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7 Smart Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

marketing strategies for small businesses

Whether you’re launching a new small business or already have an existing one, you need to develop a marketing strategy that prioritizes a strong online presence. With 97% of people researching local businesses online, it’s essential to meet potential customers where they spend the most time.

However, growing your small business in the digital landscape isn’t easy. Between defining your target audience, promoting your services, and getting the word out, it’s simple to understand why you’d be overwhelmed.

Throw developing a marketing strategy into the mix, and it might seem like you’re trying to learn a foreign language.

Don’t worry! With the right strategies and channels in place, you can get on the fast track to growing brand awareness and earning ROI. In this post, let’s discover what should be at the center of your small business marketing strategy.

Quick Takeaways:

  • A marketing strategy helps you optimize your online assets and promote your company.
  • You need to develop your audience, value proposition, and technology before diving into digital tactics.
  • The right strategy combination—search engine optimization, social media, etc.—will help you earn brand awareness and conversions quickly.

[Do you need to start your small business marketing program? Check out our weekly blog service that includes an annual plan and monthly reporting!]

Why is it Important to Build a Small Business Marketing Strategy?

Every business wants to get their name out there, but when you’re a small business with a modest budget, it’s hard to come up with traditional and online marketing ideas while balancing marketing expenses against the expenses of actually doing business. And with advertising costing as much as it does, it’s no wonder that so many small businesses struggle to get noticed.

Here’s the plot twist, though: advertising isn’t the best way to generate leads anymore. The average person today sees around 5,000 ads a day, a number that’s over twice as high as it was in the ‘80s. As a result, ad blockers are now used by more than 250 million people. So if ads aren’t the way to build a customer base, what is?

Well-researched and planned digital marketing, diligently and consistently executed will keep the branding and sales wheel churning for the smallest of businesses.

Did you know that 50% of small businesses don’t have a dedicated digital marketing strategy? Small businesses often deal with a limited marketing budget. As a result, it can be a challenge to earn visibility in a local community.

A marketing strategy helps you increase brand awareness and develop a pipeline of qualified leads that will turn into sales. With the right digital tactics in place, you can scale your small business marketing efforts to earn more customers in your local area.

Before diving into your channel strategies, you need to build a foundation. Consider the following elements when getting started:

  • Understand your target audience’s problems and priorities so you can present your business as the solution
  • Build a strong value proposition that differentiates you from your competitors
  • Set performance goals so you can focus your budget and resources on meeting objectives
  • Identify how you can leverage current customers to become your brand advocates
  • Use free promotional tools and automation where applicable

How to Build a Small Business Marketing Strategy?

There’s no secret sauce to developing a small business marketing strategy. However, the below strategies can help small businesses earn high ROI, and even get some valuable time back.

While the combination might be trial and error, dedicating time and budget to your marketing will pay off in sales and brand reputation.

1. Search Engine Optimization

Beyond developing an impressive website, search engine optimization (SEO) is perhaps the most impactful marketing strategy for small businesses. SEO is the process of optimizing your website and content for search engines or end users to find your company easily.

Often, the higher you rank on Google, the more likely you’ll be able to drive traffic and consumers to your website. With over 35% of all traffic coming from local sources, customers searching for your services will be more likely to find your business in search engine results.

You can implement SEO by:

  • Creating a Google My Business account
  • Requesting reviews from your customers
  • Optimizing your website with local keywords
  • Creating blog posts or videos that relate to the local community
  • Using location pages
  • Focusing on getting high-quality backlinks

At Marketing Insider Group, we’re constantly optimizing our strategy for ourselves and for the clients we serve.

The best advice we can give to any small business is to publish blog articles multiple times per week. Even if you don’t have the bandwidth to do it all right now, start small! Check out our guide to writing the perfect blog post and skip right on over the trial and error of blog posting.

Don’t expect to write a few words on an industry trend or two and expect your website to crash from too many visitors! Research SEO blog posting strategies and others that could help to build your credibility in search.

2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising allows small businesses to display ads when consumers search for certain keywords in a search engine. While it can lead to an expensive bidding war, local markets are often less competitive and the PPC model helps you keep a regulated budget.

Sounds good, right? But, how does this work?

You bid on certain keywords—like “local printing company” or “office supplies near me”—and create ads around those phrases. Advertising platforms will then use an algorithm to display your ads in the search engine result pages (SERP) based on factors such as keyword relevance and landing page quality. You pay every time someone clicks on your ad.

For some, it works wonders. But this must be a thoughtful approach! Definitely don’t just “throw money at the problem.” Make sure your business roots are strong, like your strategy, website, and brand messaging. Then assess if PPC advertising could truly make a difference for you.

3. Email Marketing

With a projected 4.3 billion email users by the end of 2023, email marketing is an excellent way for you to reach your target audience. In fact, 81% of small businesses report that email is their primary lead generation and retention tool.

