If you want to successfully market your business in today’s economic climate, you must set yourself apart from the competition. To accomplish this, you should have a business plan that documents your unique strategy and how you will execute upon it.
Importantly, the most important part of any business plan template for small business is the marketing plan. The right marketing plan will ensure a steady stream of customers to fund your company’s success.
Here are 5 smart ways to effectively market your small business that should be included in your plan.
Do Your Research & Create Customer Personas
To grow a successful company, you need to understand your target audience.
Start by researching your current and ideal target customer. Where do they live? How much money do they earn? What do they like/dislike? Answer as many questions about them as you can.
Next, create a customer persona of your ideal customer. Give them a name. Write down their address and everything about them from the hobbies they enjoy to their family/living situations. You should even find a picture online that could be them.
The reason you do this is to humanise your customers and to figure out the ideal way to speak to and target your customers. By having one persona (or a handful of different personas) to think of when you’re marketing, you can do just that.
Educate Your Potential Customers
To build your customer base, you need to 1) build a reputable brand and 2) develop customers’ trust in you.
One way to accomplish this is to become a thought leader in your business niche. An easy way to do this is to offer clients free resources to help them make the right decision. For example, you can create a pamphlet that teaches them the “5 things you need to know before buying X” (with “X” being your product category).
Alternatively, you can develop a blog or website with free advice and resources. Or share those same tips and ideas with customers on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok. Doing this will get the word out on your company while building trust and rapport.
Develop your Brand
To effectively market your company, you must invest in your brand. Stay consistent with your branding in your website, social media pages, advertisements, logo and design. Make sure your customers can tell you apart from other businesses similar to yours.
The last thing you want to do is confuse your customers with your branding. Have you ever seen a brand that has different colours on their website than they do on their mail pieces or instagram? Hopefully not, and there’s a reason for this. Consistency is key when marketing to your customers.
Creativity is also key here, as your branding should reflect the look and feel you’d like to portray to entice potential clients and customers. Does the Audi brand have the same look with their logo and advertisements as Hot Wheels? No. That’s because one sells luxury automobiles and is looking for a particular customer that can actually afford their vehicle versus Hot Wheels which is a toy car brand for children. Make sure to keep your branding aligned with your goals.
Invest in Marketing Software
Email marketing and text message marketing is essential to nearly every business, particularly those looking to grow. If you haven’t done so already, invest in marketing software.
Email marketing software such as Constant Contact or MailChimp allows you to keep up with your customers and personalise your communication with them.
Creating a relationship with your customer via email or text helps build trust so customers buy from you and possibly evangelise your business to others.
Make sure to have a ‘Contact Us’ page on your website that allows interested customers to fill out their contact information so you can market to them. Ask for multiple fields of information as appropriate so you can personalise your relationship with them. For example, you can ask for their name, email address, mobile phone number, birthday, zip code, etc. Your email marketing or text software will store this information and allow you to better nurture and serve these customers.
Try Multiple Promotional Methods
Finally, you need to future out which promotional methods best promote your business and mesh with your brand. To do this, try multiple promotional tactics and keep track of the results. For example, try a Facebook ad campaign and see how many new customers and sales it brought in per dollar spent. And document whether the customers seemed ideal and would be willing to buy from you again. Then do the same with a print campaign, or a radio ad, etc. The key is to figure out which promotional methods achieve the best results. And once you figure this out, really leverage the winning methods.
Use these five marketing tips and you will build your brand and your business. Hopefully you will enjoy immediate success. If not, keep massaging your brand and promotional methods as eventually you’ll find the right fit that will maximise your success.
