade shows or conferences that are relevant to your industry. This can be a great way to network with potential customers or clients, and to get your name out there.
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Michael Clancy
Title: CEO
Company: CarDonationCenters
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-clancy-b15b7124b/
Five Uncommon Marketing Strategies That Should be Implemented
1) Build authentic & transparent customer relations
As companies grow their customer relation approach tends to become mechanized and methodical. While this marketing approach makes it easier to access the masses it sacrifices the individualistic approach and that is far more effective when it comes to achieving repeat purchases. I believe it is ideal for companies to develop authentic, transparent and individually targeted customer relations. This not only improves customer satisfaction but also builds on customer loyalty and repeat conversions.
2) Build a meaningful customer experience
The primary aim of any marketing strategy is to improve the awareness of a brand, product or service and measure the effectiveness via leads, engagement and conversions. This, while true, does not touch upon the importance of building a meaningful customer experience. When a company markets itself to a customer, hoping to create a demand, it is equally important they create a positive customer experience. This can be done through engaging the customer through activities, contests or challenges across the conversion process or providing them with value additions that go beyond the simple purchase. The journey is far more important than the destination.
3) Push your after-sale campaign
Post-purchase dissonance is a very real phenomenon and the best cure for it is a post-sale campaign. Incorporating this in your marketing strategy is ideal for alleviating customer hesitancy.
4) Focus on Out-of-Home marketing
The importance of marketing via social media and utilizing influencers has overshadowed the alternatives but those can still be equally important if not more so. The marketing clutter on social media has become so prevalent that customers tend to mentally block these advertisements and that is why it is so important to focus on Out-of-Home marketing such as billboard and bus stop advertisements and mall campaigns etc. These tend to have a far more lasting impact and the greater the engagement the greater the retention.
5) Market Your Social Impact
Customer dynamics are ever changing and one trend that I have observed consistently the last few years is the importance of social impact. Customers are more likely to return to your company if they believe doing so makes a visible and positive social impact.
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David Reid
Title: Sales Director
Company: VEM Group
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vem-tooling
Best marketing skills make a lot of difference in your business’s growth. It helps your business’s promotion and affects people who can be your future customer. The best marketing tip I can give to you is what I have noticed not only as a business owner but also as a viewer or buyer. Everyone does marketing on all kinds of social media platforms, but what strategy you use in marketing to help promote your business and generate many customers matters a lot. I noticed that attracting viewers’ attention is the most important part. Grabbing everyone’s attention is difficult nowadays, so you must be unique. It surely works when you use a unique way to promote your business and apply it with a good strategy. Hence you can adopt your way of promotion and try to touch your viewer’s heart.
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Josh Thill
Title: Founder of THRIVE ENGINE
Company: THRIVE ENGINE
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshthill/
Merge your social media and email accounts:
This is a unique approach that few people ever think to use. As a marketing strategy, email is unrivaled in its ability to bring in new business and keep existing clients happy. Email marketing lets you get in front of customers right where they spend most of their time, whereas social media sites’ ever-changing algorithms make it harder for your postings to get seen. Share a link to your email sign-up form or your Text-to-Join keyword on all of your social media pages to turn casual site visitors into active email subscribers.
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Don Evans
Title: CEO of Crewe Foundation
Company: CREWE FOUNDATION
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donevansprofile/
Combine forces with another manufacturer.
This is a unique approach that few people ever think to use. The easiest method to get popularity is often not to create it from scratch but to pilfer it from someone else. That is how I grew JustReachOut from zero to more than five thousand paying clients using only my funds. A recommendation from a firm they already like is one of the finest methods to gain the trust of these decision-makers, as 72% of them will go out of their way to buy from a reputable brand, according to the research. Concurrently, you may team up with other firms that provide something similar to your target demographic but in a different product line. If, for example, your target market is people who work in public relations (PR), try to find similar businesses that sell items that go well together.