Email marketing is the only digital marketing tool that allows you to build a personalized relationship with customers and continue to nurture them well after their first purchase. You can send customers drip campaigns based on an action—like signing up for a consultation or completing a purchase—or send regular newsletters filled with company and product updates.

To use email marketing successfully, consider the following tactics:

  • Segment your customers based on demographics or activity
  • Use a CRM or EPS to automate sending emails at the right time
  • Develop compelling subject lines to make sure your email gets clicked

4. Social Media Marketing

If you’re looking to reach a larger audience and engage with customers regularly, social media is a small business must-have. While it may not be the biggest driver of sales growth, it can help you reach awareness and branding goals.

The average user spends 3 hours a day on social media. While it may seem intimidating at first, it’s essential not to spread yourself too thin and join every platform.

Instead, focus on your target audience. Where are they spending the most time? What type of content do they enjoy? How can you make the biggest impact?

Depending on your customer needs, consider the following platforms:

  • Facebook: Post entertaining pictures, status updates, and customer success stories
  • Twitter: Share news and answer customer inquiries in real-time
  • Pinterest: Spread visual content like blogs, infographics, e-books quickly
  • YouTube: Dominate with user-generated and branded video content
  • Instagram: Display high-resolution imagery that showcases your services

But remember this important detail: showing up on social media platforms when you feel like it is not enough!

Your small business’s social media accounts could use their own smart strategy. Once you’ve figured out where your audience is lurking, build a realistic content plan and publishing schedule. Stay consistent for a few weeks and don’t be afraid to make small adjustments along the way.

5. Content Marketing

What should be at the center of your small business marketing strategy? Content marketing.

Content marketing is the act of developing and publishing high-quality content that is valuable to your target audience. It should speak to their challenges and needs while positioning your business as the solution through creative storytelling.

It’s important to note that content marketing is a long-term strategy. It will take significant time to build rapport with your customers and search engines. However, when done correctly, content marketing can position your business as an industry leader and build long-lasting relationships with your audience.

Your content should include a wide range of formats to highlight your industry expertise and learn what your audience prefers to consume. When getting started, consider the following content types:

  • Blogs
  • Whitepapers or e-books
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Podcasts

The quality of content you create is invaluable. Each business has a field of expertise, and you can capitalize on your valuable expertise by sharing your knowledge online. Customers then find your content when searching for information on the topic.

So rather than trying to find your customers to shove an ad in their faces, your customers come looking for you. And the better the content, the more loyalty you’ll build with your audience. Just be sure you’re combining content efforts with search engine optimization (SEO), so that your content shows up in Google searches.

Further, content isn’t just text. Written content can be boosted with some snappy visuals. Whether you’re including a well-crafted infographic, some applicable photos or visual references, or even a video, giving your audience something to look at will increase engagement.

You can even go a step further, and get in on what all those trendsetters have been talking about: live streaming on social media. Hold a Q&A on Twitter Spaces, give visitors an on-site a tour of your facilities on Facebook, or show them how you get the job done with LinkedIn Stories. The more transparent you are with your audience, the more they will trust you.

6. Ratings and Reviews

Beyond the content you create, the product or service you provide has a big impact on your online presence. You need to be aware that people are leaving reviews of your company and your products on places like Google, Amazon, Yelp, and more. If you’re providing something remarkable and offering great customer service, then this is a good thing.

If not, then it can have some serious consequences. You need to be proactive about encouraging positive reviews and about remedying negative ones. This isn’t to say that you should manipulate reviews to suit the image of your company, but rather that you should make it convenient for your customer to leave an organic review and act quickly to resolve the problems in negative reviews. Here are some tips:

  • Encourage reviews—make reviews easy to post, and have a link where people can read reviews.
  • Respond to negative reviews—try to resolve issues and improve the customer’s disposition.
  • Consider using online review software—get the most from customer feedback and online reviews.
  • Make sure your reviews are organic—don’t sabotage your reputation with paid reviews.

7. Online Reputation Management

Remember how we mentioned SEO? Well, just like you need to watch out for negative reviews, you need to watch out for negative or defaming search results. Negative search results can crowd out positive ones, and make it hard for customers to find your business, let alone trust it.

Reputation management is a very large topic to cover. To simplify, you should definitely be checking regularly for what comes up when you search your company’s name.

Make sure you’re honest and customer-friendly in your dealings, you’re producing excellent content, and that you’re making the most of social media sites and business directory listings. The more positive stuff about you that you can put out there, the better chance you’ll have at crowding out the negative noise.

5 Questions Answered on Small Business Marketing Strategy

Figuring out a marketing strategy when you’re the owner of a small business can seen daunting. Once you have a foundation, we can start to dig a little deeper. Here are 5 important questions on marketing for small businesses, answered:

1. What marketing tricks can SMBs learn from Fortune 500 companies?

First, large companies believe that they can be known for something, but their egos get in the way when they only talk about themselves. Small companies are often better able to maintain the important focus on customers and become known as true thought leaders in their space. We help SMBs to craft customer-focused mission statements to guide their strategy.

