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Owners of small businesses have a lot on their plate just keeping their business running smoothly. You might have to think about ordering supplies or merchandise, scheduling employees, managing conflict, closing sales to new customers, and providing excellent customer service.
Oh, and there’s also the overhead and bills, fixing anything that breaks, providing coffee and snacks, and more… the list never ends.
On top of all that you need to market your business, and the number of options can be overwhelming. Is marketing hard, or are there ways to make it easier?
The good news is that you can simplify your marketing process. Here’s what you need to know.
The biggest mistake that business owners make is to try to do too much. It’s impossible to keep up on every social media platform, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and more. That’s why businesses don’t do well with marketing — they don’t focus!
Instead, focus on SEO for inbound marketing and one social media platform for outbound marketing. That means you’ll use SEO to position yourself on search engine results so that people who are actively searching for information about your product or service will find your business.
At the same time, you’ll choose one social media platform to reach out to potential customers. You can share information about your business, engage with those online, and answer questions. Choose the platform that your ideal customers spend the most time on.
For example, a hair salon might choose Instagram to showcase their hairstyles visually, where a lawn care company might use Facebook to connect with homeowners and give advice.
When you narrow things down, you can dramatically simplify your marketing efforts.
Another marketing mistake is to try to be too much to too many people. Instead of focusing on a single ideal market, businesses try to attract absolutely everyone.
That’s not only hard, it’s impossible! When you try to be that general, you end up not appealing to anyone. Without a focused marketing message, you won’t be able to attract your ideal customers, and you’ll work much harder to attract customers at all.
Step back and get completely clear on exactly who you’d love to have walking in your door every day. Look at ideal customers by age, income level, home ownership, family size, and more. Then, think about precisely what problems your product or service solves most effectively.
Finally, create a marketing message that is focused only on your ideal audience and shares exactly how you solve the key problems you identified. You’ll get a steady stream of customers that grow your business without working nearly as hard!
Marketing is about consistency. If someone sees your message once, it may not make a difference. But by the 10th time, you’ve gotten their attention.
If you’re inconsistent with marketing, doing outreach for a couple weeks and then stopping for a month and starting again, you’re making marketing too hard. You’ll never be able to build on your gains and you’re constantly starting over!
Instead, create a workable marketing plan and stick to it. Doing a little bit each week is better than doing a lot one week and nothing the next two weeks.
Is marketing hard? Not if you’re consistent!
There’s nothing more simple than letting experts take over your marketing while you focus on your own expertise — your business.
The key is to find an expert that understands your business and has experience helping companies like yours. As a small business owner, you want someone who has helped smaller companies excel and grow. Don’t fall for big promises and then end up being ignored in favour of clients with huge budgets!
SEO is an excellent marketing process to outsource. It takes a lot of expertise to find the right keywords, place in the right locations on your website, and create engaging content regularly. Having a skilled SEO marketing firm take over those tasks can help ensure everything is done correctly and effectively.
While the marketing firm builds up your online presence, you can focus on what you do best — running your company and providing high-quality products and services to your customers!
Is your marketing too hard? If so, following these tips will help you simplify your marketing while also getting better results. Pare things down to just two or three platforms, and focus your efforts on your ideal audience, not everyone. When your marketing message is laser-focused, it will be much easier to gain new customers.
Above all, stay consistent. You can’t afford a patchy online presence — it makes your company look flakey and unprofessional. Finally, if doing the marketing you need is too much, find qualified experts to outsource some or all of your marketing tasks to.
Local SEO Search is proud to be focused only on small businesses. You don’t have to worry about a small budget making you a low priority. We offer a variety of affordable services and packages. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you grow!
