Want to know the best marketing strategy or tactic for your business?
So I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked when I’ve been doing talks and seminars and workshops, what’s the best marketing strategy or best marketing tactic out there for a small business?
I hate to say it, but there really isn’t one. However, this video will show you how to work out your best marketing strategy:
So, how do you work out the best marketing strategy for you?
The overall strategy I would simply say, as I’ve said before is just do some marketing every day. And I don’t mean just social media. Do some directed specific, targeted marketing and at your audience every single day.
Okay, well, I could end right there, but I want to just expand on this.
First off, it always comes back down to who your audience is.
If your audience is businesses, there are certain places where you would go to place your marketing messages or your boast.
But if you’re into consumer marketing, you run a retail, for example, or e commerce then things are going to be different.
Now looking at social media. For example, if you sell to businesses, then LinkedIn would be the best place to hang out. But if you sell to consumers, then Facebook Instagram would probably be good channels to you.
You can use those both for business to business, but it takes a bit more working out. It’s not directly where the audience typically goes.
If you self B to B, for example, you could use Google AdWords. Again, people are searching for what you offer and it does work but it tends to be quite pricey.
If you sell to consumers, you can use Google AdWords, but if you’re in a competitive field, then it’s expensive.
If you’re going to try Google Ads, get some professional advice from somebody who’s been there done that one thing
I think every business should do email marketing.
You should be sending something out to your email list at the longest, every two weeks, preferably every week with something useful and offer some kind of insight into there.
I’ve talked about this elsewhere and I’ll put a link below where you can find more help on this, but you should definitely be using email. You should definitely be using social media.
You should definitely be doing things like putting a link to your website or a special offer on your emails that you send out.
In general, you should definitely be using marketing automation through a CRM or email marketing system like Active campaign.
If you sell to local small businesses, you should definitely be going out to networking groups.
But the challenge is that there are hundreds of potential marketing channels. And there isn’t a one size fits all.
Overall, it boils down to doing some marketing every single day aimed at your target market with the boast or broadcast or message that you want to get across to them using the channels that are appropriate to them. Not the channels you necessarily like, but the channels where your audience hangs out, where they spend time, where are they, where they go.
And then if you can identify that because if you know your audience really well, you can put your messages in front of them in those particular channels.
But whatever you do, don’t just go on a particular channel or on a particular marketing strategy because everybody else is doing it.
For example, everybody is raving about TicToc marketing. That’s all well and good if you want to sell to people under the age of 20. Crazy as it seems, nearly nobody over the age of 20 goes on TicToc so you’re wasting your time and effort and money.
Younger people are leaving Facebook in droves for other channels.
However, if you want to appeal to the 45 and over, Facebook is great place to as a consumer channel simply because lots of older people are there. People go there simply because they want to keep tabs on family, etc.
And the over 50’s is the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.
You could do Instagram, which is great for all kinds of different things and all kinds of potential audiences. There is a wide variety of people on Instagram, but again, work out your market first. Work out the message you need to put in front of them before you get into that channel.
Don’t just go there because everybody seems to be raving about it.
If you run a gardening company, you could leave leaflet places where there were gardens. To be honest, that’s incredibly direct marketing, and I know from experience that it has worked. I did this with a friend of mine who ran a gardening company.
Every time he went to visit a customer, he leafleted every house on the whole street and it worked. It’s incredibly cost effective, direct marketing straight at these target markets. It was the best marketing tactic he’d ever done.
So here’s the crux of it. Work out who your audience is, where they hang out, what they do, where they spend time. Put your boast, you broadcast your brag, your message in front of them in those channels.
It’s really as simple as that. There isn’t a one size fits all. There isn’t a “best marketing strategy ever created”. It just doesn’t exist. It all depends on you, your audience, and your business.
Got any questions? Please, write them below.
Want more on Marketing Strategy? Check out:
The real key to marketing success (article)
Why taking time out to build your business is a good idea (video)