Are you prepared to be successful with your small business marketing?
In December of 2015, 2 top digital marketing companies LeadPages and Infusionsoft decided to survey over one thousand small business owners in the United States.
The survey was to inquire about their marketing and goals moving into the new year.
It revealed some major issues in small business marketing in the US, and also paves the way for plenty of new opportunities for smart small business owners to achieve quick success.
They uncovered 9 marketing practices that show how the average business owner will be marketing their business in the new year.
On the flip side, they also showed 9 corresponding ways that savvy business owners can shift their marketing (from these average ways) to move ahead, and beat their competitors.
I have gone through the entire report and outlined the top 9 average ways, and then the top 9 corresponding savvy ways for you below:
#1
Average Way: Market your small business to build awareness and drive sales.
Savvy Way: Market focusing on revenue, but knowing that increasing leads is one of the top ways to predictably increase sales.
#2
Average Way: Not being sure whether your marketing is working or not.
Savvy Way: You know which marketing is working because you are using marketing strategies that you can track and measure your results.
#3
Average Way: Having your website act as just a brochure or billboard for your company.
Savvy Way: Utilizing a direct response website with specific content which is optimized to generate leads or increase sales.
#4
Average Way: Just starting to think about using online marketing. Thinking that this may be the way of the future.
Savvy Way: Knowing that online marketing is effectively working now for many business owners and optimizing your online marketing by getting in front of more of your target prospects.
#5
Average Way: Using social media more, but not thinking about other ways to generate new leads online.
Savvy Way: In addition to using social media correctly for businesses, you use other content marketing strategies to get more leads for your company. Ex. Email, blog posts, downloads, etc…
#6
Average Way: Maybe do a little bit of in house email marketing through your email service, as opposed to using an effective email marketing software (autoresponder system).
Savvy Way: Use and optimize a permission based email marketing system to follow up with prospects and stay in touch with past clients.
#7
Average Way: Not using a CRM (customer relationship management) database to track your leads.
Savvy Way: Using a reliable CRM system to effectively follow up with your leads. This should be partially automated and easy to implement so that you remain consistent.
#8
Average Way: You only use one or two basic software programs for all of your marketing.
Savvy Way: You are open to trying out different software programs to assist in your marketing efforts, to make them more successful.
#9
Average Way: You handle all of your marketing in house without outsourcing any of it. Your time and knowledge of up-to-date marketing practices dictates how much and what type of marketing that you do…and remain consistent with.
Savvy Way: You either outsource some or all of your marketing efforts with greater efficiency by using effective tools and services. This ensures that it will remain more consistent and provide better results.
Conclusion
The top 9 ways above will help you take your Maryland small business marketing from average to successful, and surpass your competitors.
Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of some of the tips above. Making just a few small changes in your marketing, can consistently bring in more leads and sales to your business.
If you would like help applying some of these marketing strategies to your business, let me know here.