Marketing tactics for your business don’t have to be costly. The challenges that marketing managers face are many. Understanding what new marketing channels makes sense while juggling the already established marketing outreach channels. Regardless of what Omni channel marketing approach you have, focus on creating ongoing relevancy for your business is critical to establishing mindshare in your perfect customer’s head as the go to solution for their needs.
The following include marketing fundamentals that all customer facing businesses should have in place. It’s smart to invest your dollars in these marketing outreach methods before diving into the next hot marketing channel.
- Mobile Friendly Website: People rely on their smartphone to provide information for their on the go needs, having a website that is mobile friendly is not only a luxury anymore, in fact it’s a requirement. Search engines like Google are starting to bypass ranking non-mobile ready websites.
- Content Marketing: One of the best brand building tips is to incorporate a concept called “point of view” marketing. Educating your perfect customer by providing value to them will ensure that they trust you. At the same time it establishes subject matter expertise.
- Email Marketing: re you connecting with your customers beyond the initial purchase? By asking your customers for their email address, they have granted you permission to contact them with relevant offers.
- Social Media Marketing: For those businesses looking for cost containment opportunities, social media provides a great way to connect with customers at a fraction of the cost vs. traditional advertising.
- Community Management and Social Listening: Posting on social media is only half of the equation. Are you consistently monitoring what is being said about your brand? Having a program in place to monitor conversations that are happening online provides a great opportunity to not only jump into the conversation but also mitigate bad ratings and reviews from tainting your brand image.
- Referral Programs: Almost every business has raving fans. Are you speaking to yours? Providing incentives and rewards to encourage them to broadcast their love of your business is a cost effective way to gain customers. Amplify your brand’s value and increase the velocity of new customer engagement with a good referral program.
- Search Engine Optimization: Being on page one of search results for your niche is one of the best ways to draw in new customers. Rarely do people going beyond page one. SEO allows you to rank for search terms that people are searching for without having to pay for an ad. With a robust content strategy you can increase the probability of optimizing search engine optimization results.
- Strategic Partner Programs: There’s a high probability that your perfect customer utilizes different business providers for a myriad of business needs. Collaborating on a strategic partner program where businesses are in a non-competitive referral setting allows for you to tap into already established customer bases.
- Customer Journey Mapping: Do you have visibility of how customers are engaging with your business both online and offline? Understanding customer journey touch points allow you to identify low hanging fruit of opportunities. A heightened customer experience has a direct correlation with increased lifetime value.
- Community outreach: Give back by becoming a sponsor to charitable organizations, clubs and non-for-profit businesses that aligns with your core values. It establishes your business as a do-good business and provides positive press.
Patty Dominguez and best-selling author Pamela Herrmann are the co-founders of CREATE Buzz, committed to helping small businesses get customers and keep customers by taking the overwhelm out of technology and online marketing. Pamela is the author of, “The Customer Manifesto — How Business Has Failed Customers & What It Takes To Earn Lasting Loyalty.” They co-host The Morning Would Show bringing the latest in marketing tips and strategies.
