As a small business owner, you need to do everything you can to attract customers online. In fact, this is a key part of growing your business. Luckily, there are many ways to improve your online marketing presence. You can also use the internet to enhance your word-of-mouth marketing, and this is one of the most effective ways to generate leads nowadays. If you’re like most business owners, management of time can be a real challenge so you should consider outsourcing those tasks that require specialized expertise.
It's important to have an in-depth understanding of your target market. You'll also need to optimize your online reviews and promote your brand on social media. Luckily, if you use these ten marketing strategies, you can dramatically increase interest in your small business on the web:
1. Offer Discounts and Freebies
One of the best ways to get new customers is to offer freebies and discounts. This can even lead to repeated business. Here are a few great ways to offer discounts as a small business owner:
- Give away free t-shirts at events.
- Offer a free novelty item with large purchases.
- Start a rewards program for repeat customers.
- If the inventory of a certain item is not selling, consider offering a discount on it.
- Offering a free trial can be a great way to get new customers.
2. Optimize Your Search Rankings
If your website doesn't show up on the first page of search results for potential customers, you won't get much traffic. Luckily, boosting your rankings is easier than you might expect, and it can be an effective free business marketing strategy if you do it right. Here are a few ways that you can improve the search rankings of your small business:
- Keep your keyword density between 1-3%, and ensure that all of your keywords are relevant to the products/services that you offer.
- Optimize your website for both voice and text search.
- Make sure that you regularly add content to your blog.
- Always ensure that your site is easy to navigate.
- Optimize the quality of all content posted on your website.
3. Pay Attention to Your Online Reviews
It's extremely important to get good reviews because a single bad online review can be detrimental to your company. Luckily, there are ways that you can improve your brand's customer satisfaction. If you follow these three tips, you could attract new customers by getting better reviews on the web:
- Encourage customers to leave reviews on Google My Business and elsewhere on the web.
- Offer a repeat customer discount.
- Make sure that you always offer quality customer service.
- Maintain a strong presence on social media, and encourage customers to post reviews on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.
4. Boost Your Local Search Rankings
Your local search rankings are extremely important if you own a small business. In fact, most people strongly consider online local business reviews when they're looking for a product or service. However, this information won't be available to target customers unless you optimize your local SEO strategy. Luckily, if you follow these tips, it's possible to improve your local rankings:
- Include the name of your county, city, or geographical region in some of your keywords.
- Complete your Google My Business profile.
- Make sure that you effectively differentiate your brand from competitors in your area.
5. Improve Your Presence on Social Media
Social media marketing is more important than ever as a business owner. Not only do you need to ensure that there's always fresh content on your company's social media pages, but you'll also need to optimize your rankings on the internal search engines of these popular platforms. This can help to ensure that your page is easily visible to potential new customers.
6. Do Plenty of Market Research
In order to effectively differentiate your brand and outshine the competition, it's important to do extensive market research. This makes it an essential part of growing your customer base. Luckily, if you follow these tried and true tips, you can dramatically improve your knowledge of the market:
- Posting a survey on your website can be a great way to understand your audience demographics.
- Ask customers how they found out about your business. This can be a great way to figure out what drives people to purchase your products and/or services, and it can give you an idea of how a typical customer spends their time online.
- After you have done plenty of market research, it’s a good idea to create a model of your “typical customer”. This will allow you to tailor your marketing strategies to the unique audience of your brand.
7. Regularly Update Your Blog
It's important to ensure that there's always fresh content on your blog, and you also need to optimize the quality of every blog post. Ideally, you should add new content to your blog at least once or twice a week. This will help to ensure that readers stay engaged, which can improve your brand loyalty.
If you're wondering how to get more customers for my small business, it's extremely important to do everything that you can to increase brand loyalty. That's because repeat customers can improve the long-term profitability of your business.
8. Harness the Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Not only can you harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing on social media, but it's also important to make use of other strategies as well. Here are a few of the best ways to utilize word-of-mouth marketing:
- Offering a refer-a-friend discount can be a great way to encourage people to recommend your business, and this can make it easier to attract new customers.
- Encourage customers to tell others about the products/services that you offer.
- Optimize the visibility of testimonials on your company’s social media pages and blog.
9. Improve Your Brand Differentiation Strategies
It's always important to ensure that you do everything you can to differentiate your brand on and off the web. In fact, if you're wondering how to get more customers for my small business, there's a good chance that improving your brand differentiation techniques could be a great start. Here are a few tips that can make your small business stand out:
- Try to offer specialty products and/or services that your competitors do not.
- Make sure that your logo looks as different from the competition's logos as possible.
- Choose a unique and highly recognizable name for your brand.
10. Understand the Importance of Brand Loyalty and Effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Optimizing your customer relationship management strategies can help to ensure that you always have plenty of new customers. Here are a few ways that you can improve your company's brand loyalty with CRM techniques:
- Always send an email to customers who made a purchase. You can do this with a CRM software program.
- Make sure that you always offer exceptional customer service.
- Offer CRM training to all of your employees.
Get in Touch With E-Marketing Associates to Grow Your Small Business!
As a small business owner, you need to do everything you can to ensure that your brand stands out online. So, if you're wondering how to get more customers for my small business, let the digital marketing pros at E-Marketing Associates help you stand out above the competition and help increase your sales. Not sure how your business is performing online? Get a Free Report that shows you how.