Marketing Strategies To Consider To Drive Your Business To Success

Starting up a business, especially if it is something you feel passionate about, is one of the best things any budding entrepreneur can do. Having that drive and ambition to make something a success is potentially what fuels and motivates you to get up in the morning. Whether you are just starting out, have a fully fledged business, or even class your company a huge success, I think we can all agree that the marketing strategies you put in place are vital to your business growth. It is certainly one of the ways you can steer your business in the direction you want it to go.

Photo courtesy of Max Pixel

However, we can all become a little blinded by it all. Focusing on the here and now, your targets, your sales potential, product, and service. We can forget to invest the time to look at how we make the journey, instead of what it is all about. It takes a while to get your business to where you want it to be, but do you consider how long this will take? Do you contemplate what tools and actions you will need to undertake? A decent marketing strategy can be the difference, the reason someone steps into your store or clicks on to your website. With that in mind, I thought I would share some of the best marketing strategies and ideas you could easily implement into your business model.

Photo courtesy of Pexels

When was the last time you took a look at your branding?

Branding may not sit high on your list of things to be thinking about right now, but this is where you are making a big mistake. Your branding, your logo and your website are all the first impressions your business gets to make. A first impression can be decided upon in a matter of seconds. If someone doesn’t like the look of your website, perhaps can’t even find it on a google search ranking, or finds your colour choices bright and offensive, they will click off and look elsewhere. It may sound materialistic, but it’s true to society today.

Take some time to look at how your branding looks and your website. It’s important to ensure that you stick with an easy to use dynamic, as well as considering lighter and a more cleaned up approach to your brand. Keep things simple, often those simple designs and websites do the most talking. While on the subject of your website it’s all well and good it looking the part, but if no one can find it, what is the point? How you rank in a search engine is vital to your business success online. So many people will start out a web search on websites like Google. Placing in a few keywords or a sentence into the search engine and often look at the first few suggestions. If you happen to be ranked on page two, you may not get a look in. However, putting some focus on search engine optimisation could be a great investment. This is creating backlinks to your site, making those search engines think your website is of importance. It’s also about placing keywords in text, giving you again more opportunity to show up in searches your company will be relevant in. If all of this sounds a little alien to you, then get in touch with an seo company who will do all the hard work for you.

Photo courtesy of pixabay

Don’t forget the power of social media

Your social media profile, be that on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to name a few, is your direct line to your existing and potential customers. It’s important to ensure you have an engaged audience. What they can do is extend your reach without you needing to do much else. Commenting on updates in Facebook, for example, will show in their followers feed. They may then take a look at what that person has been looking at, as we can all be a bit nosey, and then the chain reaction continues. You get to put eyes on your business by simply keeping your social media profiles updated, engaging, and full of content people want to see and read.

You can even consider investing some money into advertising through social media. Facebook and Twitter, for example, can then place your ad in front of people within a demographic you have requested. For very little, normally a daily charge, you can increase your presence and reach for your business.

Giving your business a voice actually can humanise your company and make it much more appealing to deal with. This can be done through status updates and call to action comments, but it could also be done through a blog. Allowing you space to discuss offers or share knowledge in a non-offensive un-sales like manner. A blog is another page of your websites, helping you with that all-important SEO we mentioned earlier.

Photo courtesy of Damian Zaleski via unsplash

Call to action comments could be a little different for you. Perhaps you ask for feedback on your social media pages, maybe run a completion which could get your page shared and increase your audience. There are many things you can consider. The trick would be to take a look at what other businesses are doing. You may not want to copy the style, but you can take note of what some businesses do well, or improve where they fail.

Consider your local community

A great tip is to ensure that you consider your locality. Perhaps you have a shop front in your local town, or just want to capitalise on being the only supplier in the area. Maybe you have competition and want to do things a little differently. Your local community could be a little gold mine for marketing and advertising.

There is a popular trend that more people want to shop locally. Be that for local produce or simply supporting the smaller or local businesses. So it’s a good strategy to be the local expert in your field and industry. This in effect could create great word of mouth advertising for you. You may also want to consider sponsoring local events or even getting involved in local charities. A charity needs all the help that they can get but it also opens up a new potential audience of customers for you. It can be a lucrative relationship on both parts. Advertising at events could mean supplying prizes for raffles or simply helping out. It can all depend on what your expertise are but getting your business heard locally will never be a bad thing.

Photo courtesy of Pexels

Relationships with other businesses and your employees

When it comes to people you have working for you, they are your biggest advocate. Many people in social surroundings or at events will talk with other people, and one common subject is what you do for work. It’s word of mouth advertising without you even realising. Having a happy employee will mean that they will sing the praises of your business. Which could then lead onto a conversation about a potential new client then or in the future. If you don’t have happy people working for you, it could work against you. Meaning people will remember the negative vibes and not consider giving you their business.

You could also strike deals with other businesses in the area. Perhaps offering a discount for their employees and vice versa. This works for different industries as there is no competition, but you are securing potential future business.

There is so much that you can do to try it all could be a huge task, but stick with certain areas and do them well. The rest will follow.