As a small business, it is very important to have a strong set of marketing strategies. Wherever a business is based, and whatever sector / industry it is in, they will have competitors; and when you are a small business, it is likely that the majority of your competitors will be bigger than you. To get over this disadvantage, you need to think of innovative ways of marketing your brand, and your product or service.
To get some perspective on this, we spoke to TechQuarters, who provide IT support North London businesses, have been relying on for more than 10 years – but at one time, they were just another small business looking for innovative ways to market their services. We asked them about marketing, and they gave us 5 important marketing strategies that small businesses should focus on.
1. Content Marketing
It is very important for businesses these days to engage their target audience with a range of content. If the only content your brand creates is relating to your products or services, audiences may get bored of it. This is precisely what content marketing is about. It covers things like social media posts, videos, blogs, and any type of content created to engage audiences and hold their interest and attention. For example, if you have a social media presence, you may want to create some entertaining and informative content that is relevant to your sector, or even post memes and other content just to amuse.
2. Search Engine Optimisation
As most of us can attest to, search engines are one of the primary ways people navigate the internet. It is simply the easiest way to find out information and discover new content. Search engine optimisation is the way in which businesses work with search engines to get users to discover their brand, usually via their website. There are a range of techniques employed with SEO, and they are all mainly based around increase a website’s ranking on search engine results – this involves associating your website with specific keywords, so that when users search those keywords, your website is one of the results. If you perform SEO really well, your website could be the first result when users search for a specific topic or keyword.
3. Pay-per-click
Closely linked to search engine optimisation, Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a way for brands to pay for a high ranking on a search engine. Essentially it is another form of paid advertising – a brand will choose certain keywords to target, and will pay for priority positions on the results for those keywords. In other words, if your target audiences are searching for “Graphic designers in London”, you could pay to have your website be shown at the top of the list for that search. Of course, the higher the ranking, the more you will have to pay; and you are charged each time someone clicks on your ad. PPC works great alongside SEO, because together they create both long-term and short-term boosts in rankings.
4. Website User Experiences
As modern marketing has a lot to do with getting people to find your website, you must make sure that your website is highly professional, easy to use, and aesthetically pleasing. Website User Experience, or UX, is very important for a brand. If your website is the first point of contact for a customer, that means that it is the first impression they will have of your brand, so it has to be a really good one. There are a lot of design and interface principles that brands should consider when designing their website experience. Many brands use interface design software and website builders to create click sites.
