5 Essentials of Small Business Marketing to Keep You Ahead of the Competition
Small business marketing is not for the faint of heart, especially for those of us living in New York City, but if you have been in marketing for longer than two seconds, you know that. Marketing your small business is dependent upon doing some key factors well and these things will make or break a small business in this dog eat dog world we live in. Competition is intense and learning how to make the most out of your web pages is tricky.
Here are five essential steps to get ahead of the game!
- Create a Marketing Plan – A detailed marketing plan is crucial to success. You don’t want to leave something to chance. It should be well planned. Map out every marketing element, and exactly how you plan to get it done. At the very least, it ought to paint broad strokes to success.
- Social Media Marketing – 91 percent of experiences social marketers generate improved website traffic and 79 percent generate more quality leads according to MediaBistro.com. Just how do they do this? They don’t waste time with their social media marketing. Map out a plan for social media an stick to it.
- Build a Mailing List – MarketingProfs.com reported emails averages a ROI (return on investment) of $40 for every $1 spent. This far outweighs keyword ads ($17) and banner ads ($2). Don’t be fooled into thinking collecting and building an email list is dead. If you fail to build a list, you are failing to build your business! You simply can’t afford to leave such a large source of potential profits to your competition.
- Video Marketing – Connect with all the local traffic that’s out there searching for your business. Video marketing in this space is a relatively untapped vein, and having a simple video advertising your wares on page one of Google may result in tons of traffic and authority coming to your web site! According to the research company Forrester, any given video stands about a 50x better chance of appearing on the first page of Google than any given text page.
- Gain a Mobile Presence – Microsoft reports that by 2014 mobile browsing will overtake desktop browsing. If your company does not have a mobile presence, then you will become invisible. Therefore your small business’s website better start optimizing for mobile users and it had better do it fast. Right now, the numbers are encroaching on the 50 percent mark. Are you ready?
Don’t Make the Mistake of Going It Alone!
No one is a superhero and you needn’t be. The realm of online marketing is always changing and evolving. You need to learn what is working now, learn from the best, and hire the best outsourcing you can find. In the long run, it’ll pay off substantially!