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Inga Broerman
Title: Vice President of Marketing at BluLogix
Company: BluLogix
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ingabroerma
Engage in (and lead) the conversation:
In general, people don’t go about it this way. Seek out forums where you may share your knowledge of the sector with possible clients. This may be done in person at panels or virtually in online communities like the Constant Contact Community. The more familiar you get with your target audience, the more success you will find. Your company will be the first that people think of when they need your product or service.
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Micheal Lees
Title: Chief Marketing Officer
Company: EZLease
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellees/
Improving content’s value:
It’s not a popular tactic, thus most people don’t do it. Use content creation and curation to establish your company as a thought leader in your field and attract new consumers. Articles, pictures, and videos that will interest your demographic might all fall into this category.
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Jeff Moriarty
Title: Marketing Manager
Company: Moriarty’s Gem Art
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmichaelmoriarty/
Live shopping is something small businesses definitely aren’t doing. Unsure if it is because they think it is a high cost or requires too much technical knowledge, but neither is the case.
This year we started doing live streams through Facebook and Youtube to our local and online customers. We wanted to make sure to pivot into other platforms to increase our company’s exposure, especially if less people are buying during the recession. These live streams were both educational and commercial in nature. The live shows allowed visitors to view our items, buy online and ask questions. We are now getting about 2,000+ viewers watching our show each month. Not only has it helped to stay connected with our customers via social media and Youtube, it has generated a ton of sales ($30,000 from our last month’s show) for our business. We are confident this will help us get through any possible recession.
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Kent Lewis
Title: Chief Marketing Officer
Company: Deksia
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentlewis/
1. Short-form, vertical video on social platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube: the highest life form on social media is engaging, memorable and can be edited into 4 content formats: video, images, audio and text files.
2. Web 3: developing a presence in the decentralized web, whether that be NFTs, AR or the metaverse. Go where early adopters hang out, especially if that is your audience.
3. Influencer marketing: identify and engage potential brand ambassadors across platforms most relevant to your target audience.
4. Thought leadership: speak, write and submit for industry awards to build credibility via third party validation.
5. Schema markup for an SEO boost. This is so complicated and powerful I outlined a case study below.
Schema Markup for SEO:
SEO has been essential to my company’s growth over the past 22 years. In fact, some of our largest and best clients found us on Google. The most effective SEO strategy we’ve utilized is creating FAQs and blog posts with schema markup. For example, Anvil’s SEO team optimized the page below to rank for augmented reality marketing months ago, and it quickly ranked and drove volumes of traffic for a month or two:
What is augmented reality marketing?
An editor at The Economist soon reached out to us as a source for a story, as our blog post ranked #1 for related searches (it’s since decreased with a recent Google algo update). The resulting coverage can be seen here:
Using augmented reality in marketing
https://applied.economist.com/articles/using-augmented-reality-in-marketing
Here’s another SEO case study example… In 2017, Dormify, tapped Anvil to help improve organic visibility in a very competitive market. As of this email, Dormify is still #1 in Google for the term “room décor” which is a major accomplishment, considering the competition: Pottery Barn Teen, Amazon, Etsy, World Market, Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot and Target. Case study:
It took 2+ years of intense search engine optimization (SEO) strategic planning, implementation, monitoring and maintenance to achieve the aggressive goal, but the collaboration between Anvil and Dormify couldn’t have been more seamless and effective. Our partnership truly made the difference: a strategic agency and a client with the ability to implement recommendations in a timely manner.
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Luisa Zhou
Title: Founder
Company: LuisaZhou.com (and Zalstrom)
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisazhou
1) Cold pitching (reaching out to cold email prospects you don’t know from before) — Cold pitching can be a highly effective way to reach clients, especially when you’re starting out. You do need to tailor your pitches, so it’s not a fast strategy, but if you do it in the right way, you can get a good number of clients relatively fast compared to, say, building your brand on social media. Really take the time to think about how your services can help your prospects.
