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The internet has revolutionised marketing. The way businesses and customers interact with one another, as well as how businesses build their brands, have drastically changed.
New-age marketing is all about giving your customers a more complete experience. Companies are constantly developing important marketing strategies that position their brand as an industry source of information and improve their ability to reach out to consumers.
Today, almost all small businesses have understood why a marketing strategy is important. According to Social Media Examiner, about 96% of SMBs believe in social media as a primary part of their marketing strategy.
Why is marketing strategy important for small businesses?
Small businesses have historically found it difficult to compete with large corporations' advertising budgets, particularly on television, radio, and outdoor billboards.
Now, thanks to the internet and social media, any small business with an internet connection can now connect with customers all over the globe as easily as they can with customers down the street. Market strategic planning outlines a series of action steps designed to move the organisation closer to the goal in affordable ways.
Below are a few more explanations of the importance of a marketing strategy in business:
Reach out to your target audience
Since your target audience must be aware that you exist, some of your marketing strategies should aim to introduce you to new customers. Service providers and retailers alike must constantly connect with prospective customers to build brand awareness, whether through consistent posts on social media platforms, your blog, videos, direct advertising, or other channels.
Don’t waste money on inefficient ways
Analyzing customer segments and the marketing mix assists in directing the budget to where it will be most effective in generating sales. There is a general rule of thumb in the marketing sector that you must aim at spending between 2-5% of your revenue on marketing activities. As per stats, marketing accounts for 7 to 12 percent of most small businesses' total revenue. The results? Voila! No more wastage of resources.
Secure valuable resources
If your products or services are well-established, you may only need to spend about 1% of their total sales on marketing. But investing in the wrong channels can waste your time, efforts and money. It is unlikely that every marketing channel you have is appropriate for your marketing efforts, but those that are can make a significant difference in your company's brand awareness, goodwill, customer experience and return customer rate, and thus sales.
Better sales with a limited budget
Marketing strategy helps to constantly monitor your customer analytics and spot weaknesses before they turn into massive blunders. An analysis of the marketing strategy will demonstrate how each activity contributes to the company's bottom-line performance. Therefore, resulting in better sales and brand awareness.
The formula for calculating your 5% marketing budget is as follows:
To maintain current brand awareness and visibility = total revenue x 5%
To grow your market share = total revenue x 10%
Set clear goals & objectives
Set clear goals & objectives
Each of your marketing objectives should include a description of what you expect to achieve, as well as concrete, numerical goals and a marketing timeline. A marketing consultant utilises past sales numbers, business growth in different markets, recent customer acquisition, and response on new product or service launch to set realistic and SMART goals.
How to make a marketing strategy?
If you're a small business owner with little experience in online marketing, you can be clueless about what should a marketing strategy look like. Don't worry, we've got you covered.
A content marketing strategy is required at the very least for your small business to flourish. Social media marketing, newsletters and blogging are all examples of effective marketing strategies.
Content marketing strategies revolve around providing free and useful information to your target audience in order to motivate them to take action. This action could consist of various types of marketing planning. Some of them are as listed below:
Inbound
The inbound methodology is based on creating high-quality content that is appealing to visitors. If done correctly, inbound can transform your SME into a trusted ally, informing and advising potential customers on their needs and queries.
An inbound marketing strategy will have you question the following:
Who is our ideal client?
What challenges do they want to solve?
How will they find our company?
What information are they looking for?
What motivates them to choose us?
Next, you’ll need a buyer’s persona i.e. a key step in this analysis is to profile our ideal customer. Then it's time to get started!
Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is the process by which you (the company) initiate conversations with your customers in order to attract them to your brand. The idea is to create ads and Web pages that will appear when someone searches for something related to your company, making it easier for customers to find you.
An advertising consultant can assist you with the other forms of outbound marketing for small businesses including television, trade shows, print (newspapers, magazines, etc.), sales emails, interruptive ads, and billboards.
Content Marketing
Did you know? Small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads than small businesses without blogs.
Content marketing allows businesses to provide meaningful content that fosters a relationship with your customers and can help you build trust with them. Using user-generated content from your customers is a low-cost business strategy in marketing budgets.
Effective Content Marketing Tips for Your Small Business
Determine your ideal customer base
Concentrate on specific topics and solve real-world issues
Create a wide range of engaging content formats
Create a content marketing calendar based on your objectives
Share information about your content on other websites and journals
Social Media Marketing
Small businesses must ensure that they are active on their social media channels at least daily. Even if it's just one post per day, it's better than nothing! Researchers have also found that 71% of small-to-mid-sized businesses use social media to market themselves, and of those who do so, 52% post at least daily. It goes without saying that this is the time that the world is at the peak of its social interaction, even if it’s for making purchases.
With so many platforms to focus on, it can be quite overwhelming for startups to formulate a social media marketing strategy for better reach. 26TechServices talks about approaching social network marketing strategy the right way.
CASE STUDY
CHALLENGE | Conscious Living with Shalini needed assistance with social media posts. We at, 26TechServices, studied her page insights and recommended effective changes. In addition, we helped the brand identify its niche and market demand. |
OFFERINGS | Social media strategy, brainstorming new ideas, optimisation |
RESULTS | Optimisation of her social media pages and the workshops that she offered. |
Search Engine Marketing/Pay-Per-Click
SEM is the practice of paying search engines to direct relevant web traffic to your website. The goal is to get as many qualified eyes on your site as possible in order to generate leads or more sales.
The bigger websites, such as Facebook or Twitter, are the most important channels for small businesses to be active on for SEM. See how 26TechServices helped convert Trek n Adventure’s customer travel preferences into a Facebook ad campaign. From the creative to the weekly optimization, the marketing consultant services consisted of end-to-end support for the ads for 8 months.
Influencer Marketing
When you think of influencer marketing, you might imagine celebrities endorsing products and brands with high profiles and even higher budgets. However, regardless of whether you run a large or small business, or whether you operate locally or globally, influencer marketing works wonders for all.
How to do it?
Look for creators who use your brand and talk about it online. They have the potential to become some of the best brand ambassadors because their followers can sense their genuine enthusiasm.
If you are a new brand in the market, send your products to local creators and ask them to consider a collaboration. While this may cost a little more in the long run, the benefits will far outweigh the initial outlay.
Email Marketing
Approximately 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers. Email marketing is a low-cost strategy that usually yields good results. There are low-cost tools available on the market that enable you to create automated email sequences, so you don't even have to be actively involved in the process.
Small businesses can build a successful email marketing campaign in just four steps:
Creating an email list
Plan the types of emails you'll send
Designing emails and creating content
Share the campaign, and analyse the results
Events & Networking
The most effective marketing strategy in business is networking. There are many ways how you can use networking in your marketing strategy. A few simple ways of networking and increasing your worth are as follows:
Hosting meet and greets
Joining organizations
Attending conferences
Cross-promoting
Finding other small businesses online
"Networking is an investment in your business. It takes time and when done correctly can yield great results for years to come``..."
-- Diane Helbig, Business Coach, Author.
Why do you need a marketing strategist?
You can't do everything all by yourself. This is a common stumbling block for small business owners who lack a full-time marketing staff and cannot afford a marketing agency. By default, the owner wears 17 hats and spreads their efforts too thin, resulting in a waste of time, money and other resources
At 26TechServices, we offer project-based marketing consulting services that are optimised for your business. We work within your marketing strategy (or create one for you!) and execute it. Hire a marketing consultant today to make the most of your marketing efforts!