There’s a lot that goes into creating and running a business. The four core elements of business are to have a viable idea, to have a profitable niche for it, to understand the target demographic, and then to offer that target demographic something of value. One of the most important elements of business is the marketing strategy. People can’t buy your products or services if they don’t know they exist. With that in mind, here are 5 types of marketing strategy that will actually work for you and help to grow your business.
- Social Media
Social media is one of the most important elements of any marketing strategy. This is where the magic happens. There are some businesses that have been built on social media alone. It can be tough to navigate these fresh waters at first, but once you have some momentum behind you social media becomes easier. It practically becomes second nature after a while.
You should consider hiring your own social media manager to handle everything for you if you can. If you don’t have the cash for a social media manager, there’s no harm in doing it yourself. That means being yourself too. Be authentic and post your own thoughts and products. Post the things that you personally find useful and relevant because there’s a good chance your audience will too. They’ll learn more about you, your business, and your industry that way.
Connect with other businesses on the platform by using direct messages when you can. You can learn from them and maybe connect with them for a joint campaign. You can also use these messages to talk to potential customers. Taking the time out to connect with people directly can be incredibly powerful.
- Video Tutorials
Video tutorials are an excellent way to spread the word about your business. Teach your audience something cool, interesting, and useful. Use a video guide to walk them through the process and hold their hand through the entire thing. These step-by-step tutorials are always a big hit. The better the quality of the video tutorials, the more value they provide to viewers and the quicker you can boost visibility and sales for your business.
YouTube has become the second-biggest search engine in the world after Google. When someone wants a visual lesson in something, they use YouTube. No doubt you’ve probably done it yourself a lot. What do you think you could teach people about your business that will help customers to solve their problems and move past a pain point? Why did you decide to go into business?
- Blogging
This is the time to create a blog if you haven’t done so already. Just make sure that you know what you’re doing. There’s more to blogging as a business than just putting your own ideas out there on a business blog. Become an active and authoritative blogger through other platforms such as Quora, Reddit, and Medium. LinkedIn is another great place to blog. These platforms allow you to post from a position of authority and reach a huge audience that you wouldn’t be able to reach right away with a business blog.
Be sure to blog efficiently. Create content with value people actually want to read. Don’t worry about giving away business secrets either. If anything, that would just add even more value to the content. Make people see you as an authority by giving them what they need.
- Search Engine Optimization
SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most powerful forms of marketing, if used correctly. Avoid people that offer to teach you shady tricks and schemes to cheat Google for better rankings. They might work well in the short term but trust us when we say it’ll come back to bite you.
The proper way to do SEO is to avoid keyword spam. Keyword spam is the biggest mistake people make with SEO. Create content for humans that happens to be easy for computers to comprehend too. The most important thing to do is create content that is insightful and unique and adds value to customers. Do that, and you can’t go wrong. There are many guides on SEO and specifically local SEO out there.
- Influencers
Last but not least, influencers are a great marketing strategy for businesses. The important thing is to find the right influencer. Find someone who reaches the audience you want and deals with your industry. You don’t want to have a beauty influencer touting the benefits of a professional copywriting service, for example.
If you’ve got a great offer and it’s doing well but needs some extra visibility, then using an influencer is the ideal way to put your product in front of the people that need it. Reach out to different influencers, start small, and work your way up.