2) Word-of-mouth-marketing — WOM marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies. The leads/clients you get this way are all profit and they are high-quality prospects because they’ve already heard so much good about you. However, you do need to ask for referrals–and a great incentive is to offer a commission. Your existing clients know you and if they enjoy working with you, they’ll be happy to refer you, so the referral fee is just a bonus for them.
3) Get on podcasts — Podcast interviews are great for getting in front of your audience and building a strong relationship with them. They listen to you for half an hour or an hour — and many of them will want to learn more.
4) Go to local meet-ups — Meetups and other events can be a great way to meet your customers and build a relationship upfront so that they want to work with you.
5) Build relationships on social platforms — While most people think of annoying, spammy posts when they think of someone promoting their business on social media, there is a better way. Go to social groups where your audience hangs out (on LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, or other social platforms) without the intention to sell. Instead, start building strong relationships with people, add value, share your knowledge — and along the way, you build both your network and your client list.
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Kyle Kroeger
Title: Founder
Company: Viatravelers
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-kroeger-287a196/
Not executing search engine optimization properly. To help ensure that search engines continue to show your small business site prominently, it’s important to make sure they adhere to the EAT principle. EAT is an acronym for the three main areas Google uses when deciding which sites are seen first in its SERPs.
Then once you’ve grown your site, using SEO to capture emails, harvest emails, build an email list, and then being able to migrate your audience to your other platforms or channels, whether that’s a community, social media or a YouTube channel. You then harvest your customer base and they can then continue to keep up to date with all the information and content your business generates beyond.
Also not using social media correctly. LinkedIn may be the leading professional network, but Facebook earns top marks for customer engagement. With over 2 billion active users each month and a largely bored-at-work workforce, Facebook offers businesses great opportunities for growth.
The most common mistake small business make is not having a strong call to action. Customers need to have a reason to buy from you, and oftentimes they are found on social media pages. Your business must tell them why they should buy your product or service. But when it comes to marketing, there’s one thing small business owners often forget: With every email and ad that goes out, marketers have just one chance to encourage potential leads with a compelling CTA.
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Jodi Brandstetter
Title: Co-Founder and CEO
Company: Influence Network Media
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodibrandstetter/
1 — Authoring a book
2 — Contributing to a collective book
3 — Repurposing content (a presentation, client education, etc) for a blog, video series, or e-book
4 — Volunteering in your community to build trust and allow others to see you and your business in a different light
5 — Be a source for media pieces
More from Jodi:
When I took a leap and became an entrepreneur, I realized that I needed to show my credibility to potential clients. My resume no longer was the tool to help me get a job. I no longer was looking for a corporate role but looking for a company to hire me as a consultant. I needed to put my intellectual property into a container so that I could share my expertise and knowledge with my ideal clients. This would help them see me as the expert that I am. So I decided to write a book. I was able to highlight my expertise and knowledge plus what separated me from other consultants in my book. By always thinking about my ideal client, I was able to write my book for them. Once I published the book and made it an Amazon Bestseller, I had the vessel to help me find my ideal clients. And it worked! All business opportunities that came my way after my book was published were my ideal clients. Did all of the become my client? No, but that was ok! I saw the power of sharing my expertise through a book to help my consulting company thrive. This also helped me see that I could help others with publishing a book and reaping the rewards of new business from that book.
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Jason Moss
Title: President & Co-founder
Company: Moss Technologies REI Marketing Solutions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonwmoss/
1. Using VoIP for marketing.
VoIP operates on the cloud and is a contemporary substitute for landlines. One of the main benefits of switching to VoIP is the ability to segregate personal phone numbers from business phone numbers for incoming SMS and calls. Using this capability, you can generate unique phone numbers corresponding to potential clients’ area codes. This, in my opinion, significantly raises the likelihood that the consumer will attend the demo call.
2. Using longtail keywords as a focus for your SEO campaign.
Although SEO isn’t the quickest method, it is one of the most effective.
