What Marketing should Small Businesses do?

A marketing strategy is a business’s overall approach to how it will reach its desired new customers. That being said, having an effective marketing strategy in place is hands down one of the best marketing tools you can use.

There are many different types of marketing strategies. But how many of them will actually work for your business? What types of marketing strategies should you choose to pursue and why?

First, let’s narrow down the number of marketing tactics. I’m going to focus on the most effective types of marketing strategies for small businesses like yours. And these all centre around digital marketing. The main types of marketing strategies for the online world are: social media marketing (SMM), SEO, Pay Per Click (PPC), email marketing, and content marketing.

Why The Focus On Digital Marketing?

A solid digital marketing strategy is very cost-effective for small businesses, unlike the more traditional ones like face-to-face sales talk, radio ads, billboards, direct mails, newspapers, etc.

But besides cost, what are some of the other benefits of digital marketing?

Here are the main ones:

• You can easily measure the effects of your marketing campaigns and see if your strategy is effective or not.

• You can reach a wider audience on the internet than you ever could with a newspaper ad.

• You can also engage directly with your target audience and encourage them to take the desired actions – something that’s impossible to do with traditional advertising methods.

• And it’s for these reasons why the focus is on digital marketing.

The Best Types Of Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses

To determine the best types of marketing strategies, one first has to ask what is most necessary for their business. A big business can afford the traditional methods of advertising, so those types of marketing strategies can sometimes work well for them. A big business likely already knows their target audience, has built up an engaged following already, and could benefit a lot from more exposure.

But what about a small business? What works best for them?

To become a big business someday, a small business will want to learn its target audience, build up an engaged following, and get exposure as affordably as possible. And there’s no better way to accomplish all of this than with digital marketing. So today let’s begin with social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is one of the most popular and effective types of marketing strategies. And it’s not hard to understand why when more than 2.8 billion people use social media platforms. That’s approximately 37% of the world’s population.

This huge number includes people from all age groups. Even children as young as 10 years old have started to use social media regularly.

Add to that the fact that all the reputable digital marketing news sites support social media marketing. According to WeAreSocial, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is almost guaranteed to improve your level of engagement and brand awareness.

But perhaps the biggest reason for the widespread adoption of SMM is its ease of use and low barrier to entry. The value per dollar spent on SMM is also excellent.

And social media isn’t just limited to social networks like Facebook.

There are also social media networks that cater to professionals, the most popular one being LinkedIn. LinkedIn is great for helping professionals to build long-term relationships thanks to the relaxed nature of social media.

Social media also encompasses a wide array of places where people are social and interact with each other. Many of these places present opportunities for businesses too.

So no matter who your target audience is, you’ll be able to reach them and interact with them.

But despite the fact that it’s one of the best types of marketing strategies, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. However, keep in mind that the challenges social media poses can all be overcome, especially with some help.

Social Media Marketing Challenges

Competitive

As I’ve said, there are a lot of marketers on social media. According to an AdWeek survey, more than 88% of companies in the U.S. use it. So you will have to invest a lot of time to compete with them. This is especially true for business-to-consumer companies

Or work with social media experts and influencers who can help you cut through all the white noise or assist your viral marketing tactics.

Time Consuming

To many businesses, time is as precious as money, And you’ll have to spend a lot of time each week doing the following marketing techniques:

• engaging with clients

• answering questions

• posting high-quality content on a regular schedule

• learning Curve

Part of the learning process is making mistakes. Mistakes like:

• Allowing your message to get misconstrued

• Your CPC (cost per click) for social media advertising gets out of contro

• Reading your audience wrong

You might come to find that the learning curve is just too much for you to handle, which is another reason why working with a marketing agency can be beneficial.

Social Media Marketing Advantages

Now let’s talk about the main advantages of social media marketing and why it’s one of the best types of marketing strategies for small businesses.

Ease Of Use

The easier the platform is to use for you and your audience, the better. This will help in your relationship marketing. That’s because if it’s easy for them to use, then they’re more likely to be spending a lot of time there.

Low Cost

Advertising on social media is done with a PPC model. According to AdEspresso, the average PPC cost is only $0.28 . And you will only pay that when users take the desired action.

Symbiotic Relationship

SMM forms a symbiotic relationship with your other marketing efforts. You can combine it with other forms of content or brand marketing, like photos, webinars, videos, your website links, etc.

Best Targeting

According to psychographic data, social media targeting is unmatched in terms of targeting. You can laser-target just about demographic by any metric imaginable (personality, habits, interests, location, etc.). This is beneficial for your direct marketing especially if you have new products to promote.

It’s for these reasons why SMM is among the best form of marketing strategies for reaching your target audience effectively. You have complete control over who will see your ads, saving you time and money.

Brand Loyalty

According to Dreamglow, 71% of customers who had a positive experience with a company on social media are likely to recommend it to their friends and family.

What does this number show? It shows that building brand loyalty and long-term relationships with customers and clients will ultimately help the bottom line. Being on social media and showing everyone that you’re human is what it’s all about. Doing so can also increase your word-of-mouth marketing.

Measure Your Success

It’s getting easier and easier to track interactions on social media (tweets, downloads, likes, etc.), and these are pretty effective metrics for measuring success. All you have to do is compare your most successful metrics to your profits and then you can easily see which of your efforts produce the best results.