You might be excellent at what you do, and your product might be the best in the market. You could even be fantastic at selling yourself and your invention face-to-face. However, we live in a world where digital marketing will shape the success of any business, and how you approach your marketing and create a brand identity and online presence can make or break your business. Fear not, because here we have gathered some ideas and suggestions for ways you can push your presence online and generate a loyal customer base. Read on to find out how.
Social Media
Instagram. Facebook. Twitter. If you aren’t utilising social media to build your business brand, then you’re missing out on free marketing that reaches almost half the world’s population and is the best way to engage and connect with your audience – and therefore potential customers. You need to be thoughtful in your approach to social media though – you’ll get unfollowed across the platforms if all you do is relentlessly post-sales-driven pitches. Your audience know you want to sell to them – they don’t need to be reminded every five minutes.
Instead, use the Facebook Audience Insights tool to learn what people engaging with your posts are interested in. This will give you an idea of what other content you should be posting and resharing in order to engage your followers. You can evaluate what sort of posts your customers will read and enjoy looking at. Many people want a brand that has a human face behind it, so broadening the scope of your posts and demonstrating that you’re more than a selling machine is a sure-fire way to get people interested.
Social media is a vast ocean of different types of content, and you can use this to play to your strengths. If you are personally engaging and can talk about your product or service for hours, then use this skill. Make a short video or podcast about your business. Similar to sharing content that isn’t directly related to your business, it’s important people see a human side to you. Consider writing or talking about your origin story. How did you get here? What adversity have you faced?
Social media, as well as email marketing, is a great way to engage people and let them get to know you and your brand. Just make sure the quality is good. There’s nothing more off-putting than watching a video with poor sound and visual quality. You don’t need to spend a lot of money investing in the best equipment – you can use your phone to do a lot of the hard work for you. Ask for feedback from your colleagues or, if you work alone, friends and family, to make sure you’re producing good-quality content. Nothing will put people off faster than an audio-recording that sounds like you’re at the bottom of a well.
Do it Yourself
There’s a lot to be said for hiring professional marketing companies and, whilst they know what they’re doing and can be a huge asset, a little common sense and some research will go a long way in promoting your business if you’re smart about it. It’s worth learning how to use the software that will most benefit your marketing campaigns and paying for the training to get good at it. For example, look at Adobe Training Courses if you know that Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are programmes that will benefit how you sell yourself and your company.
It’s always going to be a benefit to upskill yourself – training might not be useful now, but it’s better to have it in your back pocket rather than waiting for when you need it and don’t have time, leaving you with the only option of expensively outsourcing the work.
Get Local
Whilst much of your marketing can happen online, and it’s a cheap way of spreading the word and creating a buzz about yourself or your product, don’t forget that word of mouth is still an essential marketing tool for businesses. How active are you in your local community? Could your business sponsor a local 5K run, or print bookmarks and leave them at the local library? With marketing, repetition is the key to success and the more people see you, the more they will engage with who you are and what you can offer them. There might also be opportunities for cross-promotion in your local community with other small (non-competing) businesses.
The world of marketing can seem daunting at first, but don’t let the jargon put you off. Do your research and get some training and your marketing will be a success.
- This post has been written by an outside source – See Disclosure Policy
