A business cannot be a business if people don’t know you’re there. That is, if you’re relying on people finding you rather than proactively finding them yourself and sharing what your business is made of.
Marketing is a word many business owners dread hearing. Many think a degree in marketing or a dedicated team of marketers is necessary to an effective marketing strategy, when the truth is that a productive and efficient marketing strategy only requires dedication, thought and a dollop of creativity.
If you’re looking for a fool-proof way to make sure your business reaches its full potential through an efficient marketing strategy, you’ve come to the right place! Here at CANDESCENT, our focus is providing quality marketing expertise for small business owners.
In this blog post, you’ll find 5 easy-to-implement methods to add into your marketing toolbox. Whether you’re a marketing novice or searching for ways to bring your marketing strategy back to basics, these tools are the key to unlocking more customers, a wider reach online, a larger email list and, ultimately, a growing presence for your business.
Most importantly, you won’t need to rely on customers finding you anymore, as you’ll have all the tools you need to ensure your brand is out there for the world to see!
5 Things You Need In Your Marketing Toolbox
- Tool 1: Planning
- Tool 2: Automation
- Tool 3: Segmentation
- Tool 4: Lead Magnets
- Tool 5: Engage
Tool 1: Planning
Just like any other part of your business, marketing requires a plan. Before you can implement a marketing strategy, you need to create one. This requires a little time set aside to planning your marketing for either the week, the month, or the year.
Ask yourself these key questions:
- What are your marketing goals?
Before you can create a plan, think about what you’d like to achieve with your marketing strategy. Are you keen to increase your social media following? Would you like to promote your products/services to a wider audience? Do you want to create a bigger business brand so you can partner with other companies? Would you like to utilise email marketing so you can communicate with your clients?
Knowing what you want to gain through your marketing efforts will help you tailor your strategy to these goals and ultimately turn them into reality.
Why not try the SMART method to think about your goals…
- Specific – What goal(s) would you like to achieve?
- Measurable – How will you measure whether you are achieving these goals?
- Achievable – What do you need to do to make the goals happen? Will there be a financial cost, for example?
- Relevant – Will your goals have a positive and meaningful effect on your business?
- Time-bound – When would you like to achieve these goals?
- What platforms are you going to use? (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, email, LinkedIn etc.)
Now you’ve got your vision, it’s time to start implementing it.
Analyse which platforms are the best ones for your business. You may want to target a certain demographic, so find out which platforms they’re interacting on most frequently and put your marketing energies into that platform.
Think also about how you’re going to use these platforms. How often are you going to post? Will you be posting every day, every other day, or once a week? Will you be using static content, or would video content suit your business niche?
Think about how you’d like to turn your goals into a solid strategy, and you’re one step closer to nailing your business marketing.
- How can you make this happen?
When you’ve got a strategy in place, you’ll need to consider the whole picture so you can figure out what you can do to make the strategy happen.
Is your marketing something you can manage on your own, or would you need to hire a team to manage the marketing side of the business? Is there a financial cost to your marketing plans that you need to consider?
Consider these finer details before settling into your marketing responsibilities, as it’ll make everything smoother in the long-term.
It’s safe to say ‘Planning’ is one of the most important tools in the successful marketing toolbox. If you’d like to know more about planning your content in advance, we’ve got a whole blog post on how you can do so effectively!
Tool 2: Automation
Whilst a business won’t market itself, you can create a strategy that feels as though it does. You can do this through automating your content.
Automation involves scheduling your emails, social media content and blog posts so that they appear on your sites without you manually publishing them yourself. Scheduling your content in advance turns your marketing strategy from being labour-intensive to much more time efficient for you. Rather than spending time every day posting across multiple online platforms, you can schedule a small amount of time each week to set your content calendar up for the coming days, so that the scheduling tool does all the work for you!
The other benefit of automation is specific to email marketing. Often, you need emails to be sent at a specific time, without the need for 24/7 monitoring. For example, you may want an email to arrive in someone’s inbox after they abandon their online cart (also known as an Abandoned Cart Email Workflow). You don’t have to wait around for this to happen so you can send the emails yourself – instead, using automation, the emails are guaranteed to land into your subscribers’ inbox at the time you need them to (when they abandon their cart). All it requires is a little time to create the email sequence and ensure it’s triggered when someone abandons their shopping basket. You can read more about this type of email workflow here.
Automation is a crucial part of any business’ marketing strategy, as it offers the chance to make maximum impact with your content whilst also freeing up some of your precious time for other tasks. And, if you’d like to learn more, we’ve curated all our knowledge on the benefits of automated emails here.
Tool 3: Segmentation
Segmentation is another fundamental aspect of the business owner’s marketing strategy, and is most useful when using email marketing. The process involves monitoring your audience’s demographic profile (you can read more about audience demographic in this blog post), in addition to what they have taken an interest in and what they have purchased in the past.
Next, you can use this knowledge to segment your audience in terms of what they are interested in the most. This subsequently allows you to create customized emails, so you can stop relying on sending generic emails that share information to your whole audience that may be largely irrelevant and instead send bespoke emails based on people’s preferences and what they need from your business.
As well as establishing brand loyalty with your audience, segmentation is crucial for boosting your email conversion rate, so you can turn your email subscribers into paying customers. And, it also gives you the opportunity to learn more about your customers, so you can ensure your products/services are made to suit your ideal client.
Tool 4: Lead Magnets
Ever seen a pop-up on a website that says “Enter your email to stay up to date!” or “Sign up to our mailing list and get 20% off your first order!”? These are lead magnets, and they’re super useful when trying to grow your customer base.
Lead magnets offer the chance to:
- Grow your email list,
- Gain new followers on social media,
- Promote your business to a wider audience,
- Establish a strong client base,
- Boost your sales.
This is because you are opening a channel of communication between you and your customer, a channel that is crucial for showing the best of your business so you’re more likely to obtain loyal, returning customers.
You can advertise lead magnets to your social media posts, website and blogs. Ideas include creating an opt-in form on your website so people swap their email for a discount or reward, or a giveaway that involves sharing your latest Instagram post on their stories to be entered into a draw.
There’s plenty more lead magnet ideas you can weave into your marketing strategy; if you’d like to learn more about growing your email list with lead magnets, you’re going to love our Free eGuide: ‘5 Lead Magnets to Grow Your Email List FAST’!
Tool 5: Engage
The final tool you need to add to your marketing armour is this: engage. A business that communicates with their customers on a regular basis is a business that turns interested people into paying customers, whilst a business that is hit and miss is likely to disinterest and lose potential customers.
Engaging with your audience contributes to the process of nurturing. When you nurture your audience, whether it be through daily emails, Instagram Live’s, frequent discounts, interesting blog posts and consistent communication, you are maximising your chances of securing more sales from your customers.
Use emails and social media to this effect. Keep reminding them that you’re there and you’re thriving through sharing pictures of the latest brand revamp or product launch and visions for where your business is headed. Tell them about new services and opportunities for rewards, direct them to your blog where they can find out more about your business, encourage them to subscribe to your email list for quality content, and keep working hard to bring your customers back to your website.
When you consistently engage with your customers, your business is sure to reap the rewards.
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Overall, marketing for your business can be rewarding and easy, with the right methods in place. Marketing gives you the chance to build a stronger brand image, get your name out into your highly competitive industry and showcase why people should invest in your products/services over any other business.
If you’re looking to create a strategy that can turn your audience into customers and boost sales for your business, use the tips outlined above and you’re on the path to marketing success!
And, if you’ve got any tips that have made your marketing strategy work more efficiently and effectively, be sure to share them with us @WeAreCandescent.