Second, small companies have less technical infrastructure. We’ve seen them out maneuver their larger peers with better customer experiences on their website, more authentic and engaging content and more interaction on social media.

Third, smaller companies also tend to have more passionate employees who are willing to create engaging content, interact on social, and even drive referrals for customers and new recruits. SMBs should identify this strength early on and focus on employee and customer engagement as part of their marketing strategy.

Fourth, retention is the secret to a high ROI Marketing strategy. In larger companies, working closely with existing customers can become secondary to driving growth. SMBs face similar pressure for different reasons. But the math behind the growth engine is different for SMBs. They need growth with lower investment. Customer Retention programs are the best way to achieve high ROI with little investment.

2. Where should marketers be focusing today when designing marketing campaigns?

We hate the word ‘campaign.’ It’s everything that’s wrong with marketing today.

Today’s customers and buyers are always searching online for information, education and solutions to their problems. The smart marketers are creating always-on programs to answer this need. That includes educational and non-promotional thought leadership, activating employees in content creation and social engagement, and then creating and testing the right paths to conversions.

3. What is the key to wildly successful digital marketing programs?

Wildly successful marketing programs are always running. They are always testing the right content or message. They are always tweaking the audience filters and targeting parameters. They are always optimizing the visual elements of the program. And they are always testing conversion paths. Being always on is the key.

4. How should SMBs approach campaign development today, and where do they typically go wrong?

SMBs can sometimes be so desperate to deliver on the sales or lead goals, that we focus too much on the last stage of the buying process. Marketing programs should match the buying process as much as possible.

This means creating a lot of content at the early stages.

On average, for every 1 customer, there are 100 people in the early stages of the buying journey. These are people who know they have a problem but are not even sure what the solution is. Explain it to them and why it’s important (no product yet)!

For every buyer there are 10 people in the middle-stages. These folks are looking for deeper how-to education. Spend time helping them (not too much product yet).

Now you’ve earned a right to talk about who you are, what you sell and why you are better.

5. What are some great tips for designing customer journeys?

We live in a digital world where it’s relatively easy to see what your customers need at each stage of their journey. We can simply use Google auto-fill or related searches to tell us what content to create. If I’m selling content marketing strategy services, I know that people want content marketing strategy tools, templates and examples because Google auto-fill or related searches told me that’s what most people are searching for.

Once you’ve created a list of topics, you can group them into categories and use Google Trends to tell you which categories of content and topics are more important for your customer journey relative to each other.

We can use other tools to tell us what questions we should be answering with our content at each stage of the buyer journey, and which channels are most important to our customers. For B2B businesses, LinkedIn might be the place to be. But if you’re in fashion, for example, you have to be on Instagram. Don’t leave these decisions up to your gut. We can quantify the impact of each of these approaches.

Finally, we need to measure our efforts. Are you showing up on the first page for the search terms your customers are using at each stage of the buyer journey? Identify the top 15-20 search terms your customers use across their journey and track your visibility or position relative to your competition. And remember that online, your competition might be an online publication or a mommy blogger.

Develop Your Small Business Marketing Strategy

Limited resources and a small budget don’t mean you can’t leverage a marketing strategy to grow your business. Developing a small business marketing strategy allows you to learn about your ideal customers so you can better serve their needs and earn their loyalty.

To increase brand awareness and conversions in your local area, don’t forget about how these marketing strategies can help you grow:

  • SEO improves your online visibility when potential customers search for your services on Google
  • Paid search is a great way to supplement SEO efforts and drive more traffic to your website
  • Email marketing allows you to stay top-of-mind with relevant customers
  • Social media keeps you connected with your customers and relevant in real time
  • Content marketing helps you establish your thought leadership through credible materials

Unsure of how to get started with marketing as a small business? Schedule a free consultation to learn about our Weekly Blog Writing  Services that make quality content seamless.

The post 7 Smart Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

/by

7 Smart Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

marketing strategies for small businesses

Whether you’re launching a new small business or already have an existing one, you need to develop a marketing strategy that prioritizes a strong online presence. With 97% of people researching local businesses online, it’s essential to meet potential customers where they spend the most time.

However, growing your small business in the digital landscape isn’t easy. Between defining your target audience, promoting your services, and getting the word out, it’s simple to understand why you’d be overwhelmed.

Throw developing a marketing strategy into the mix, and it might seem like you’re trying to learn a foreign language.

Don’t worry! With the right strategies and channels in place, you can get on the fast track to growing brand awareness and earning ROI. In this post, let’s discover what should be at the center of your small business marketing strategy.

Quick Takeaways:

  • A marketing strategy helps you optimize your online assets and promote your company.
  • You need to develop your audience, value proposition, and technology before diving into digital tactics.
  • The right strategy combination—search engine optimization, social media, etc.—will help you earn brand awareness and conversions quickly.

