As a business owner, you don’t need me to tell you that marketing can be tough. Everyone is competing for attention, and it can be quite difficult to stand out from other businesses. Particularly your close competition. Consumers learn about local businesses like yours and your competition online more than anywhere else. Which is all the more reason why it’s important that you have a strong digital marketing strategy in place. One that can separate you from everyone else, attract your existing and potential customers and puts you above your competition and at the front of everyone’s mind when it comes to your industry. Sound appealing? I thought so! Get ready to take notes because here are some tips on how you can successfully do it.

Know How to Target Your Audience

When it comes to marketing your small business, it’s essential to target the right audience. You want to build up and attract people who are going to potentially pay you for your product or service. By developing a strategy that focuses on your target customer, you’ll be able to reach more people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer. So how do you do this? In order to target your audience effectively you will want to:

• Know your market
• Define your niche
• Research your competition
• Create buyer personas
• Use demographic data
• Categorize your audience
• Customize your message

Advertise Your Business Online

When it comes to advertising your business, there are several different strategies that you can use. However, not all of these strategies will be the best for your business. To find the best marketing strategy for your small business, you need to do some research. One of the most popular online marketing tactics is social media advertising. This involves using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter along with the rest of the ever-growing list of platforms to promote your business. You can create ads that target specific demographics, or you can simply post about your business on your social media page.

Build Awareness Through Influencers

When it comes to marketing your small business, you can’t afford to overlook the power of influencers. In case you aren’t familiar with them, influencers are individuals with a large online following who can sway the opinions of their followers. So basically, if an influencer were to promote your product or service, their followers are likely to take notice. There are numerous ways to work with influencers to build awareness for your small business. One option is to reach out to them directly and ask them to promote your product or service. Another option is to partner with an influencer marketing agency that can connect you with influencers who are a good fit for your brand. In terms of who you consider an influencer, it depends on your point of view really. Partnering with a successful business with a large established following can also help incredibly and can technically fall into the influencer category as well. This leads to our next tip.

Connect with Local Businesses

We’re all in the same melting pot when it comes to local businesses which is all the more reason for us to help boost each other up. One of the best ways to market your small business is to connect you’re your fellow local businesses. Partnering with other businesses in your area gives you the ability to share resources and promote each other to your customers. This also opens the door to collaboration on marketing initiatives and events. Start by networking with other business owners in your community. Attend business events and join groups that focus on local business collaboration. Your local Chamber of Commerce is a great example. It also doesn’t hurt to reach out to local businesses directly with an offering to collaborate.

Offer Incentives and Discounts

These discounts or incentives can be in the form of a percentage off your products or services or even a free item with purchase. Think about the last time a business gave away something for free? Even if it was with a purchase, you still feel good afterwards and have a positive experience tied to that business. You can also offer loyalty programs, which give customers rewards for continued patronage. Whatever incentive or discount you choose to offer, make sure it’s something that your customers will find valuable.

Build an email list

Building an email list isn’t hard. It doesn’t take much time or any special skills to do, and once it’s done it saves you a lot of time in the future. Here are some ideas for building your initial newsletter subscribers:

• Offer something valuable (and usually free) like a free webinar or coupon code for joining your mailing list.
• Ask people who complete certain forms on your website to opt-in to receive updates from you via email.
• Use social media to post about how excited you are about launching your new products/services and share where to sign up for them using links that lead directly to the sign-up form.
• Include a sign-up form on all your website pages and blog posts.

Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You continuously here us talk about it, but we wouldn’t if it wasn’t incredibly important. SEO is the process of optimizing your website for Google and other search engines so that it appears higher in search engine results pages. By investing in SEO, you can improve your website’s ranking in search results and attract more visitors. As you may know by now, there are many different SEO techniques that you can use, and it’s important to choose the right ones for your business.

Post Blogs

If you don’t feel this works, it may be a bad time to tell you that you’re taking time to read one right now… Blogging is a great way to connect with customers and share information about your business or industry. Ensure your blogs are about the latest trends and events related to your business. When you blog about the latest trends, news stories and events related to your industry, potential customers can learn more about you and what you offer. This can help you attract new customers and build trust with existing customers.

Whether you’re in the process of launching a new business or already have one, having a strong online presence for your brand is extremely important. Avoid the pitfalls of small business marketing and achieve long-term goals by choosing the right strategies. There’s no question that it’s a long road to build your online marketing strategy, but any steps you can make will have a huge impact on your business. Some things like blogging might take a few months to start kicking in and generating traffic, but other tips like running digital ads can have immediate effects. If you’re a small business owner with little experience in online marketing, this might all sound like a foreign language to you. But if that’s the case, have no fear! That’s what Crunch Fource is for!