Don’t wait until your new app or other product is finished to start your small business SEO marketing strategy. Here’s how to jump start it.
Startups and entrepreneurs rely on marketing to get their first customers. This is always an uphill task because you are unknown, and your brand does not have enough brand equity to move the marketing meter. Using simple but effective marketing tactics can help you get those first customers in the door and get you on the road towards market validation. Here we share seven tactics to turn around your small business marketing efforts.
Sell Benefits, Not Features
Customers do not care about features. They care about the benefits your product or service can bring them. While you may be excited about the features of your new product or service, this enthusiasm may not be shared by your customers. To help them gain this enthusiasm, show them how the new product or service will help them achieve their goals. Effective marketing is all about showing and not just telling.
Be a Customer Care Fanatic
Your customers know what they want. Amazon, the largest ecommerce company in the world, has exploited this tactic effectively to grow its market share. If you are starting off, communicate personally with every customer who contacts your business. Be obsessed with helping them and making the product easier for them to use. Keep in mind this does not mean making changes to please every customer.
Upsell Early with a Landing Page
Instead of waiting until you have launched your business to start marketing, start with a simple landing page. Tell the market that you are in the process of coming to market and get them to look forward to what you have to offer. You can also use this type of landing page marketing as a lead-capture mechanism by asking people to leave you their email if they are interested in being notified when your product or service hits the market.
Leverage Small Business SEO Marketing
Your marketing mix is your holy grail. It is what will help you drive sales when your competition is languishing in depressed sales. Mix up the best SEO in Los Angeles with a solid social media marketing campaign. Couple this with some strong thought leadership guest posts and LinkedIn posts. To get your small business SEO marketing mix correct, you will need to apply this next tactic rigorously.
Test, Test, Test
Testing makes marketing effective. It is that simple. The fact that no one can really know what messages will resonate with the market makes this a prerequisite for any successful marketing campaign. Utilize tools such as A/B split testing, Google Analytics tracking, short links, and others to understand how your marketing is working and where it could be improved.
Try Remarketing
Remarketing is where you market to the same person across multiple websites. You’ve seen this happen when you visit a website and see an ad, then when you go to another website, you see the same ad. Remarketing is a powerful way of optimizing messaging for conversion. While remarketing is mostly used in advertising, you can use it in the same way by posting your marketing messages across your online properties in a consistent and cohesive manner.
Be Your Brand
Lastly, become your brand’s biggest and most vocal advocate. If you think about brands like Microsoft and Apple, they are strongly associated with their respective founders. To gain the same advantage, personify your brand wherever you go. Be ready to talk about your business at a moment’s notice as you may just be speaking to your next big customer or even a potential investor.
Marketing for startups and entrepreneurs follows a different trajectory from that of established companies. The need to break into a new market or even to create a new market makes it important for anyone in this field to break with tradition and find what works for them.
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This story’s trending topics: small business SEO marketing strategy, marketing mix, landing page, remarketing, California business marketing