Why is it Important to Build a Small Business Marketing Strategy?

Every business wants to get their name out there, but when you’re a small business with a modest budget, it’s hard to come up with traditional and online marketing ideas while balancing marketing expenses against the expenses of actually doing business. And with advertising costing as much as it does, it’s no wonder that so many small businesses struggle to get noticed.

Here’s the plot twist, though: advertising isn’t the best way to generate leads anymore. The average person today sees around 5,000 ads a day, a number that’s over twice as high as it was in the ‘80s. As a result, ad blockers are now used by more than 250 million people. So if ads aren’t the way to build a customer base, what is?

Well-researched and planned digital marketing, diligently and consistently executed will keep the branding and sales wheel churning for the smallest of businesses.

Did you know that 50% of small businesses don’t have a dedicated digital marketing strategy? Small businesses often deal with a limited marketing budget. As a result, it can be a challenge to earn visibility in a local community.

A marketing strategy helps you increase brand awareness and develop a pipeline of qualified leads that will turn into sales. With the right digital tactics in place, you can scale your small business marketing efforts to earn more customers in your local area.

Before diving into your channel strategies, you need to build a foundation. Consider the following elements when getting started:

  • Understand your target audience’s problems and priorities so you can present your business as the solution
  • Build a strong value proposition that differentiates you from your competitors
  • Set performance goals so you can focus your budget and resources on meeting objectives
  • Identify how you can leverage current customers to become your brand advocates
  • Use free promotional tools and automation where applicable

How to Build a Small Business Marketing Strategy?

There’s no secret sauce to developing a small business marketing strategy. However, the below strategies can help small businesses earn high ROI, and even get some valuable time back.

While the combination might be trial and error, dedicating time and budget to your marketing will pay off in sales and brand reputation.

1. Search Engine Optimization

Beyond developing an impressive website, search engine optimization (SEO) is perhaps the most impactful marketing strategy for small businesses. SEO is the process of optimizing your website and content for search engines or end users to find your company easily.

Often, the higher you rank on Google, the more likely you’ll be able to drive traffic and consumers to your website. With over 35% of all traffic coming from local sources, customers searching for your services will be more likely to find your business in search engine results.

You can implement SEO by:

  • Creating a Google My Business account
  • Requesting reviews from your customers
  • Optimizing your website with local keywords
  • Creating blog posts or videos that relate to the local community
  • Using location pages
  • Focusing on getting high-quality backlinks

At Marketing Insider Group, we’re constantly optimizing our strategy for ourselves and for the clients we serve.

The best advice we can give to any small business is to publish blog articles multiple times per week. Even if you don’t have the bandwidth to do it all right now, start small! Check out our guide to writing the perfect blog post and skip right on over the trial and error of blog posting.

Don’t expect to write a few words on an industry trend or two and expect your website to crash from too many visitors! Research SEO blog posting strategies and others that could help to build your credibility in search.

2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising allows small businesses to display ads when consumers search for certain keywords in a search engine. While it can lead to an expensive bidding war, local markets are often less competitive and the PPC model helps you keep a regulated budget.

Sounds good, right? But, how does this work?

You bid on certain keywords—like “local printing company” or “office supplies near me”—and create ads around those phrases. Advertising platforms will then use an algorithm to display your ads in the search engine result pages (SERP) based on factors such as keyword relevance and landing page quality. You pay every time someone clicks on your ad.

For some, it works wonders. But this must be a thoughtful approach! Definitely don’t just “throw money at the problem.” Make sure your business roots are strong, like your strategy, website, and brand messaging. Then assess if PPC advertising could truly make a difference for you.

3. Email Marketing

With a projected 4.3 billion email users by the end of 2023, email marketing is an excellent way for you to reach your target audience. In fact, 81% of small businesses report that email is their primary lead generation and retention tool.

Email marketing is the only digital marketing tool that allows you to build a personalized relationship with customers and continue to nurture them well after their first purchase. You can send customers drip campaigns based on an action—like signing up for a consultation or completing a purchase—or send regular newsletters filled with company and product updates.

To use email marketing successfully, consider the following tactics:

  • Segment your customers based on demographics or activity
  • Use a CRM or EPS to automate sending emails at the right time
  • Develop compelling subject lines to make sure your email gets clicked

4. Social Media Marketing

If you’re looking to reach a larger audience and engage with customers regularly, social media is a small business must-have. While it may not be the biggest driver of sales growth, it can help you reach awareness and branding goals.

The average user spends 3 hours a day on social media. While it may seem intimidating at first, it’s essential not to spread yourself too thin and join every platform.

Instead, focus on your target audience. Where are they spending the most time? What type of content do they enjoy? How can you make the biggest impact?

