Experiments in Marketing

Small business owners are accustomed to wearing many hats, one of which is marketing. The art of marketing is essentially raising awareness of your brand and what products and services you offer while inviting and enticing people to call, inquire and purchase.

So how does one go about marketing a small business? The tools and techniques are varied, but here are a few that have helped me.  Some I’ve been doing for a while and some are currently under development for the very first time.

1. Networking – It doesn’t matter who you are, face to face with prospects is one of the best ways to raise awareness. You are a living advocate for your brand and can provide immediate feedback or answers to questions as well as build trust in relationships.
2. Website – A good website can be a 24/7 source of information about your brand. It should be well-designed (yes, bite the bullet and hire a professional) and it should also contain all the necessary SEO elements to give it every chance in the search engines. That means both behind the scenes (like structure and meta information) and on the page (keyword rich content). Check the SEO section of this blog for some ideas.
3. Email Marketing – If you have a list of clients or contacts who you think would benefit from a monthly newsletter, put one together and send it out. Of course, give them the option to opt out if they wish and place an ‘opt in’ section somewhere on your website. Make sure the contents of the newsletter are relevant to your audience, helpful, and contain information they can use. This is NOT where you advertise, this is where you establish yourself as a thought leader or expert in your industry.
4. Social Media – This is one of those things that can take all your time and your entire marketing budget if you let it.  Number one rule here is to make a plan and set some goals so that you don’t spend more time than you need to on social media. You will also want to be sure that your efforts are netting results.
5. Measurement – With both social media and websites, you will be able to measure the activity so that you get a sense of what is and isn’t working and make appropriate changes.
6. Off-Site SEO – One of the keys to SEO is driving traffic to your website so you’ll want to invest some time in submitting your website to directories, writing articles and submitting them to article sites or finding blogs in your industry and posting comments.
7. QR codes – I couldn’t resist putting this one in. I think there are lots of folks out there who have jumped on this bandwagon too soon without really thinking through how to effectively use this technology. Do some research and investigate appropriate places where a QR code might work into your overall marketing plans.
8. Podcasts - The search engines give preference to sites that contain a variety of media. In addition to compelling copy and beautiful images, consider adding audio in the form of podcasts. Visit Trafalgar Communications to learn how.
9. YouTube - As well as audio, look at creating some video clips and posting them on YouTube then setting up a portal on your website to view them.

I think one of the best ways to be a great marketer is to be an attentive customer. What really gets your attention? The chances are pretty good that what works on you will work on others.

Photo courtesy: renjith krishnan from freedigitalphotos.net