The rise of technology has completely revolutionized the way we now conduct business, particularly marketing strategies. Even before the shift to ubiquitous online access, marketing has been an integral part of growing any business and making it more lucrative. There are so many effective ways to combine classic word-of-mouth referrals and business card hand-outs with a strong internet presence.
Get Social Media Savvy
Social media is word of mouth on steroids. Your ability to build an audience becomes quicker and easier, as you now have almost instant access to viewers and potential customers all over the world. You also have the ability to portray your business exactly how you want throughout posts, without any hiccups.
Take advantage of social media’s permanent residence in mainstream communication. Join LinkedIn and Facebook to create detailed pages for your brand and incorporate your company logo into your social media pages to help widen your network and join various groups that are relevant to your unique project.
Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat can also be fantastic avenues for marketing. Don’t underestimate the power of a picture, short tweet, or quick blurb! These three outlets offer your audience a better sense of who you are, making your business more personal and relatable, particularly to a younger consumer market. Instagram offers the opportunity to create beautiful, eye-catching themes through photos. There are countless options and many websites will offer you a detailed how-to. Twitter offers the opportunity to post something quick and clever that also covers the gist of what you’re company is doing, allowing you to include website URL’s or photos, and tweet to other relevant companies. Snapchat enables the user to create short videos with a variety of different filters, which could be helpful when hosting or promoting an event. They’re also effective because as we’re confronted with an unending stream of information, our attention span’s decrease and customers are more likely to read something short. Remember, consistency in your posting is going to be key!
Increase Local Engagement
It’s always important to personally promote your project. Whether that be through a vendor tent at the local farmer’s market, or helping to sponsor an upcoming 5K, get yourself out into the community! Meet different people, network, and reach out to various local publications, lifestyle magazines, and radio stations. Encourage them to check out your social media channels (without being too pushy or sales-y) and share how your business is relevant to the topics they cover and why it’s impactful in your own community. Newspapers may, unfortunately, be more antiquated than social media, but you’d be surprised by how many people still enjoy picking one up and you never know, you may just snag a feature in the local paper’s spotlight.
Create a Blog
Blogs often allow you the time and space to offer a more in-depth explanation of your company. While your mission statement, website front page, and social media outlets may offer the big-picture, a blog will help deepen your customer’s understanding of everything your project offers. It will also serve as a more personal and relatable view of who you are.
Blogs are updated often and explore such a wide range of topics, they’re bound to continuously keep your readers engaged and interested. You also have the added option of including various links to other parts of your site, introducing upcoming projects, changes, and new products within each post, and linking your blog to your social media presence.
Try including relevant videos and photos in your articles, as they will help to make your blog posts more dynamic and engaging to look at. They also give the reader the opportunity to get to know you.
Put Effort into Email
Put time and effort into building your email list, whether that be manually, or through your website. Offer customers the prospect of joining as soon as they visit with a small pop-up. Stay on top of email updates! Similarly to posting on social media and publishing blog posts, emailing your customers with updates is an important means of keeping them in the loop. Try to keep your messages exciting and concise, as an email that’s too long and wordy will lose their interest quickly. Include links back to your website or blog and be friendly. You’re not a robot, so try to make your emails personal to you and they will seem more authentic to your customers. Be mindful of how often you’re sending out emails, as less can typically be more. You don’t need to send them something every single day, as that may land you in their “unsubscribe” territory, so stick with sending a couple per month and keep them informative.
Technology has changed the way many of us think about business, but that doesn’t mean marketing can’t be fun! Its entrance to the business world has increased the ways we’re able to market and has ultimately made entrepreneurship a much less complicated journey to navigate.