Depending on your customer needs, consider the following platforms:

  • Facebook: Post entertaining pictures, status updates, and customer success stories
  • Twitter: Share news and answer customer inquiries in real-time
  • Pinterest: Spread visual content like blogs, infographics, e-books quickly
  • YouTube: Dominate with user-generated and branded video content
  • Instagram: Display high-resolution imagery that showcases your services

But remember this important detail: showing up on social media platforms when you feel like it is not enough!

Your small business’s social media accounts could use their own smart strategy. Once you’ve figured out where your audience is lurking, build a realistic content plan and publishing schedule. Stay consistent for a few weeks and don’t be afraid to make small adjustments along the way.

5. Content Marketing

What should be at the center of your small business marketing strategy? Content marketing.

Content marketing is the act of developing and publishing high-quality content that is valuable to your target audience. It should speak to their challenges and needs while positioning your business as the solution through creative storytelling.

It’s important to note that content marketing is a long-term strategy. It will take significant time to build rapport with your customers and search engines. However, when done correctly, content marketing can position your business as an industry leader and build long-lasting relationships with your audience.

Your content should include a wide range of formats to highlight your industry expertise and learn what your audience prefers to consume. When getting started, consider the following content types:

  • Blogs
  • Whitepapers or e-books
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Podcasts

The quality of content you create is invaluable. Each business has a field of expertise, and you can capitalize on your valuable expertise by sharing your knowledge online. Customers then find your content when searching for information on the topic.

So rather than trying to find your customers to shove an ad in their faces, your customers come looking for you. And the better the content, the more loyalty you’ll build with your audience. Just be sure you’re combining content efforts with search engine optimization (SEO), so that your content shows up in Google searches.

Further, content isn’t just text. Written content can be boosted with some snappy visuals. Whether you’re including a well-crafted infographic, some applicable photos or visual references, or even a video, giving your audience something to look at will increase engagement.

You can even go a step further, and get in on what all those trendsetters have been talking about: live streaming on social media. Hold a Q&A on Twitter Spaces, give visitors an on-site a tour of your facilities on Facebook, or show them how you get the job done with LinkedIn Stories. The more transparent you are with your audience, the more they will trust you.

6. Ratings and Reviews

Beyond the content you create, the product or service you provide has a big impact on your online presence. You need to be aware that people are leaving reviews of your company and your products on places like Google, Amazon, Yelp, and more. If you’re providing something remarkable and offering great customer service, then this is a good thing.

If not, then it can have some serious consequences. You need to be proactive about encouraging positive reviews and about remedying negative ones. This isn’t to say that you should manipulate reviews to suit the image of your company, but rather that you should make it convenient for your customer to leave an organic review and act quickly to resolve the problems in negative reviews. Here are some tips:

  • Encourage reviews—make reviews easy to post, and have a link where people can read reviews.
  • Respond to negative reviews—try to resolve issues and improve the customer’s disposition.
  • Consider using online review software—get the most from customer feedback and online reviews.
  • Make sure your reviews are organic—don’t sabotage your reputation with paid reviews.

7. Online Reputation Management

Remember how we mentioned SEO? Well, just like you need to watch out for negative reviews, you need to watch out for negative or defaming search results. Negative search results can crowd out positive ones, and make it hard for customers to find your business, let alone trust it.

Reputation management is a very large topic to cover. To simplify, you should definitely be checking regularly for what comes up when you search your company’s name.

Make sure you’re honest and customer-friendly in your dealings, you’re producing excellent content, and that you’re making the most of social media sites and business directory listings. The more positive stuff about you that you can put out there, the better chance you’ll have at crowding out the negative noise.

5 Questions Answered on Small Business Marketing Strategy

Figuring out a marketing strategy when you’re the owner of a small business can seen daunting. Once you have a foundation, we can start to dig a little deeper. Here are 5 important questions on marketing for small businesses, answered:

1. What marketing tricks can SMBs learn from Fortune 500 companies?

First, large companies believe that they can be known for something, but their egos get in the way when they only talk about themselves. Small companies are often better able to maintain the important focus on customers and become known as true thought leaders in their space. We help SMBs to craft customer-focused mission statements to guide their strategy.

Second, small companies have less technical infrastructure. We’ve seen them out maneuver their larger peers with better customer experiences on their website, more authentic and engaging content and more interaction on social media.

Third, smaller companies also tend to have more passionate employees who are willing to create engaging content, interact on social, and even drive referrals for customers and new recruits. SMBs should identify this strength early on and focus on employee and customer engagement as part of their marketing strategy.

Fourth, retention is the secret to a high ROI Marketing strategy. In larger companies, working closely with existing customers can become secondary to driving growth. SMBs face similar pressure for different reasons. But the math behind the growth engine is different for SMBs. They need growth with lower investment. Customer Retention programs are the best way to achieve high ROI with little investment.

2. Where should marketers be focusing today when designing marketing campaigns?

We hate the word ‘campaign.’ It’s everything that’s wrong with marketing today.

