From tech start-ups to pool cleaning services, marketing is an essential part of any business. It can be challenging to market your business, products or services when the strategies for doing so are continually changing. It used to be that all you had to do was buy a few ads in the local newspaper or TV station to put your company out there. Now, the internet has changed the way business and advertising is done in almost every aspect. If your business is in need of a marketing makeover, keep reading for advice on how to get your company the exposure it needs.
Traditional Advertising
If you’re a running a small, local business in a rural area, there is nothing wrong with traditional advertising such as local TV and newspaper ads. While you won’t have people coming from all over the country to purchase your products and services, you won’t have to spend nearly as much for the marketing you need to be successful. However, if you plan on marketing your company in a major city or a larger scale, local advertising won’t be enough to get your business off the ground.
Word of Mouth
Word of mouth marketing is nothing new; it’s been around since the dawn of civilization. Despite its age, word of mouth marketing remains one of the best ways to sell a service or product—it’s also one of the hardest. Getting non-biased consumers to talk about and share your product isn’t easy. However, there are ways in which you can inspire these organic conversations. A clever slogan, logo, commercial, or genuinely unique product are great ways to generate a buzz. With the dawn of the digital age and social media, what constitutes word of mouth marketing has evolved. One tweet about your product from the right person could turn you into a millionaire overnight.
Search Engine Optimization
Digital marketing has revolutionized advertising. If you don’t know what white hat link building or keyword density is, don’t worry—most businesses have no idea just how complicated SEO can be. The primary goal of SEO is to increase the ranking of your website and its services when people search specific terms on Google or any other search engine. Because there are so many ways in which search engines determine ranking, it can often take an entire team to tackle every aspect of ranking increases. If you haven’t hired a professional digital marketing team or added one to your company’s marketing department, you could be losing significant amounts of business to your competitors through search engines.
Social Media
It’s of the utmost importance that you build social media accounts for your business at its inception. There are many aspects of social media that could be considered free advertising, and there are so many ways it can increase your company’s exposure. Here are just a few of the ways social media can help your business:
- SEO: Companies that have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts will likely see higher levels of traffic than those that do not. This is simply due to the fact that social channels offer additional methods for users to land on your website. Promoting blog posts, new products, and discounts on social media can create buzz that will direct traffic back to your website.
- Targeting: Targeting specific consumers is the easiest way to make sales conversions. Whenever a social media user does anything, data is collected and used to build a consumer profile. If your company sells boats, targeting consumers based off of interest groups or professions will make sales much easier.
- Sharing: So much of marketing happens behind the scenes. How many times have you received an email or text for a funny commercial? This type of exposure can be challenging to track and record. However, social media accounts allow for your business and products to be shared more efficiently in a variety of different fashions.
Connect with Your Market
Providing samples of your product for sampling groups is a perfect way to get feedback and generate buzz. Video game companies will often bring in large groups of play testers to get a feel for what needs to be changed and to get people in their target community to start spreading the word about a new release. Consider providing free samples for newsletter signups or likes on Facebook in order to get a conversation started about your product.
Now that you know what it takes to get your company’s name out there, use this helpful advice to get the exposure you deserve.
