Marketing is one of the crucial building blocks of business. To ensure business sustenance and growth, the need for marketing strategies remain indispensable for all sizes of business. Having a good business idea backed by appropriate resources can help a business take off from the ground. But to make it survive by establishing and spreading its identity and reach out to the right people, you need to implement proper marketing strategies. However, small businesses that run on low budget despite being aware of the importance of marketing often find it difficult to choose a suitable marketing plan matching the budget.
EJ Dalius, a seasoned marketing professional with a proven track record, has good news for small businesses that there are many options to formulate budget-friendly marketing plans that can propel the business on the right track of growth.
In this post, we will discuss some marketing strategies that small businesses can easily adopt.
Table of Contents
Establish the business identity – The Eric J Dalius way
The first step is drawing people’s attention to create a unique identity of your business. You must establish it convincingly in front of the audience. Simply said, it is all about branding your business, which, if you get right, the business benefits from it for many more years or throughout its life. On the other hand, getting it wrong or making a false start can turn into an expensive mistake that can jeopardize the business.
Creating a business identity begins by creating a vision for the business by outlining its values and objectives and understanding the audience to target. You must also consider the competition, who your competitors are, the type of market to target, and what kind of personality you want the brand to assume. Having enough clarity about what to do, why, and for whom will help in the ideas taking shape by selecting the name of the company, creating a logo, and going ahead to create a business website that forms a comprehensive business identity.
Create an attractive website
A website is the most vital tool to host a business online and spread it fast across the world, but a lot depends on the design and quality of the website that becomes the online identity of the business. Sites are so relevant that they can make or break a business. Creating and maintaining websites is now quite easy and does not require any technical knowledge or dedicated people to look after it as the availability of online free tools have simplified the process.
A website is particularly important because it creates the first impression of a business that goes a long way to build credibility by sharing information about the business that generates trust. The website is your free marketing channel for showcasing your company’s developments and achievements and connects with people who take an interest in your products and services and reach your site via search engines. The site expands the reach of your business that aids the process of acquiring new customers to make the business grow.
Go for free listings
It is a big challenge for small businesses to rope in new customers, especially when the business is new and yet to make a strong mark. To make things easy, in addition to creating the website, you must spread the online footprint of your business across the internet by listing it in some popular online directories that offer a free listing. It becomes the starting point of your online marketing campaign as the business appears at several places and makes it visible beyond the website. Use the online credentials of the website to enlist your business or create a business profile on Google Plus. Since you already have a website that attracts traffic from organic searches, adding a Google Plus profile will only increase the traffic flow to the site, and more people would know about the business. Also, you can claim a free listing on Google My Business that gives the opportunity to hear from customers about your business from the comments and reviews that they post, which appear on the right side of the business profile that you set up.
Experiment with social media
After the website and free listings, the next step is to explore social media for promoting the business. While it is tempting to create a business profile across all social media channels, it is never a wise decision because it can prove counterproductive as it is hard to maintain too many profiles by doing complete justice to it. This can diminish the returns and harm your marketing efforts. Since customer engagement is the top goal, choose the channels by focusing on those only that your target customers, existing and potential, use the most and then prioritize the selection according to the business needs.
As you spread your business across the internet, be sure to maintain consistency of data so that the same business data such as name, address, phone number, email id, etc. appear in the same way across all the places. It is extremely critical because any mismatch in data will make users suspicious about the credibility of the business that you must avoid at all costs. Stay active on social media and leave no opportunity of showing up your business and establish your authority that builds trust.
Expand your network
Business promotion is a continuous process, and you must seize every opportunity that comes your way to engage with the audience without even talking about selling products or services. Once you have established your online identity, and the brand has earned some familiarity, keep expanding your reach through networking by participating in networking events. It needs some preparation to participate in the events, and you must learn how to use a call to action to motivate the audience to take some action in the way you desire.
The call to action is the driving force behind your business, and you must use it on your website and all other business communications, including your business card. This would make people more curious about your business that turns into engagement.
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