Marketing strategies (and some tips) to grow your business
Want to grow your business? Creating and executing successful marketing strategies will help you grow and grow and grow. Think of each strategy as food, water and exercise that will make your company strong and healthy.
Whether you are a new company looking to create the right image, an existing firm looking to grow, or a large firm with lots of arms to your organization that need to be unified, creating and analyzing your marketing strategy is essential. Your priority is to meet your goals in both the real and the electronic world.
If you’ve already developed a marketing plan, analyzed the four Ps of marketing, created target audience profiles, and identified your business goals, you are off to a great start.
We’ll start with five key marketing strategies (and some helpful tips) for you to work on:
1. Utilize social media
Tip: Be purposeful, be educational and… be yourself.
Utilizing social media will help grow your business, increase brand awareness and interact with your customers. Social media will, more importantly, choreograph the narrative of your company to the general public in a manner that is going to help you achieve your long-term marketing goals.
Let’s start with one simple fact: Your business having a social media presence is an essential piece of your business marketing strategy. All the social media platforms help you connect with your customers, increase awareness and can boost your leads and sales.
While there may be some hesitation to embracing and loving the socials, we must recognize that social media is here to stay. Keeping up with the changes is definitely work, but there are no successful marketing strategies that do not include social media.
Here’s a positive to this first key marketing strategy – you can get this started right now. You don’t have to be an expert or have a million followers to get started. You might even find that you enjoy it! Consider all these benefits of utilizing social media:
- Creates and builds awareness
- Communicates your authority and brings recognition as a thought leader
- Letting your authenticity shine through helps you gain followers
- You communicate directly with your customers
- Opportunity to advertise new products or services
Learn how being engaging and being responsive on social media will help your business plan. Jimmy LaSalle’s book “Unified Marketing Strategy” includes a proven strategy for business growth including how to use social media effectively.
Keep in mind the platforms are different so your posts should be suited for the audience and the format. For example, LinkedIn is a business social network, so you’ll want to keep it professional. Pinterest works like a bulletin board and is a very visual platform. If you have lots of pictures and products, Pinterest could work for your business and be a part of your key marketing strategies.
2. Create videos
Tip: Don’t let the sound of your own voice stop you.
Creating videos or video tutorials is an effective part of successful marketing strategies. Some of the same guidelines of social media apply to creating videos for your business. Be authentic. Be engaging. This key marketing strategy will help your business gain attention and establish authority and expertise in your industry. Consider creating videos that are informative and educational. Audiences want to learn something new or useful. Ask yourself this question: What could you teach that would solve a customer’s pain point?
YouTube is up there with Google in the land of search engines. Your presence there will help establish and ultimately grow your business.
Don’t get scared away because you don’t like the sound of your own voice. Try to overcome being camera shy. Remember customers, potential clients and followers want to feel connected and invested in the businesses they frequent or chose. By putting yourself (and your business) out there, you are creating the opportunity for more connections, more customers, and more growth.
Is it starting to feel like you might not have time for all this work? We can create and execute a marketing plan for your business.
3. Write blogs
Tip: Write blogs that add value.
A blog can be whatever you want it to be. It can be a company newsletter, it can be a way to promote all the times you are in the news, or it can be a place to share current events within your company or industry. Whatever your company’s blog turns out to be, remember that its purpose is to add value.
Use the information and content you create in your blog as a way to bring people in and grow the audience you are educating. It also acts as a marketing tool since the content you are creating leads the audience back to your website, increasing traffic, and increasing business growth.
4. Learn SEO
Tip: Don’t take shortcuts with SEO.
The next part of your successful marketing strategy is search engine optimization or SEO. SEO sometimes gets confused with SEM, which we will discuss next. But here’s a way to differentiate the two: with SEM you are paying for traffic and the actual results; SEO you are working to try to achieve a better position.
With SEO, you are optimizing the content on your website to help search engines direct your content towards a potential customer’s search result page. You can think of it as – where your site ranks on Google. And the task, which will take some time and effort, is to create content that is friendly and readable for humans, while also acknowledging the search engines.
And the tip for SEO is to not take shortcuts. Plugging in keywords without regard to the quality of the content will not work. Just like we mentioned value and purpose before, the same applies to SEO work and ensuring SEO is one of the successful marketing strategies for your company.
There is on-site and off-site work and other items to be mindful of when performing SEO. In “Unified Marketing Strategy”, we discuss the history, relevancy and importance of this marketing strategy. Additionally, measuring where you stand and the incremental traffic that your site is getting is another component of this work.
If you don’t have the time or resources to learn SEO and apply this key marketing strategy to your business plan, reach out to us and we can discuss how our experts can help. SEO can definitely help your business grow when done correctly.
5. Use SEM
Tip: SEM is effective when you have an SEO strategy.
In today’s world, search engine marketing or SEM is known as an effective way to increase your website traffic rapidly and grow your business. So what is SEM exactly? SEM helps you drive qualified traffic to a destination URL (like a preferred page on your website) by bidding on specific keywords and phrases that you determine as important. If your bid is high enough, your ad is displayed on the search engine results page, also known as SERP.
Another way to think about it: to get in front of customers who are looking for what your company provides, but don’t know exactly where to fulfill their need, a search engine marketing campaign is one of the best ways to do it. You can launch an SEM campaign in the morning and start to see results within a few hours – it can be a very cost-effective marketing tool and key marketing strategy for your business.
While SEM and SEO are often confused, you need both as part of your successful marketing strategies. Think of it like this: your SEM results can help you discover terms to be used in your SEO strategy. Helpful hints: be sure to note phrases that convert in your paid search program, keyword phrases that generate high volume impressions, and high CPC keywords should be included in your SEO work.
Managing an efficient SEM campaign requires time and expertise. Research is needed to find the right keywords, you need to write clear and concise ads that will appeal to your customers, then carefully select the right settings and bid strategies. By the way, you’ll need to be sure to have the proper geo target settings too! Waste not, want not - it’s a lot!
Learn some of Jimmy LaSalle’s insights into SEM in “Unified Marketing Strategy” so you can add this as a key marketing strategy and tool to grow your business.
A good start, but don’t forget your website
These five key marketing strategies are definitely a good place to start. Though be sure that your website is in good condition and set up to accommodate these tools. You want your website to be easy to navigate and have quality content to show the value of your products or services. All the time and work you put into blogging, SEM and other efforts could be stunted if customers are turned off by your outdated website. Your website is a window into your business and in many cases, it is the first impression that a potential customer has of your business. So don’t underestimate the importance of your website. Jimmy LaSalle covers websites, and as he refers to it, “The Destination”, in his book to help with guidelines and important factors to consider when analyzing your site.
Lot’s more to learn, so you continue to grow
There’s lots more marketing strategies to learn to build and grow your business. Having a book to reference will help. “Unified Marketing Strategy” is a motivational book for business owners, CEOs, entrepreneurs and marketing professionals. It will take you on an inspirational journey to success and business growth.
Food, water and exercise for you. Same with your business. Marketing strategies are the food, water and exercise your business needs to grow and stay strong and healthy.
