As a small business owner, you’re probably aware that you have to come up with certain marketing strategies to advertise your business. But what are some marketing strategies that you can use, and which ones are the most effective? Many marketing strategies are effective, but different strategies work best at different times and for different businesses. Here are eight of the best marketing techniques to try for your business.
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#1: Affiliate Marketing
This marketing strategy allows you to let your customers (affiliates) market for you by generating a custom link (that still links back to your website). Anytime someone purchases through an affiliate’s link, that affiliate earns a commission from the purchase— and you still make money in the process. Because affiliate marketing offers an incentive, more people may be interested in trying your products so that they can promote them to others.
#2: Content Marketing
Content marketing uses content in a meaningful way to attract the attention of your target audience. You can create a variety of different types of content, such as:
- Written content, such as blog posts
- Video content
- Images, such as photographs and infographics
- Audio content, such as podcasts
This content can be displayed on your website/blog, social media pages, and even in emails.
#3: Email Marketing
This type of marketing uses emails to get your target audience interested in buying from you, versus your competitors. Emails are a very effective form of marketing, but only if your audience signs up for them. Cold emails usually are annoying and get marked as spam— therefore making them ineffective. When your audience is given the option to sign up for emails, they’re more likely to respond positively to the emails and not unsubscribe from them.
#4: Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is a method of paid advertising where every time someone clicks on your ad, you pay the publisher who is displaying your ad. Publishers can be other (but not competitor) websites and blogs, or they can be social media platforms, such as paid ads on Facebook, Twitter ad campaigns, and sponsored messages on LinkedIn. You can also pay for top slots on search engines like Google (Google Ads).
#5: Print Marketing
This type of marketing is one of the few marketing strategies that aren’t digital marketing (doesn’t happen online), but it’s still very effective. Print marketing and other traditional methods of marketing are still widely used today. Print marketing includes printed ads in newspapers, magazines, and flyers, whereas traditional marketing includes these methods plus TV and radio ads, billboard ads, and event marketing.
#6: Promotional Marketing
Promotional marketing involves placing your company name and logo on everyday items and selling them alongside your main inventory, giving them away as gifts, or simply having your employees wear or use them to create brand awareness. Some of the best promotional items include pens/other writing utensils and stationery, clothing items (hats/beanies, jackets, and T-shirts), stress balls, coffee mugs, water bottles, phone cases, and keychains. These are everyday items that the majority of people use, so it works as a form of free advertising by the people using/wearing them.
#7: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of getting your website to rank higher on search engines by using certain keywords that are likely to be searched. The idea behind this marketing technique is that when your website ranks higher on Google or other search engines, searchers are more likely to click on your website and purchase your products or services. The majority of people aren’t likely to scroll down the entire first page of search results, and they’re even less likely to visit the second page of results— which means you’ll want to get your website to rank as high as possible.
#8: Social Media Marketing
As the name suggests, social media marketing uses social media to market to your target audience. This is one of the simplest, yet most effective ways to market because over two billion people use social media every day. The majority of social media platforms provide tools for business owners to help market their businesses. Some of the top platforms for marketing include:
- Snapchat
The majority of these marketing techniques work best when you have a website for your potential customers to come back to. Even if you don’t sell items online and then ship them to your customers, it’s still beneficial to have a business website for your clients to make appointments or simply for your customers to gather more information about the products you sell. At the very least, a website is a landing page for your business to provide visitors with information about your company, what you’re selling, and how they can purchase from you.