For example, you’ll never be able to rank in the top search results on Google for a popular phrase like “real estate” if you have a brand-new site with no authority. Simply said, it’s overly competitive. In contrast, you wouldn’t need to put in as much work to rank for a longtail term like “how strong is the real estate market in Florida?” That’s because a long keyword like that has far less competition.
3. Introducing a referral program
Customer-to-customer referral programs can be incredibly successful, but they are difficult to roll out properly. Making sure both sides profit is the first and most crucial component. If they receive a portion of the sale, people could be reluctant to refer their friends to your promotions, so think about promoting offers benefits to both the referrer and the referee. For instance, if you provide software or services without a high per-user fee, consider allowing friends to invite others for a free trial period.
4. Collaborating with small influencers
The main advantage of utilizing small influencers is that, while having a smaller audience than mega influencers, their engagement rates are rather high. Working with small influencers has more cost savings than working with big influencers.
5. Partnering with another company/brand
One of the most effective methods to grow an audience is not to create one but to take what is already there. Building credibility and trust with clients will be easier by collaborating with powerful, well-known brands whose audiences meet your target market.
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Matt Caiola
Title: VP, Marketing & Communications
Company: 5WPR
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/5w-public-relations/
Repurposing content
Every single piece of content a company creates takes a lot of time and effort to get to the point where it’s ready to be distributed to the target audience. That’s why it’s a big waste if a company simply publishes a piece of content and then completely forgets about it. Instead, companies should be focused on taking every piece of content that they can as far as possible by turning every piece of content into multiple different formats. For example, when a company publishes a blog post, it can share the news with its target audience by talking about the new blog post on social media platforms. It can also share excerpts from the blog post itself later to generate even more attention to the original piece. Additionally, companies can also turn their blog posts into video content, and infographics that can be shared on multiple slides on Instagram, or even a thread on Twitter. That way, every single piece of content can generate a lot more attention with a lot less effort on the part of the company.
Giveaways
Most people enjoy receiving things for free, but to use that idea in marketing efforts companies first must figure out what kind of thing is going to attract potential customers so that they join the giveaway. This is a common mistake that many companies make because they generally tend to give away something that’s completely unrelated to the company or its solutions. A lot of companies have started giving away gadgets or other types of technology such as electronic scooters or the latest devices from Apple. Then, once the giveaway is finished, these types of companies start to wonder why their marketing effort in the form of a giveaway did not generate any potential customers or convert anyone of the target audience. That’s because, for instance, a company in the home decor industry shouldn’t be promoting itself with a giveaway if it’s going to be giving away the latest iPhone. That’s a product that’s not related to the company or its solutions and a much better option would be to have people win some sort of voucher or a discount to contribute to their next home decor purchase instead.
The most difficult time with giveaways tends to be across the tech industry, where companies often wonder how they can give away something to the target audience when they’re providing solutions in the form of platforms and software. Fortunately, there is a great solution for those types of companies as well, as everyone needs access to various tools, and companies in the tech industry can create a tool that can be accessed by the giveaway winners for free. Another option that any company has is to simply give away its solution in a sweepstake or a competition. This is another great way that companies can generate more brand awareness as well as improve and increase their email contact list. Businesses have the option to give away free samples of their solutions, sponsor various events by providing food or beverages, or give away free merchandise or swag.
Partnerships
Companies can create partnerships and work with other businesses to complement each other and create a mutually beneficial promotional effort. In fact, even if two companies share a similar target market or are competitors, they can still benefit from partnering up in many cases and promoting each other to their target audiences. If both target audiences of each company fall under a larger umbrella, which means the customers will be able to take advantage of the solutions from both businesses, companies can go ahead and collaborate with their potential competitors. Another way to create partnerships is to find other companies that don’t compete with a business directly but still share a similar enough target audience. For instance, a local gym can create a partnership with a healthy snack brand in a way that will help both companies tap into each other’s target audiences and cross-promote.
