It’s never been easier, or harder, to market your business. On the one hand, the access you have to modern tools intended to help with your marketing is remarkable. On the other, the field is increasingly more crowded; no matter what industry you’re interested in, you’re bound to have fierce competition, and they’ll be looking to use exactly the same marketing tools that you are. Standing out from the crowd has never been more important, but it’s not always easy to do that.
If you want to stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to employ a mixture of lateral thinking, dedication, and hard work. Using the tools at your disposal effectively isn’t easy; it takes the right kind of person. If you’re so disposed, it’s a good idea to look into hiring a social media manager to take care of your marketing, since so much of that side of business is handled through social media now. Either way, read on for some tips on how to market your business in 2019.
Create merchandise
Your business will thrive even more than it already is if you create merchandise for people to use. Not all businesses are appropriate for this step, but if your business has strong branding and a cohesive identity, then it should lend itself perfectly to merchandising. Why not look into customised phone cases, mugs, or similar? Sites like Pixa Prints are perfect for this purpose, offering bespoke merchandising solutions to individuals and businesses alike.
Maintain social media
We can’t hammer this message home enough: social media is absolutely crucial in the modern marketing battle. You simply won’t be able to get your message out to enough people if you don’t engage with social media. That means maintaining a constant profile on all major social media services, engaging with followers when they have comments, and creating frequent social media campaigns to promote your business. It’s not just about posting the occasional tweet or photo.
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Build relationships with influencers
The amount of money companies are willing (and able) to invest in influencer marketing is rising steadily. If you don’t want to be left behind, then you need to get on board the influencer marketing train. In reality, this simply means contacting influencers on social media and asking them if they’d like to work with you to promote your products. This could take the form of a simple sponsorship deal or something more creatively rewarding for the influencer. It’s up to you.
Network with other businesses
You should be constantly looking for opportunities to network with other business owners. If a business has a niche you’d like to exploit and vice versa, then it makes perfect sense to network and swap demographics. Collaborate with companies to create promotional campaigns that will satisfy influencers and customers alike. Networking can only help you; it’ll build your brand identity, create relationships, and foster a positive atmosphere among your workforce.
Maintain a brand identity
Customers have to know what your brand is and what it represents before they can get behind it. You won’t be able to market your business if your brand identity and central missions aren’t concrete and well-defined. Take a step back from your business and think about what it’s offering to people – that’s your brand identity. Next, come up with a mission statement that corresponds to that identity. All of your marketing material should repeatedly emphasise that branding.
Work on SEO
SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation – is a completely vital skill for business owners. If you don’t emphasise SEO within your website or blog content, then you simply won’t be visible to many people searching online. Effectively, SEO involves optimising content in order to make your site more visible in Google searches. Factors like keyword usage, content structure, sentence length, and other grammatical points are all important. Brush up on your SEO and you’ll stand to gain hugely from it.
Send out review surveys
This works even better if your business is an e-commerce venture, but if not, you can still do this. Send out regular email surveys to customers asking them if they can fill out a questionnaire about the service they received. Most customers should be fairly happy to do this if the emails aren’t too frequent or intrusive. The results for those surveys are not only informative for you and the business, but they can also be used as marketing material if you collate the data and analyse it correctly.
Create good content
This might sound extremely obvious, but it’s amazing how many small business owners (and large ones) completely overlook the importance of good-quality, engaging content. If you’re maintaining a regular blog, you need to make sure that the content on that blog is relevant, enjoyable, and interesting. If you’re not maintaining a blog, you should be. Use the power of blogger outreach to create content that works for your brand and that will increase your marketability.
Advertise
Yep – sometimes, it’s just that simple. Many business owners get tied up in knots wondering how they can best exploit social media and modern marketing methods without realising that advertising is still extremely effective. YouTube and other streaming platforms offer great ad space, but you can also turn to more traditional platforms like internet advertising and even TV. You’d be amazed how advertising can build your brand, so don’t neglect this oft-overlooked aspect of marketing.