It’s easy to market a product or service if you have billions or millions in the bank. Small to medium businesses, however, usually don’t have such that luxury and need to keep a tight watch on budgeting. Overspending on marketing that doesn’t work can sink a business quickly which is where creative thinking and careful strategizing comes into play. Here are ideas to help you achieve your goals on a limited budget.
Build Your Brand Online
The most cost efficient way to build your brand is with online properties such as a website, blog, social media page and multimedia channels like YouTube. Local directories can attract traffic to your site once you have used SEO techniques in your content marketing strategies that lead to search engine visibility. Since Google is the king of all websites, it helps to have a Google My Business account.
While Google prioritizes authoritative blogs, it’s important to not take the concept of blogging lightly. It’s not as if any fluff can get you high search rankings. Your site must be a mix of quality and quantity to be considered authoritative by search engines. Duplicating content from other sites doesn’t work and can get your site penalized in search results. The key is to find your own unique keywords that define your business and build original content from those niche phrases.
Develop an Email List
Another essential step toward capturing online leads is to build a marketing list of customers and prospects who grant you permission to email them. User-friendly yet powerful marketing platforms such as MailChimp can provide remarkable value and even be the basis to reaching your target market directly whenever you want. The platform allows you to market newsletters that keep your followers up to date.
Cross Promotion
Even though search engines can account for a high percentage of your traffic, it usually takes several months to achieve search engine visibility. In the meantime, you can promote your business by being a guest blogger on sites that already generate substantial traffic. Be sure to provide an email and a link to your site or social media page. Even commenting on blog posts can bring you new eyeballs.
Social media is another reliable vehicle for cross promotion. Simply engage with like-minded thought leaders through social networks, which can catch the attention of new followers, whom you can add to your list. If you have compelling knowledge to share in your industry, then consider writing an article about it to a trade publication. It could raise your credibility level as an authority with Google. Co-sponsoring public events or contests are other ways to gain quick exposure.
Strive to Be an Influencer
Thought leaders are the most successful bloggers. Fresh content is essential to be considered authoritative by search engines. So think of ways to share insights in your industry with your followers.
Your Thoughts?
posted on 02 September at 13:52
Some good tips for SMB promotion. Our company makes use of email marketing too. We use www.sendpulse.com marketing automation platform because it’s more affordable than Mailchimp for a bigger customer base and provides comparable functionality and feature set. There’s also a free plan that provides significant quota and is a lot less restrictive than MC’s free plan. Offers like this one are gamechangers for SMB’s and startups.