The face of a business
When most customers want to make a purchase, they prefer making a purchase from a specific person instead of a faceless entity. That’s why owners of smaller and newer businesses don’t need to be afraid of standing in front of the public and communicating with the target audience to connect the brand with potential customers. If a business owner feels too camera shy, then, another great option would be to have one of the top employees inside the company become the face of that company instead of the owner themselves. A great example of a business owner becoming the face of their own company comes from Steve Jobs and Apple, which might not have been as popular as it is today if it hadn’t been for him giving Apple a more human touch as a company in front of the public.
Blogging
Companies can reach new potential customers and engage with the existing audience by investing in a blog. That means the company will have to create and publish content on its blog regularly that’s going to be valuable, entertaining, or informative to the target audience to engage with them. A great way to go about creating blog content is to target topics that have a lot of potential in terms of search traffic and business. It’s important to remember that companies also must invest in search engine optimization for each one of their blog posts too so that the blog post can help the company’s business website rank higher on search engine results pages. Another option is to create excellent content that’s going to mention the company’s solutions briefly throughout it. For instance, companies can talk about common pain points the target audience might have and mention how the company’s solution can help in solving those pain points. Including the company’s solution without appearing to be self-promotional gets a lot more customers to start converting instead of turning away from the business because they feel like they are being marketed to all the time.
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Dylan Kaplan
Title: Founder
Company: EnjoyMachineLearning
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsk0203/
1. Target a specific market: When most small businesses think of marketing, they try to target as many people as possible in the hopes of getting more customers. However, this is not always the most effective strategy. It can be more beneficial to focus your marketing efforts on a specific group of people that are more likely to use your products or services. This way, you can create customized marketing messages that are more likely to resonate with your target market and convert into sales.
2. Get involved with local events: If you want to reach potential customers who live near your business, get involved with local events that they’re likely to attend. For example, if you own a restaurant, consider setting up a booth at a community festival or sponsoring a charity event. This will help raise awareness of your business while also building goodwill in the community.
3. One effective but underused marketing strategy is content marketing. This involves creating helpful and informative content that potential customers will find useful. This can be in the form of blog posts, articles, infographics, or even videos.
3. Building relationships with influencers in your industry: These are people who have a large following and can help promote your business to their audience if they like what you do.
4. Email marketing: First, many small business owners are commonly not aware of the potential benefits of email marketing. Second, even if they are aware of the benefits, they may not have the time or resources to implement an effective email marketing campaign. Finally, some small business owners may be concerned about spamming their customers with too many emails.
5. Search Engine Optimization: SEO can be very time-consuming and requires a lot of effort to maintain. Secondly, SEO can be expensive, and small businesses may not have the budget to invest in it. Finally, many small business owners are not familiar with SEO and how it works, so they are not sure how to implement it effectively.
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Matt Falcone
Title: Publisher / Owner
Company: Louis Capet XXVI
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/louis-capet-xxvi/
I could write a book about this, or talk all day long. I actually wrote a internal 250 page marketing manual for my musicians in our Music Publishing company.
I’d only like to discuss 1 marketing strategy:
Posting in Facebook Groups
10 years ago I built 175 VEGAN groups on facebook, based on the most populated cities around the world. Today the groups have grown to 125,000 members.
Over the past 10 years our groups have:
1.] Assisted in making all 11 hospitals in NYC convert to a Plant Based Meal as being the 1st & “default” meal option. Sept 2022.
2.] Created marriages for hundreds of vegan couples.
3.] Saved the lives of billions of animals.
4.] Converted thousands of carnivores & vegetarians into vegans.
These groups are an excellent example, where there is no spam, nor junk posts not related to veganism. We have a group of volunteers who help moderate all the content.
Along with the general public, many small businesses such as: restaurants & food trucks; in addition to large businesses such as: food distributors, & food brands are active members.
