Small businesses often find marketing challenging as they have to operate on a tight budget. The quality of marketing does not depend on the size of the marketing budget. Marketing goals could be successfully reached on a tight budget if the marketing strategy is well designed and executed. There are free or practically free marketing resources and channels available online. Marketers should actively explore them to find those that suit their needs best. Developing low budget marketing tactics requires creative thinking and openness to new or well-tested ideas. This will ensure the success of marketing campaigns.
Although LinkedIn is one of the main social media platforms, it is often underutilized. If you just add new connections, you are not utilizing the full potential of the platform. Instead, talk to your connections, share links to your blog and offers, contribute to discussions on forums and share quality content of others. The content you share should educate your potential customers and enable other professionals to grow. This will help build your brand and earn trust and recognition in your industry.
Takeaway 1: Be active on LinkedIn.
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Most people have a short attention span. To grab their attention, you need to sell your products or services with a catchy elevator pitch. Typically you have 90 seconds to do that. “If you can’t make your point persuasively in that time, you’ve lost the chance for impact. Facts and figures are important, but it’s not the only criteria – you must present in a manner that generates expertise and confidence,” says Robert Herjavec, a serial entrepreneur and a Shark Tank investor.
Takeaway 2: Prepare your pitch.
To promote your brand effectively, you also need to write high quality content. Even if you are not a great writer, you can still come up with easy topics to write about. Do not take too challenging topics. Stick to those that you can easily manage such as the best practices in your industry. If you cannot write, look for alternatives such as hiring a writer or asking your teammate to do this. This will help ensure the quality of texts and establish your position as the go-to source for industry information.
Takeaway 3: Write high quality content.
Immerse yourself in the Northern innovationscape and d’effective brandcomms.
Choose one problem that your customers have and you can solve. Then focus the attention of all your team members on creating content, social media posts, e-mails and website content around this problem. Soon you will see the results of your work. Then move on to the next problem that you can solve and build a solid marketing strategy which is aligned with sales, advises April Jones, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Delivering Happiness, a business consultancy.
Takeaway 4: Create content around one problem.
It is estimated that over 205 billion e-mails are sent daily. A significant proportion of them are e-mails with marketing content. E-mail marketing is a cost-effective way to pitch your business and convert the addressees into paying customers. It has many benefits: (1) You can easily reach your target audience. (2) You can target an international audience. (3) It is cost-effective. (4) It brings in revenue. It is estimated that e-mails generate £29 billion of retail sales annually in the UK alone.
Takeaway 5: Leverage e-mail marketing.
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References: Kristen McCormick, wordstream.com | John Rampton, entrepreneur.com | quicksprout.com | forbes.com | Alishba Memon, socialpilot.co