Today’s customers and buyers are always searching online for information, education and solutions to their problems. The smart marketers are creating always-on programs to answer this need. That includes educational and non-promotional thought leadership, activating employees in content creation and social engagement, and then creating and testing the right paths to conversions.

3. What is the key to wildly successful digital marketing programs?

Wildly successful marketing programs are always running. They are always testing the right content or message. They are always tweaking the audience filters and targeting parameters. They are always optimizing the visual elements of the program. And they are always testing conversion paths. Being always on is the key.

4. How should SMBs approach campaign development today, and where do they typically go wrong?

SMBs can sometimes be so desperate to deliver on the sales or lead goals, that we focus too much on the last stage of the buying process. Marketing programs should match the buying process as much as possible.

This means creating a lot of content at the early stages.

On average, for every 1 customer, there are 100 people in the early stages of the buying journey. These are people who know they have a problem but are not even sure what the solution is. Explain it to them and why it’s important (no product yet)!

For every buyer there are 10 people in the middle-stages. These folks are looking for deeper how-to education. Spend time helping them (not too much product yet).

Now you’ve earned a right to talk about who you are, what you sell and why you are better.

5. What are some great tips for designing customer journeys?

We live in a digital world where it’s relatively easy to see what your customers need at each stage of their journey. We can simply use Google auto-fill or related searches to tell us what content to create. If I’m selling content marketing strategy services, I know that people want content marketing strategy tools, templates and examples because Google auto-fill or related searches told me that’s what most people are searching for.

Once you’ve created a list of topics, you can group them into categories and use Google Trends to tell you which categories of content and topics are more important for your customer journey relative to each other.

We can use other tools to tell us what questions we should be answering with our content at each stage of the buyer journey, and which channels are most important to our customers. For B2B businesses, LinkedIn might be the place to be. But if you’re in fashion, for example, you have to be on Instagram. Don’t leave these decisions up to your gut. We can quantify the impact of each of these approaches.

Finally, we need to measure our efforts. Are you showing up on the first page for the search terms your customers are using at each stage of the buyer journey? Identify the top 15-20 search terms your customers use across their journey and track your visibility or position relative to your competition. And remember that online, your competition might be an online publication or a mommy blogger.

Develop Your Small Business Marketing Strategy

Limited resources and a small budget don’t mean you can’t leverage a marketing strategy to grow your business. Developing a small business marketing strategy allows you to learn about your ideal customers so you can better serve their needs and earn their loyalty.

To increase brand awareness and conversions in your local area, don’t forget about how these marketing strategies can help you grow:

  • SEO improves your online visibility when potential customers search for your services on Google
  • Paid search is a great way to supplement SEO efforts and drive more traffic to your website
  • Email marketing allows you to stay top-of-mind with relevant customers
  • Social media keeps you connected with your customers and relevant in real time
  • Content marketing helps you establish your thought leadership through credible materials

Unsure of how to get started with marketing as a small business? Schedule a free consultation to learn about our Weekly Blog Writing  Services that make quality content seamless.

The post 7 Smart Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

/by

Perfecting Your Digital Call-To-Action (With Examples!)

digital call to action

Your content and online presence isn’t worth much without a strong digital call-to-action.

Let’s face it, a digital call-to-action is necessary if you want your audience to take the next step. Imagine a potential customer reaches your homepage while browsing solutions to their problems and has nothing to click on urging them further down the sales funnel…

Your call-to-action has a direct impact on your conversion rates. No matter what point in the sales funnel your audience might be at, there’s always a way to urge your viewers further along.

In this post we’ll dive into the digital call-to-action, how to perfect it and show some real-life examples of killer digital CTA’s.

Quick Takeaways: 

  • A strong digital call-to-action can directly affect your lead generation efforts and conversion rates. 
  • Follow key best practices when developing your digital CTA, like emotional language, formatting and creativity.
  • Always be sure to test different versions of your CTA, because Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Breaking Down the Call-To-Action (CTA)

You likely see a digital call-to-action every hour throughout your day. From your daily work to your social media life, CTAs are everywhere.

The basic premise of a call-to-action is encouraging users to take the next step and “Download now,” “Gain Access,” “Sign-up,” “Contact Us,” etc. It directly connects sales to marketing.

A good CTA has three things to accomplish:

  1. Provide clarity on your content
  2. Give your user or reader direction on what to do next (i.e. push them down that sales funnel!)
  3. Show results

If you want people to take the next step — and who doesn’t — you’ll need to optimize your digital call-to-action. Fear not, we have some insider tips to help.

Perfecting Your Digital CTA

First, go past what’s overdone and quit being boring. The market (and online world in general) is completely oversaturated, so if you want your content, product or service to stand out, you need to go the extra mile. Here are some steps to take to inspire your CTA’s.

1. Use strong language and evoke emotion

No, I don’t mean expletives – unless that’s the space you’re in!

Jokes aside, the language you include in your CTA makes a big difference. Replace vanilla phrases like ‘contact us’ with ‘contact us today for X limited time offer!’