The restaurants post photos of their establishment, menus, & pics of food. As a small business owner, free marketing to a specific demographic is not really available anywhere else, unless there placing a paid add in a nationwide wide vegan magazine. In these groups, restaurants have access to free advertising to about 5,000 members per each city.
The groups are very active, with hundreds of comments every day. There probably some of the greatest websites on the internet. Tourists & locals make up the majority of membership. They post things like, “I’m visiting this part of town next week, where can I eat?”
Facebook’s search feature also work for “inside” the group, where a user can search for a specific term, and see all the previous posts, such as “West Los Angeles.”
http://www.LaserLightShow.ORG/Vegan-Facebook-Groups
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Tanner Rankin
Title: CEO
Company: The Source Approach
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tannerrankin/
In my eCommerce consultancy, I find most small businesses rarely think of:
1) Getting Included on Best & Top Lists:
No matter what you sell, being positioned as the “best” or “top” will increase your perceived value and boost demand. The good news, there is no shortage of “best” and “top” lists that do really well on Google and Social Media. Small businesses especially should find lists that cover their subject matter and seek inclusion.
2) Actively Seeking Positive Advertorial Style Reviews In Articles And Amplifying Those Reviews To Target Customers Through Native Advertising:
What sounds better? “Hamilton Beach Food Processor Review” or “The $30 Kitchen Gadget That Changed My Life”. Small businesses will want to be positioned in this way by online publications in articles, then, advertise the articles through Native Advertising to your target customers.
3) Cross-promotion with Joint Ventures:
Partnering with other businesses that have platforms online can pay off big for small businesses. Identify non-competing businesses that share the same target customers and create mutually beneficial promotional joint ventures.
4) Seeking Then Amplifying User-Generated Content:
Small businesses will want to bend over backward to acquire video testimonials, images of customers using your products or services as well as customer stories. Then, amplify them throughout your online presence, everywhere from your website, email, social media, and your customers’ social media.
5) Congregation Marketing:
Most small businesses have a passionate enthusiast that eats, sleeps, and breathes their subject matter. The good news is, that means they know where their customers congregate online, from the Facebook Groups they take part in, Podcasts they listen to, and YouTube channels they watch. Your goal? Make yourself visible and appealing where your customers are while showing them you are “one of them.”
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Bram Jansen
Title: Chief Editor & Co-Founder
Company: VPNAlert.
Linkedin: https://twitter.com/bramjansen87?lang=en
In my opinion, email marketing has a leg up on other forms of advertising for local businesses because of the ease with which messages can be tailored to each individual recipient. Unlike with other channels, your email marketing list of prospective customers remains under your sole control at all times. Additionally, you are not constrained to broadcast a generic message to the masses, which typically has a low chance of success. Instead, you might modify your approach based on the customer’s position in the buying process. When a customer takes a desired action, such as signing up or making a purchase, you, as the business owner, can begin a drip campaign. After that, you may start bombarding them with emails promoting your wares and providing them with corporate news.
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Joel House
Title: Founder and Director
Company: Xpand Digital
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-house-seo
To help small businesses grow, we wanted to share five marketing strategies you should start using.
1. Social media
Social media is great for getting your name out there and connecting with customers. People are always on their phones, so why not use that to your advantage?
2. SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the visibility of a website or web page in search engines via organic search results. By creating content that’s focused on keywords, you can help people find what they’re looking for faster than ever before.
3. Video marketing
Video marketing is definitely the new black! This method of advertising allows you to create videos that showcase your brand in an engaging way that will connect with your consumers on a personal level.
4. Email marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways for companies to reach their target market. It’s also an excellent way for small businesses with little budget to stay connected with clients without breaking the bank!
5. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the fastest-growing trends in today’s digital world because it allows brands to connect directly with their customers without spending a ton of money upfront on advertising campaigns or expensive media buys.
