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We’ve gathered a compact list of 4 easy-to-follow online marketing strategies. So even if you are a small business owner on a tight budget you can still easily promote your brand online and get real traction for it.
It can be difficult for small businesses to get their name out there in the open. A smaller budget hurts your ability to use traditional advertising and the new social media advertising can be hard to understand as well as rather ineffective if not approached properly.
However, there are some things that you can start working on right away. If you are patient and persistent, they will surely move the needle for your brand in the long run:
Table of Contents
Pimp Your Site with Regular Fresh Content
The easiest way to start with your online marketing campaign is to strengthen the authority of your own website by launching your company blog. Start building awareness to your brand by tackling essential industry-specific topics that are of high demand.
Draft regular posting schedule, don’t get lazy on this initiative. If you are on a tight budget and you cannot afford spending on paid advertising on social media or Google – this is the most economical way to put your marketing efforts to good use.
Search engines love fresh content. But being persistent is not the sole trick to ranking well in search. You should choose relevant to your services, products and industry topics to write on and you should stay away from the telegraphic writing style.
Go for long well-research pieces instead. See what kind of blog articles work for your competitors and bring them traffic and likes. Check their strategy and double their effort by creating a content piece that is longer, more detailed and yet still relevant to the topic you’ve selected in first place.
Give Live to Your Blog Posts by Sharing them on Social Media
Once live your articles need to be read. Go on Social Media and share them with your audience. If you’re just starting your company blog or you are renewing your writing efforts after a long pause, the chances are that nobody is actually visiting your site on a regular basis. In this case there is no way that your past and current customers become aware of you new writing initiative.
Give them heads up by ‘poking’ their interest on social media. Sharing random insights and tips from your newly-written blog articles on Facebook will definitely spur their interest. Posting creative visuals of the highlighted products or ideas in your articles is another way to reach out to your target audience.
Remember: know where your target audience prefers to hang out and ‘meet’ them there. If it is Pinterest they most frequently tend to use – never omit making a noticeable presence there with quality photos. On the other hand if you addressing the Millennials, then consider shooting short videos and posting them on TikTok.
And never forget – make your message consistent on all the marketing channels you use: whatever you write about on your blog, stretch the effort and touch upon the topic on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, or whatever the platform you’ve decided to be active on.
Newsletter Campaign to Reconnect with Your Audience
Every business that’s active online has a database of past clients or interested potential customers at their disposal. Don’t waste this valuable asset of yours, but put it into good use instead.
Go over your newsletter list and start reaching out to the recent, i.e. still hot leads.
Use your newsletter to communicate the introduction of new products and services, the launch of a promo campaign, the opening of a new office or any company news that are relevant to the end-client. Mention your new blog articles and other branded content you have recently created. Never omit bragging about winning industry awards, obtaining great customer reviews or taking part into community campaigns and events.
Your newsletter is the closest and cheapest way to effectively reach out to your audience, don’t waste it by spamming your target audience with irrelevant messages, such that are stepping big on self-promotion or are way to persistent when sent on a daily basis.
Respect your newsletter subscribers’ time and share with them only info that they will actually benefit from. They’ll appreciate your efforts and will become more reluctant to unsubscribe from your email bulletin.
Guestblog to Attain Quality Online Referrals
Guestblogging can be a powerful tool to add to your online marketing arsenal. If you’ve cultivated at least some basic knowledge on digital marketing you’d know that inbound links from external websites mean a lot as it comes to Google rankings. Of course not any inbound link will do the trick. You should carefully select your prospects. Think of websites that are relevant to your industry and location served. Those could be local news sites, branch associations, suppliers, respected vertical review sites, niche blogs and so on.
The options are countless, however the process may take some time, so you’ve got to arm yourself with patience. Make sure you choose an authority site or blog to reach out to with your guest-blogging proposal. Research what the site audience of that particular prospect is, consider if the site regularly publishes fresh content on their site, whether the readers are actually engaging with the content that is being posted on the site.
Also a well-established social media fanbase of a given site would further proliferate your message online, so keep an eye on that too.
All of the 4 online marketing strategies listed above are ready to be acted upon immediately. Don’t wait to seize a market share in your niche. Regardless of the size of your advertising budget there are quite a lot of things that you could move forward with, so take the first step and start writing amazing content for your company website!