5 small business marketing essentials

5 Essentials of Small Business Marketing to Keep You Ahead of the Competition

Small business marketing is not for the faint of heart, but if you’ve been in marketing for longer than two seconds, you know that. Marketing your business is dependent on doing some key factors well and these items can make or break a small business in this dog eat dog world we live in. Competition is fierce and learning how to make the most from your web pages is tricky.

Here are five important actions to keep you ahead of the competition!

1. Create a Marketing Plan – Don’t leave anything to chance. Construct a well-thought out, concise plan that maps out every one of your marketing elements along with what you need to do to make it work. Make it as detailed as possible. At the very least fill in the broad strokes.  But don’t just plan blindly, base it on research.  How do customers typically find and choose a business like yours?  No point planning a direct mail campaign if most of your audience prefers to look online
2. Social Media Marketing – 91 percent of experiences social marketers generate improved website traffic and 79 percent generate more quality leads according to MediaBistro.com. 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.
3. Build a Mailing List – MarketingProfs.com reported emails averages a ROI (return on investment) of $40 for every $1 spent. This far exceeds keyword ads ($17) and banner ads ($2). Don’t be misled into thinking collecting and building an email list is dead. If you don’t build a list, you’re failing to build your business!  You just cannot afford to leave such a large source of potential profits for your competition.  Build an email list above all things – it’s worth gold.
4. Video Marketing – Research shows a video is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google than any other text page! This really is too good to pass up. Small businesses can engage in this by video marketing. The video market is still relatively untapped and having a simple video advertising your wares can gain you loads of Google traffic along with authority.
5. Have a Mobile Presence – Ensure your site is optimized for mobile, as more than half of all searches now are emanating from some type of mobile device. Microsoft reports that mobile browsing is projected to overtake desktop browsing by 2014. Having your pages mobile optimized can help improve your reach, and also corral impulse buyers.

Don’t Be a Superhero and Do It Alone!

None of us can do it all, particularly when it comes to the constantly changing world of online marketing. Find out what’s working now, learn from the best you can afford, and hire the best outsourcing you can get. It will pay off handsomely in the end!