I was thinking the other day about lead lists. Do you remember those? They were lists compiled by marketing or sales agencies, occasionally by individuals, then sold.

The idea was to have a huge list of potential customers right there at your fingertips, cutting out the work involved in generating your own leads.

Unfortunately these lists were sold to everyone who searched for them, making them an over-saturated collection of names and email addresses that did more harm than help.

The truth is that lead generation takes effort. We can’t take shortcuts and expect results, because the process of finding leads is such an important and necessary part of the overall process.

Does that mean we can’t find ways to do it a little more efficiently? Not at all!

Set up your site

It is astounding how many local businesses still have no websites to link to from their Google Local or Yelp profile pages.

In any digital marketing strategy starting a website is fundamental to any business.

Use this cool brand name generator to set up your brand identity and go from there!

Utilize other forms of media

Take your time to make the most of your social media profiles:

• Add your address and phone number wherever you can!
• Keep your response time prime. On business pages there is a little box by the Send a Message option that states how long pages respond. You want yours to be immediate. So make sure you are keeping up on those direct messages.
• Take advantage of pinned posts. You can pin a post to the top of your page, where every other post will fall underneath it without dislodging its spot. That allows you to provide a message to everyone who visits your page… like maybe a CTA to visit your site?
• Use GREAT branded images. People can sometimes skimp out on adapted logo images for social sites. You need to go the extra mile here and make sure it is the highest possible quality. There are a variety of WordPress plugins which you can use for that. Colorlib has a great collection of those!

But don’t just stop there: Integrate your online and offline marketing efforts whenever you can. It is shocking to see how effective TV and radio ads can be on a local level. If you happen to be in a position to run ads, or you have been already, put your URL in there, then mention your social media pages.

Make sure it is all very easy to remember, though! No one is going to visit if your URL or social media tags are overly complicated.

Create an app that can be used both online and in stores

Apps are pretty much the standard these days, as it is rare to come across someone who doesn’t have a smartphone. Even brands like McDonald’s have created apps, which allow people to order food in ahead of arriving, or use QR code coupons to take advantage of deals you can’t find anywhere else.

Having an app that can be used both in and out of physical stores nicely ties together those leads, while giving you a goldmine of customer information that normally you would have to pay a marketing agency to find for you.

Find other local businesses to cross-promote with

There is a restaurant that also has a food truck that sells to local businesses during lunch time, traveling from lot to lot for fifteen minute intervals. They also have a static location that is mostly ignored.

In order to improve their sales at the actual restaurant they teamed up with a local brewery that creates craft lagers that have been growing in popularity. They offer half-off appetizers with the purchase of one of these beers, at one per table.

The brewery also offers this promotion on their end. You can pick up a coupon from their on-site store for the half off appetizer when you go into the shop. That way people don’t have to buy the beer during their meal but can still get the benefit.

All of this is promoted – you guessed it – online. It is a great example of how you can integrate cooperative strategies both online and offline for the mutual benefit of both brands.

Other businesses are looking for the same chance for backlinks that you are. Cross promotion can be a great way to get that. Say you own a bike shop that is known for bikes of all types and purposes. In your city there is another shop that is known for outdoors gear like tents, hiking boots, etc.

You two can combine forces to offer discounts for goods at one another’s store, or perhaps come up with a bundle package that appeals to mountain bikers. Post about this cross promotion on social media and one another’s websites for some powerful backlinks that also lets you each target one another’s established audience.

Use local directories to find those local businesses to partner with!

Inject yourself into local communities

A nearby Atheist group was looking for local sponsors to provide event spaces and items for their community get-togethers, parties and charity galas. About a dozen local companies obliged and have given food, merchandise and free use of business space for parties.

Every time an event is hosted these companies are named as sponsors online through social media, newsletter emails, on their official site and during reviews. This is a great opportunity for online presence building for those businesses and that is resulting in an increase in the local companies getting involved.

Local communities of all types are a perfect platform for visibility, while building a feeling of goodwill with local customers. Many of those businesses also gained lifelong customers. One local burger joint providing food for the past several events have credited that particular organization for an almost doubling of their weekly sales!

Small businesses have a great advantage of using online marketing these days! So don’t neglect those opportunities!