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Mukesh Sharma
Title: Co-Founder & CMO @ Byaj Book
Company: Byaj Book
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mukesh-sharma-552454130/
1. Create content that is relevant to your audience
2. Promote social media posts and content on your website
3. Create email marketing campaigns
4. Write articles for blog sites like Medium and LinkedIn
5. Use influencer marketing strategies
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Lauren Farley
Title: Co-founder
Company: MotelMatcher
Linkedin: Confidential
I would say the top five marketing strategies that small businesses should start using are:
1. Social media marketing — It’s important for businesses to use social media because it allows them to connect with their customers and build relationships that can lead to increased sales.
2. Content marketing — Content marketing helps small businesses get their name out there by creating content that is interesting and valuable to their readers. This helps build trust with potential customers, which makes them more likely to purchase from the business when they do have a need.
3. Email marketing — Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways for small businesses to reach out to customers because it’s personalized and requires no commitment on the part of the recipient (they don’t need to be interested in anything specific). It also lets people know when new products or services are available from a company, which will help increase sales over time as long as those products or services continue providing value for customers by meeting their needs better than competitors do.
4. Video marketing. Video marketing has been proven to convert better than any other type of ad, so if you’re not doing this yet then you definitely should be! It’s also a great way to connect with your customers on an emotional level — you can show them what your business is all about by showing them how you make your products or what goes into making them!
5. Influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is a great way to get the word out about your products or services because influencers have large followers on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube, which means their followers will see whatever they post. This can lead directly to sales!
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Michael Miller
Title: CEO
Company: VPNOnline
Linkedin: Confidential
I’d recommend that small businesses start using the following marketing strategies:
1. Use social media to get the word out about your brand. It’s inexpensive, it’s easy to use, and it can be surprisingly effective if you’re willing to put in the time — and if you’re willing to listen to what your customers want.
2. Spend time getting to know your audience. Where do they live? What kind of jobs do they have? What are their hobbies? Once you know these things, you can craft an advertising message that speaks directly to them and makes them feel like you really understand them.
3. Follow up with customers who have left reviews for your product or service on websites like Yelp or TripAdvisor or Google Reviews (or any other review site). If a customer has taken time out of her day to leave feedback about your business, she deserves a personal response — and if she writes something negative about you, she deserves an explanation and an apology as well!
4. Invest in paid advertising for social media platforms. If you don’t have a big budget, start with Instagram ads because they tend to be less expensive than Facebook or Twitter ads. You can also try signing up for free trials of paid platforms like Pinterest and LinkedIn so that you can test out their effectiveness before committing to them long-term (or at all).
5. Word-of-mouth. It’s one of the most powerful ways to grow your business. It’s also the easiest way to get started since you don’t need any money or special knowledge to start it. You don’t even need to have a product or service — you just need people who are willing to talk about what you do! Word-of-mouth marketing is so potent because it’s based on trust. When someone talks about your business and tells their friends about it, they’re saying: “I like this enough that I want to share it with others.” That’s a strong statement!
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Kami Turky
Title: CEO
Company: Solar Energy Hackers
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kami-turky-86ab501b2/
Marketing is essential for any business that wants to attract new customers and grow. However, small businesses often have limited marketing budgets, making it difficult to compete with larger companies. While there are many traditional marketing strategies that can be effective, such as advertising and public relations, small businesses sometimes need to get creative in order to make an impact. Here are five uncommon marketing strategies that can be particularly effective for small businesses:
1. Sponsoring local events: This is a great way to get your business name in front of potential customers while also supporting the community.
2. Partnering with other businesses: By teaming up with other businesses in your industry, you can reach a wider audience while also saving on marketing costs.
3. Creating informative blog posts: A well-written blog post can educate potential customers about your product or service and help to build trust.
4. Offering discounts and coupons: Everyone loves a good deal, so offering discounts and coupons can be a great way to attract new customers.
5. Holding a contest: A contest is a fun way to engage potential customers and generate excitement about your business.
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