Small Business Marketing
Successful marketing is key to helping a small business thrive. Many small businesses may not have a lot of extra cash to spend on marketing efforts, but that’s ok! There are several things you can do to enhance your small business marketing without breaking the bank. This resource center will give you tips for small business marketing that you can do on your own to help give your marketing efforts a bigger impact.
Does this sound familiar?
Your business invests money in online marketing but you aren't sure if that marketing is generating revenue. Everyone tells you that clicks mean success, but what your business really needs is more customers. At the end of the day, you just want your online marketing to do what it is supposed to do and grow your business!
Our results come from proven data-driven strategies:
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Define - Identify your ideal client and their buying process and determine what success looks like.
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Measure - Clearly articulate those behaviors that move your ideal client through the buying process.
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Develop KPIs - Key Performance Indicators to measure those behaviors.
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Analyze - Identify what content is resonating with your ideal client and moving them through the process.
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Improve - Amplify what is working and correct what is not moving your ideal client through the buying process.
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Control - Automate marketing to move your ideal client through the process.
This requires a commitment to strategic planning and implementation. That is what we do and how we help.
Not Sure How To Get Started?
Identify your ideal customer
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Identify your ideal customer
In order to get good results from your small business marketing strategies, you first need to figure out your audience. As an entrepreneur, you should be highly aware of your potential clientele. The key to growing your business will be to find people who need or want your services, then sell them that service and impress them so that they’ll want to buy from you again.
However, none of this is possible if you don’t know who your ideal customer is. Therefore, the first and perhaps most basic small business marketing tip is to gain as much clarity as possible on who you’re trying to sell to. You can start by thinking from the customer’s perspective. What needs will they meet by using your product or service? Under what circumstances will they look for your product? How will your product affect the ideal customer’s life?
Getting into the mindset of a potential customer should help you see their profile more clearly. Now it may be easier to guess the age, gender, occupation, and lifestyle of the ideal customer. This can help you determine where your customer lives, works, and shops, and how and when they shop. Knowing the answers to these questions is the only way to effectively market directly to your ideal customer.
BEFORE YOU SPEND THE MONEY, ASK YOURSELF
Do you need a website?
If you’ve been running your business without a website, it might seem unnecessary to start one now. After all, if you’ve come this far without an online presence then what’s the point?
The point is that you could be attracting a lot more new customers by investing in a website for your small business. In today’s world, a quality website is one of the best small business marketing tools. It gives you the chance to tell the world who you are, what you offer, and how you’re different from other businesses. Websites give you complete control over your online presence, where other platforms may get the message wrong.
Creating a business website also opens up new ways to attract traffic and turn those visitors into new customers.
IF YOU CAN'T MEASURE IT YOU CAN'T IMPROVE IT. LEARN HOW TO
Use Google Analytics on your website
Once you’ve set up a website, you can form more specific ideas for small business marketing by implementing Google Analytics. Google Analytics teaches you all about your customers, what they need, and how they’re interacting with your business.
There’s a lot that Google Analytics can show you that will teach you more about your ideal customer. For instance, it can be used to show you how your website traffic is coming to your website, and whether they’re viewing on their phone or on a desktop. You’ll also be able to see where you visitors are located, which will help you know which specific areas to target with marketing efforts.
Google Analytics allows you to measure how well your business is doing with tools like campaign tracking and goals. The analytics program will give you information about how many customers are responding to certain campaigns, which will help you create more effective campaigns moving forward. You can also set goals on Google Analytics — like signing up for email, or adding something to their cart — and then get back data on how many visitors met each goal, providing you more information about how visitors are interacting with your website.
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Set up your Google My Business
Your business website should be the hub of your online presence. However, with an estimated 5.5 billion searches conducted each day, it’s equally important to make sure your Google My Business is set up. Google My Business is a free tool that you can use as a business owner to set up your business information on Google Search and Google Maps. Google My Business lets you edit your business name, location, and current hours. You can use it to add photos of your business and monitor and reply to reviews on Google.
Approximately 50% of the people making searches for a business on Google will follow through with their business needs that day. That means that it’s imperative for you to have updated information on your small business on Google. The easier it is for someone to learn about your business, the better.
Getting started with Google My Business is simple. Start by logging into your business email on Google, and then visit google.com/business. Click “Start Now” at the top, and follow the steps to claim, verify, and edit your business information.
What social channels make sense for your small business?
One of the most important small business marketing tips is to learn the value of social media. Almost 75% of adults in America use some kind of social media, so it’s a great way to garner the attention of new potential customers. However, not all social channels are created equal, so your social media marketing efforts need to be planned carefully.
To get the most bang out of a social media campaign, it’s important to decide what social channel makes sense for your small business. You can start figuring this out by trying out different platforms with free posts before paid campaigns. This will help you measure user reaction. However, it’s important to take even these free posts seriously.
While that’s in the works, take time to look at current data. Some business owners make the mistake of assuming that millennials aren’t on Facebook anymore, but a recent study showed that 84% of millennials are still using Facebook. With your ideal customer in mind, check out the most current data you can find to help discover which social channel your potential clients are using.
LEARN HOW TO MONITOR SOCIAL MEDIA
Our Proven Process
Technical SEO
Start with a Technical SEO audit of your website to understand what search engines think about your website.
Put the Nerds to Work
Fix all the issues that are holding you back in search results and make sure Google Analytics is installed correctly so we can gather data.
#herdofnerds
Ideal Customer
Work with you to clearly define your ideal customer and develop Buyer Personas.
Customer Journey Map
Clearly define the customer experience. Identify any friction points and align deliverables.
Content Audit
Identify content that aligns with the customer journey and identify any gaps.
Off Page SEO
Determine what platforms outside of your website that will help you connect with your ideal customer.
Strategy
Develop a plan that aligns with the information gathered from the previous steps, implement the plan and measure for effect.
PDCA
Plan.
Do.
Check.
Act.
This starts the cycle of continuous improvement.
Analytics That Profit
What We Do
We help our clients by conducting a deep analysis of their website analytics to see what is really going on — is their website just getting clicks or are those clicks real customers?
Analytics That Profit
HubSpot Certified Solutions Partner
We are HubSpot experts. We partner with you to maximize the results from your investment in HubSpot. One on One and Team training available.