Image source: Pixabay

It’s easy to be impatient, but you know you can’t expect to see amazing results from your marketing strategy overnight.

Results take time, but as a small business, you don’t have a lot of time to waste. This creates a dilemma – how long do you wait things out before making changes?

Your success is riding on a steady incline on your income graph. It won’t be too fast, but it can’t be too slow. Changing up your marketing because you aren’t getting immediate results can potentially drive you into debt.

The trick is looking at the numbers, knowing what to expect, and understanding the impacts that small tweaks can make when they’re enacted at the right time.

Keep an inquiring mind

Many businesses use survey questions with their customers. Large businesses tend to offer small rewards for feedback, but that may not be feasible for your small business. Try offering one prize through a feedback based raffle.

There is a core question you want to ask to measure your marketing success, and it’s a simple one: How did you hear about us?

This one is self-explanatory. If your customers are referring to your advertising, you know it’s reaching at least some of your desired market. Get to know this market, and tailor your marketing towards this group for maximum success.

Get smart with analytics

Analytics are useless if you don’t know how to read them. These figures, especially with social media and tracked advertisement, mean the world. It doesn’t matter how many people you’re reaching if you aren’t engaging with them.

Comments and interactions are what actually signify that your marketing plan is working. Hire a reputable digital marketing agency to help you set up your analytics and figure out the reports.

If you aren’t getting an active response, it’s time to change the way you handle your interactive platforms.

A business assessment will help you re-asses what you are doing now and come up with a better plan.

Measure your plans against your goals

You’re going to have no idea whether something is a hit or a miss unless you have a direct goal you intend to use as a measurement of your success. Before you start marketing, know what you’re trying to accomplish.

Maybe you want to see a ten percent revenue increase at the peak of your marketing campaign. Maybe you want to recruit 30 new valuable customers within the first half of your ad outreach.

Keep modest goals, but always know what exactly you’re looking for as an indication that things are going according to plan.

Make sure your demographic matches your platforms

Where are you advertising? How are you advertising? Who are you advertising to? If your advertisement is geared in areas where your target customers aren’t likely to see it, things aren’t going to work out in your favor.

Using web forms to collect your users’ feedback is a great way to find out if you are giving them everything they need. There’s an easy web form builder for you use for those purposes.

Minimal response may not be the result of a slow trickle of new customers, but instead the result of your desired customers missing your advertisement entirely. Know your demographic.

Understand how they want to observe and interact with marketing. If you’re looking for customers in all the wrong places, your return is going to be as small as possible.

If you find yourself in a marketing slump, it’s time to try something different. You need to make sure your new strategy is the right kind of different, instead of merely something else.

Look at your competitors and weigh their success against yours. Marketing success is a game of innovation, so sharpen your wits and get in the game.

Image source: Pixabay

As a small business, growth is what will make or break you. If you don’t adapt to the current economy and maximize your success, the outlook is very bleak. In today’s world, where a terrifying number of SMEs fail within the first five years, it’s imperative to take a proactive approach when it comes to securing the future prospects of your business.

You don’t have to leave the fate of your business up to chance if you’ve implemented a secure strategy that you’ll follow closely. Nothing is foolproof, but careful planning will give you the best shot at success.

Focus on customer retention and brand loyalty

You’re going to need capital to grow. Where is it going to come from? If you’re frivolously advertising, attempting to rope in as many new customers as possible, you may not see the results you’re expecting.

That’s why you need to focus on the customers you already have. Develop a loyalty program. Go above and beyond to service the customers who already recognize and value you. Creating a core set of customers is essential for a predictable profit.

Brand loyalty is equally important. New customers will be more inclined to continue their relationship with you if you incentivize their loyalty.

Those small perks do come at a minor cost, but it isn’t nearly as large as the cost of recruiting new customers. Most people are inclined to shop for value, and making it worth their while can carry you further than the best advertising campaign you could possibly conceive.

Outwit your competitors

There’s always going to be competition – you just have to make sure you’re winning. Businesses that never achieve their desired level of growth (or even worse, businesses that fold) often find themselves in that position because their competitors have an edge. If you’re providing a useful product or service, it’s not that people don’t want it. Chances are, they just like someone else’s better.

This involves a certain level of risk taking. Always keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. Understand what it is that they’re doing better than you are. You need to not only match, but exceed their best qualities.

