Bad things happen to businesses when marketing fails. Poor marketing means no steady stream of customers, and without this, profits evaporate. Seasoned marketing veterans abjure the notion of ‘good enough’: in highly competitive commercial environments, only ‘top of your game’ will do when it comes to marketing.
This applies whatever the business, whether it’s in the catering industry, in e-commerce, or in the STEM field. Here are some key ways to take business marketing skills to the next level.
Approach influencers and bloggers
Influencer and blogger marketing is booming, not least because it has an organic feel to it. Influencers can mobilize genuine interest in your product or service, often collaborating with highly talented content creators for added impact. Popular bloggers can also help cultivate organic links to your business through their content.
Get a user-friendly website
Social media is crucial for effective marketing in the digital age – but never underestimate the value of an attractive website. People use search engines to seek out the products or services they want quickly, and if you don’t have a website, you effectively don’t have a digital existence. A social media presence isn’t the same – get a good web designer to create a well-laid-out website and you can convey your brand values vividly while allowing customers to find (and explore) your wares easily.
Joined-up social media
It’s not enough simply to ‘have a social media presence.’ Having separate presences on separate social media platforms is ‘bitty.’ It’s far better to link your profiles on different platforms together. This doesn’t mean posting identical content on each one. It just means that your branding on each one is consistent in tone and more readily recognizable across platforms.
View customer service as integral to marketing
Being courteous, friendly and helpful to customers matters to them. It boosts their regard for your brand. They will be far more inclined to spontaneously tell other people about their positive experiences. Word of mouth remains one of the most potent means of expanding your business.
Actively engage
Two factors are crucial for engaging customers. First, keep adding fresh content regularly: regularly updated content (for example, new Instagram posts, fresh blog posts and new tweets) all convey liveliness and enthusiasm for your product. Second, combine new content with calls to action: add questions that can be responded to or challenges that visitors can try out. People feel more actively engaged with your brand through such measures.
SEO optimization
Google rankings seriously matter to any business with a web presence. This means that optimizing your content for search is seriously important. Look into the keywords associated with your brand and ensure that you plant them judiciously in your social media and website content.
To really improve your digital marketing acumen and get an enterprise to flourish, an online MBA program, such as the highly regarded option offered by Kettering University, will help immeasurably.
Conclusion
These are a few must-dos for taking marketing to the next level. There are also multiple additional considerations. For example, Wes Otto, CEO and co-founder of Otto Media Group, recently told Forbes magazine that it is best not to conflate selling with marketing on social media – building a relationship with potential customers through valuable and engaging content is far more effective than sales pitches on these platforms.