FOMO is a real thing, and people in the professional world are not immune. Offer them something they can’t resist. The more urgent the better.

Amazon and other ecommerce and B2C companies do this really well (a little too well if you ask my bank account) when you have an item in your cart. They tell you just how many items they have in stock and, conveniently, how many more people have said-item in their cart.

create urgency with your cta

Image Source: Medium.com

2. Make your CTA stand out

Your CTA won’t accomplish anything if your potential customer doesn’t even notice it.

Make your CTA stand out by utilizing contrasting colors and white space on your website. We use a two column blog page with CTA’s on the right hand side here at MIG. Make your CTA a button so it’s loud and clear.

If you’re looking to include a call-to-action in your blog posts – and you should be – make sure it stands out from the rest of your text. You could choose a different font color, bold the text, italicize it or go crazy and do all three. (Spoiler alert: check out our final words for an example.)

3. Keep it brief

You’re trying to catch your viewers attention, and human attention spans have depleted to that of a goldfish, so don’t try to do too much. Short CTA’s are more likely to spark interest.

Short CTA’s also leave more for your viewer to wonder about. What is the limited time offer in the button? This is when the FOMO comes into play again and they just can’t help but click!

4. Personalize your CTA

Personalize your CTA’s where you can to maximize results. The most obvious example of this is within your emails.

When you have the data to use someone’s first name, job title, or industry, you should. You don’t have to include it every single time, and you shouldn’t. That would be kind of like going on a date where the person read online that using your first name in every sentence will make you like them more. It’s weird and annoying.

Personalized CTA’s are well worth it though. Research from HubSpot has shown that a personalized CTA’s perform 202% better than a basic one. This personalization can come in many forms. Use the data you have, from user location, to job title, to their place in the sales funnel.

5. Test, test, test!

You won’t perfect your CTA on your first try. One option is to go the traditional route and use A/B testing to analyze results from different CTA’s. Play around with different phrasing, offers and formats.

Artificial intelligence is also making its way onto the testing scene. Automation can take the uncertainty out of the old school A/B tactic. Plsu, you can test many more combinations of variables compared to traditional A/B.

Image Source: Evolv AI

No matter what tactic you take, a CTA is nothing without testing. You’ll never know the true potential of your call-to-action without trying a few different formats.

Best Call-To-Action Examples

To start, let’s look at landing pages with crazy-good CTAs.

Spotify

spotify call to action, bold and contrasting colors

Spotify literally uses five sentences (and short ones!) to describe what you’re signing up for.

Not only do they offer their premium service for free (first thing and boldly!) but they provide an easy button to get started, as well as more information about their plans and exactly what you’d be signing up for.

The enticing offer of one free month evokes emotion, because who wants to miss out on something that’s free?! The “get started” button design is bolder and darker than the ‘view plans’ option, which is no coincidence either. The contrasting colors draw your attention.

Netflix

netflix call to action

Netflix takes a similar approach. The copy is short, sweet, and addresses any potential issues. Watch anywhere. Cancel anytime.

The largest text on their site leaves more to the viewer’s imagination as well. What’s the ‘more’ in “and more”? Well, you won’t know until you sign up! They also use a standout red button with an arrow to depict action.

Dropbox

drop box dual call to action

Dropbox thinks a bit out of the box with their homepage CTA. And they give two options for their call-to-action.

Their homepage features a carousel CTA. The first of the two urges you to “get started” and entices you with solving your organizational and productivity problems. The next CTA in the carousel gives a bit more detail to what they do, in an aesthetically pleasing tautogram. The button at the bottom offers to give more explanation on their software, inching a potential viewer further down the sales funnel.

QuickBooks

QuickBooks is another case for a double call-to-action. Clearly, they’re using their sale of 50% for a “limited time” to spark a sense of urgency. (Spoiler alert: this offer has been in place for years!)

As a viewer, you also have the chance to try the software for free for 30 days, and we all love free stuff!

Underneath their CTA, the Quickbooks team offers more information on their platform and what they do, so even if a visitor scrolls, they’re being exposed to more information.

Slack

slack call to action

Slack is another company that hits you with a double-whammy. There’s the option to try their platform for free, but then there’s the brighter, higher contrast button that urges you to go straight for the sign up! Even better, their sign up button has the Google icon, something everyone will recognize.

VRBO

Are you looking for a new vacation home or are you looking for an escape? VRBO evokes emotion in their CTA, describing your next trip as an escape to discover.

For some people that might mean a beach vacation and for others it means a trip to the mountains. VRBO has it all, and that’s kind of the point.

DivvyHQ

divvyhq content calendar software

DivvyHQ is in a competitive space. Their content planning tool has a unique value: its personalization. That can be hard to put into words. To fix that? Divvy features a ‘request a demo’ CTA on their homepage. If you don’t have time for a demo, there’s a video you can watch instead.