Use marketing automation tools and innovative AI-based technology to always be ahead of your competition.

Even if it’s merely in customer service, you need to give people a reason to choose you over someone else. Growth requires constant innovation. You can’t fear what lies outside of the box – you need to make it your default to think there.

Watch your numbers closely

If you’re making a profit, that’s excellent. The problem lies in being content with the profit you’re making, and stopping there. Look at all of your numbers. Some aspects of your business can be showing excellent performance while others are subpar. Determine how to maximize everything. Hire a reliable SEO agency to help you set up your analytics and reports.

It can be as simple as replacing something with an upgraded version, or as complicated as dropping something altogether and doing a total restructure. Don’t let things get to rock bottom before you decide to take action. Always stay three steps ahead to prevent a predicament. Every aspect of your business presents you with an opportunity to move forward.

…And remember to keep a level head

As you likely already know, the best plan is one that can be adapted at the last moment. You can still be cautious while being inventive. If you see things aren’t working in a particular area, don’t be afraid to make small adaptations. Always change one thing at a time, investigate the impact the change has had, and rework your plans through fine tuning.

Image source: Pixabay

Have you ever had an amazing experience with a company and taken right to social media to express your feelings? What about a not so great experience? If you have, what were your expectations of the people behind the brand’s social media accounts?

With technology platforms on the rise, it is important to humanize companies and brand messages. It is necessary to make companies personable to foster good relations and trust, and even to drive engagement and sales. Companies also need to communicate well online because it helps people understand what they do and what they stand for, as well as stave off miscommunication and misunderstandings.

Nielson’s report estimates that 33% of users prefer to contact brands using social media as opposed to using the phone. With all of the stressors of online customer service, it is important to improve service by humanizing and communicating the brand message online. Consumers are more likely to identify with a brand that has values in alignment with their own, and this connection will make a customer more likely to engage with the brand on an ongoing basis.

So, how can you improve online customer service by humanizing and communicating your brand message?

Lose Anonymity

A great way to help customers see a company as a personable entity, and less as a corporate business, is by personifying it and giving it a face. It also helps to garner publicity by using a company’s personality. 

Showing personality that stands for the brand message helps to authenticate a company and increase perceived transparency, leading to customer trust and improved service. Having an authentic brand is also one of the strongest ranking factors, according to UR Digital, so being authentic will likely improve your organic search visibility as well!

Businesses can emulate personality and create brand personas by doing some of the following:

• Feature real-life employees or customers on websites or advertisements
• Post photos of the human elements of the business, from candid photos on the job to snapshots from employee functions
• Publish articles and other literature from the company’s employees on a blog or by guest blogging
• Host and/or give talks sponsored by the company that pertain to the company’s area of expertise
• Add a phone support! Even small businesses can now afford phone support with solutions like Cloud PBX.

Stay Active on Social Media Accounts

Upkeep of social media accounts is extremely important in maintaining a presence online, with 63% of millennials staying updated on companies through social networks (Leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal study).

Keeping up on accounts not only establishes the company’s existence and innovation, but also helps to stand as evidence of what the company does, promotes, and is involved in. Up-to-date accounts show the public that the company itself is online and paying attention, and shows the consumer the company is more likely to be responsive to any comments or concerns that they may have.

Some ways that a company can work on customer service via social media accounts include:

• Being responsive and have a quick turnaround time for comments, questions, and complaints
• Paying attention to what is being said about the company, and other companies in the industry
• Being interactive through new postings, trend followings, and consumer engagement
• Partaking in active listening, admitting mistakes and sharing apologies, and showing implementation of customer suggestions

“Over” Communicate

To improve your customer communication, it is a good idea to do what may seem to be over communication. Take time to ask yourself some of the following: Is your brand message clearly stated? Are there more than adequate ways for customers to contact you? Is your message expressed in terms that are easily understood?

Businesses can improve on communication by taking some of these things into account:

• Blatantly stated brand messages, or easily accessible mission and value statements
• Easy to understand language and tone (in fact, a study from Carnegie Melon showed that most presidential candidates speak at a 6th-8th-grade education level)
• Regular check-ins with customers
• Phone, chat, email, and other communication support availability and offerings at all times

Research Your Current Brand’s Sentiment

What do people think of you and your brand? Which associations does it currently trigger?

