The digital terrain has always been a tough terrain to conquer, especially for small businesses. And even more so now with the pandemic’s impact changing the scene on the global economic market.
So how can small businesses like yours overcome the challenges they are facing in marketing and advertising? In this post, you will find 4 ways to meet the marketing challenges for small businesses.
Challenge #1: How to Find Customers
It goes without saying that you shouldn’t sit around and wait for leads to come to you. Even the biggest and most successful companies know that; and that is why they never stop trying to find new customers every single day.
However, when it comes to a small business like yours, this challenge seems a lot harder to overcome. Firstly, due to the fact that there are numerous channels from which you can acquire your customers and secondly, because you feel lost when you must decide on how to prioritize them.
Add the incredibly high acquisition cost to the equation – that has increased by almost 60% in the last 6 years according to Hubspot – and you have one big challenge to face.
Don’t worry though because there is a simple solution to it.
Build your Byers Personas
You must first assess the profile of your ideal customer; the right people to receive your message.
Building a buyer persona means that you should figure out what your target customer looks like, what they do for a living, their online habits and behaviours and how much time they spend on the internet.
This way, you can address your target audience through the channels they are in using the right words. This means that you can create content catering your target demographic’s needs and interests and sharing it with them.
Challenge #2: How to Increase Brand Awareness
Brand awareness means letting your customers know who you are. So, in order for them to buy what you are selling, you must first make them aware of your brand. This way, you will build trust with your audience that will consequently associate with your products and services.
But alas, this is not an easy task. One can build brand awareness taking many different paths but the following three are what you need to get started.
Inbound and Social Media Marketing
Once you’ve come up with your buyer personas, you can attract them to your brand with inbound marketing and social media.
Using inbound and social media marketing means creating targeted blog posts, videos etc optimized for your target audiences search terms and sharing them on social media. These types of content should be based on the topics your buyer personas search online, and share them on the social media channels they are in. Additionally, you could use paid to boost your message.
Leverage Co-marketing
Your organic marketing efforts for driving brand awareness can be boosted with co-marketing. Starting a partnership with a reputable brand is a smart way to generate leads outside your circle and make your message heard in a larger audience.
Run a Consistent High-quality Blog
Don’t underestimate the power of blogging. Big brands give it a large part in their content marketing efforts to drive awareness.
By regularly updating your blog with consistent high-quality content will help drive traffic to your website that will eventually convert to leads. Not to mention that it will bring value to your brand and help establish trust among your prospects. Furthermore, a consistent high-quality blog will also help build your email list.
Challenge #3: Build an Email List
The buyer’s journey starts from earning the prospects’s trust, turning them to leads and finally converting them to customers. Building an email list is the first step of this process. In order to do so though you must continuously provide value to stay on top of mind.
So given that email marketing still leads the way of the most effective marketing channels, why leave it out? Just consider that for every 1 euro you spend on it, you will get back an average of 35 euros. And according to surveys, more than half of consumers state that email marketing can directly influence their purchase decision.
Leverage Opt-in Email Lists and Social Media
One way to build your email lists is gathering up the email addresses of the customers that have already given you their email addresses so you can send them emails; for these customers have already shown interest and are more likely to putchase again.
Social media is the other way of building up your email lists, and creating high quality blog content that will attract them to subscribe is the means to achieve that.
Challenge #4: Lead Generation
Generating leads is what keeps sales alive and kickin’. Leads generations is a top priority for marketeers and a constant challenge for business leaders.
So what can you do to generate both high quantity and high quality leads? Leads that convert website visitors into prospects and eventually customers?
Optimize your Website for Conversions
Your website is your most valuable tool to convert prospects into customers. So make sure that you meet the following key points:
⦁ Make sure that each webpage on your website calls visitors to take action.
⦁ Create a custom landing page for each campaign you run.
⦁ Run a blog with lead generation Call-to-Actions in every blog post
Conclusion
In this blog post we covered only a few of the many challenges your small business may face. However, depending on the industry your business trades, there are many others out there. NAG media can help you overcome all of them with the proper planning and strategy. Contact our talented professionals and start working on your next project.
And before you go, it would be a good idea to read about how to optimize your website for conversions and drive sales.