This is a great CTA for visitors at the top of the sales funnel. Maybe they’re browsing different platforms, toying with the idea of committing to one. A demo offers a personalized experience with the company. If they aren’t quite that far in their journey, the video example will suffice.

Divvy also has a banner at the top of their page that’s ever-present while you scroll, featuring a ‘try it for free’ call to action in a bright, contrasting, orange button. So, they really hit all the marks.

Waterboy

Run by a group of 20-somethings in Austin, TX, Waterboy is one of the latest and greatest inventions in hangover cures. And in an industry that hitches itself on over-drinking, you can have a little fun.

Waterboy gets creative with their CTA, speaking directly to its largest market, other 20-somethings. Gen Z is all about the vibe, so their emotional pull is on point. Their action button says “shop the drop!”, a fun way to say ‘check out our latest inventory.’

The banner at the top of their page also offers a deal: free shipping on orders over $40. There’s that golden ticket word again!

Televerde

televerde call to action

Televerde gets tech savvy with their homepage CTA, placed underneath a live motion back laid image. Again, we see the banner at the top with a contact button, but more important is their ‘request a consultation’ high contrast, bright blue button.

This is another example of a company that offers highly personalized solutions. Televerde uses data, technology and people to provide improved demand generation across marketing, sales and customer experience. Because of all these moving pieces,  a consultation is the most effective way to snag a lead who’s browsing the market.

Intermedia

intermedia call center call to action

Intermedia specializes in cloud communications. Their claim to fame is their organization of many different types of communication on one platform to boost productivity. And they get that point across on their homepage with the large, high contrast, bright text.

Their CTA button stands out as well, urging viewers to learn more. This again is targeting those top of the funnel browsers who are considering a solution to a problem they’ve been facing.

Glossier

This relatively fresh-to-the-scene makeup brand, Glossier, also has some fun with their CTA. Their pop-up is the first thing you see when you go to their page and features an intriguing image (especially for make-up lovers, I mean look at that eyeshadow!) as well as symbols to keep the text interesting.

The play on words ‘let’s take this to your inbox’ is a fun way of getting a visitor’s email address. Plus the company entices you with an insider scoop when you sign up.

ActualTech Media

actualtech media content syndication call to action

ActualTech Media is taking the content syndication world by storm, redefining what it means to syndicate content for lead generation in the technology sector.

Their unique take on lead generation leaves a lot to be learned by potential customers. Their homepage CTA is aimed towards top of the funnel prospects who are going to want to get educated.

ActualTech places an emphasis on their homepage that they drive leads ‘that actually buy.’ Below are their top three areas of expertise in bright, contrasting buttons. Click on each to be taken to well-designed landing pages chock-full of easily digestible information.

Optimizely

Optimizely’s CTA has two goals: send prospective customers a free introduction video explaining their A/B testing software, and get their contact information.

The homepage gets straight to the point – check out their A/B testing software! The bright white column on the right simply asks, ‘where can we send a link to the free video?’ Optimizely kills two birds with one stone. They get to send top of the funnel prospects more information about their tool all while adding them to their contact list.

RevBoss

RevBoss is all about delivering outbound leads for their clients. Their homepage cuts straight to the point: “We’ll drive the leads. You close the deals.”

The next line features an interactive slogan where ‘RevBoss helps’ is followed by an array of different industries. They help growth start-ups, marketing agencies, SaaS companies and more.

Their call-to-action button for a consultation is their most prominent, promising a personalized experience. Viewers can also jump right to the point and ‘get started’ depending on where they’re at in their journey.

Contractlogix

contractlogix contract management software

The contract management software does not disappoint when it comes to homepage CTA design. Contractlogix emphasizes their main message: above all else they’re data driven. The graph to the right slides in to display the different aspects of their platform while two buttons at the bottom catch a viewer’s attention.

Prospective customers can learn more about the platform on their website or, if they’re a bit further down the funnel, they can request a demo. The demo request button is also ever-present in the top right corner of the page as your scroll in a bright orange box.

Practice Makes Perfect

In conclusion, the one surefire way to perfect your digital call-to-action (or any CTA) is to practice!

Do yourself a favor and start testing your CTAs. What language prompts users to take action? Which colors are more eye-catching? Are moving graphics helping or hurting your case?

Don’t forget, your call-to-action doesn’t only exist on your homepage or in a banner ad. If you’re utilizing content marketing (which you should be) each and every blog presents itself as another opportunity for a CTA. We’re about to hit you with one right now…

Digital CTA’s can make or break your lead generation and conversion efforts. And the more people that get sent to your page, the more opportunity you have to convert prospects and close deals.

The best way to get visitors to your website: optimize your blog for search! Having a strong content marketing strategy is the best way to get eyes on the digital CTA’s you just worked so hard to perfect.

Do you need help increasing traffic with your blog? Check out our SEO Blog Writing Services or schedule a free consultation to learn more about how we can help!

The post Perfecting Your Digital Call-To-Action (With Examples!) appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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