Text Optimizer helps you find answers to all those questions by searching for your brand name in Google and analyzing search snippets that show up for that search.

Here’s how semantic search works if you are curious!

Cater to the Audience

Showing interest in the audience is an important part of good communication with consumers because it often cultivates further engagement.

By incorporating and inviting feedback from customers, it not only allows for businesses to assess their target audience, but it also lets the audience feel included and important. In addition, adding content that the audience is interested in helps the audience see the company as a more human entity with a shared interest, something that will encourage the audience to take a liking to the company.

Companies can cater to the audience in many ways, such as:

• Posting things for enjoyment, not simply promotion of the brand
• Using consumer generated or created content
• Hosting audience involvement initiatives such as social media campaign competitions or giveaways
• Sharing, liking, or re-tweeting pertinent customer mentions or tags

Cultivating Communication and Humanization Habits

Taking the first steps towards brand humanization and communication is no doubt important, but it is also imperative to continue the routine of good communication with customers.

Maintaining open lines of communication with consumers is a great way to constantly improve upon the service being offered, it enables businesses to hear how customers are feeling and adjust practices accordingly.

By taking customer thoughts and feelings into consideration, customers and businesses can foster positive and long-term relationships, which culminate into giving customers the service they want.

When something can become a trending topic in a matter of seconds, it is important for social media marketers to always stay up-to-date on the marketing trends affecting social media.

How to succeed in social media? Monitor and adjust your strategy to these trends:

1. Real-Time Marketing is Redefined

Historically, Real-Time Marketing (RTM) has been described as having a clever response to a trending topic at a moment’s notice. But these days the description is shifting to having “the right content to share with the right audience at the right time.”

This means you really have to know your audience, what kind of content gets them engaged, and which posts will get their attention. We have given a lot of advice about RTM – how to newsjack upcoming events, and how to prepare content in advance to really adhere to this shifting trend.

2. Privacy is Your Priority

After all privacy and data security scandals, it’s no wonder privacy regulation has become a huge trend over the years.

Hari Ravichandran, founder of Aura, names data protection one of the biggest business opportunities these days: If you can figure the balance between data protection and data analytics, you will win your niche.

3. Social Media Ad Spending Increases

It’s no secret that Facebook posts have seen organic reach decline in the last year with an updated algorithm. It especially has caused frustration across small businesses due to the limited budget these companies have to work with.

The trick is to provide less sales-related and more industry-related content as organic posts to enhance brand awareness, and save your sales and promotional content for the ads. This way you can balance your Facebook checkbook and keep your content in front of your fans. (Utilizing targeting tools to the social audience that you know will engage can help keep these costs down and return on your investment (ROI) high!)

4. Content Marketing Continues to Grow

While content sharing continues to increase, social media marketers continue to struggle with measuring the ROI of such efforts. The ROI of social media or content marketing is notoriously in murky waters. But remember, there isn’t one formula for all; ROI will be calculated differently for every organization.

It all depends on the goals of your content. Should the result be the download of a whitepaper or a visit to your website? Establishing these goals before you release the content will help you visualize your results with quantifying value.

5. Video Isn’t Just About YouTube Anymore

Facebook topped YouTube in U.S. desktop views by 1 billion views back in August 2014. And the rumor is that Facebook is giving more value to Facebook videos over YouTube videos in organic reach.

According to JSH&A, Vine and Tumblr are also incrementally seeing more video views, suggesting that video is no longer a one-size-fits-all solution across platforms.

6. Facebook is No Longer King of Engagement

Let’s clarify.

The point JSH&A wants to point out here is that “A Facebook-first or Facebook-only approach may no longer make sense for some brands.”

This doesn’t mean that ALL brands should abandon sharing to Facebook and start an account on EVERY platform. You have to make informed decisions about where your audience is engaging with the brands they love, and post effective, visual, and valuable content to those platforms.

While the infographic points out that Pinterst, Tumblr, and Instagram have gained more than 10MM visitors last year, it is likely that those users are already present on Facebook.

So what is the moral of the story?

Stay visual, stay engaged, stay informed, and you will be able to provide valuable content to the audience you have established a loyal relationship with on social media.

Image by Werner Moser from Pixabay