Anyone starting a small business or company must, just like big business, strive to get as much attention as possible in order to be noticed by potential customers. Otherwise, you will be completely lost in the crowd. Modern marketing measures are very common in the digital age, but which ones are suitable for small businesses with a small budget and limited resources. You quickly decide on too many marketing options and get lost, so small businesses should only choose a few advertising strategies. They all have drawbacks: new online marketing channels like social media are time consuming, traditional print and online ads cost money. In this article, here are five very useful online marketing tips for small businesses.
1) Blogging
Keeping a blog is a must for small businesses, as no other action can permanently establish a respected expert status that attracts many readers. These readers may eventually become customers. Either way, it takes time for a blog to reach a certain reach and corresponding traffic. To speed up this process a bit, you need to plan the article topics well by doing intensive keyword research. Indeed, all the research and writing of texts is of little use if the blog deals with topics that are hardly ever searched by users on the net or if the chosen keywords are wrong. Only companies that use appropriate keywords or long-tail keywords, which are searched at least 100 to 1000 times a month, ensure that their article is listed in the search engines after a certain time on the first places and is thus found by interested users. But to be able to blog, a start-up company must first create a homepage. A website with an integrated blog can be very easily implemented with the WordPress content management system. If you are not familiar with it and want to get a visually appealing result quickly, you can also use a homepage building kit such as Wix. The provider Wix is meanwhile one of the largest international web building kits, whose target groups are businesses, artists, photographers and restaurants. The offered templates are very modern, responsive and a blog can also be added. On Wix you are registered quickly and for free and can start with your website immediately.
Click on the selected template to access the Wix editor
The editor itself is very intuitive: if you want to edit elements of the website, for example text, just click on the element you want to edit and you will see buttons like "Edit" above it. The contextual function palettes show more functions of the selected element. When editing text, you can select a different font or color, font effect, font styles, etc. from the palette. If you want to edit an image in the template, you can either choose one from the free Wix offer, buy a photo from BigStock Images, or upload your own image from your computer.
Mix editor: changing text
The menu can be changed quickly by clicking on the area. The interface is easy to use, after a few minutes even a technical layman will find his way around and will be able to quickly create his content pages, integrate text as well as insert images. With the chosen template, a blog is already included in the menu. With Add, a new blog post, you can start writing. This section is also self-explanatory. At the top you enter the title of the blog and at the bottom you can write your article. The horizontal bar allows you to include images, image galleries, videos, GIFs, hyphens and HTML code in your post. On the right, you can set tags and categories for your article. With the preview button you can see the article in preview mode, with the blue button you can finally publish it. This short tutorial shows that with a modern homepage building system, you can have your website including a blog on the Internet in one or two days.
What else should business bloggers consider?
Many bloggers are probably wondering how many times a week a post should be published. They can't make a blanket statement about this, because after all, articles need to be well researched and developed. A text of an average length of 1000 to 2000 words should be present with detailed contributions. The longer and more comprehensive the contribution, the more time you have to invest in its creation, so it is also enough to publish quality articles once or twice a month. In addition to publishing on your own blog, it is recommended to publish guest contributions on other established blogs with relevant topics. With this strategy, you can significantly increase your reach and awareness.
2) E-Mail Marketing
For some entrepreneurs, e-mail marketing as a marketing measure will seem rather old-fashioned in the age of social media, but with an interesting newsletter you can build up a loyal readership and increase traffic to your website. To integrate a newsletter into a website, you need professional email marketing software, which is offered by different service providers on the Internet. For example, if you use Wix as a website building system, you can use WixShoutOut as an email software. Behind this is a simple newsletter solution for small businesses. With this tool, you can quickly create and send graphically appealing newsletters, which can be optimally adapted to the screen size of all end devices. Hurler also offers statistics such as click-through and open rates for evaluation purposes, as well as a mobile app that allows you to send emails directly via your smartphone.
3) Social media marketing
The small business will not be able to avoid social media marketing, because the large social networks, especially Facebook are home to countless target groups. And probably the target group of a new small business can also be found on one of the well-known networks. In addition, the use of a Facebook fan page is free. Anyone who wants to generate sales faster or wants to make their service or product portfolio known should use Facebook ads. They may cost money, but, if implemented correctly, they are very effective, because on Facebook, a wide variety of user data can be used to determine the perfect target group when creating ads. But it's not always Facebook, there are a few other interesting networks that can serve as a marketing channel for small businesses. For small businesses that offer products: jewelry, fashion, food or visually appealing services, the two free image networks Instagram and Pinterest are especially important, as they have become very popular in recent years and the number of followers is very high. For effective social media marketing, the following rules apply, use only one or two channels where your target group is represented and no more, otherwise the time burden becomes too intensive and the effectiveness suffers.
4) PPC campaigns: Google AdWords
Even in the beginning, small businesses should use their advertising budget in a very targeted way. If local products or services are offered, Google AdWords ads are a great way to promote them, as they can be limited to regions and countries. In addition, the ads can be optimized for specific keywords and negative terms can be excluded, so that only relevant website visitors, and thus potential customers, are directed to the online offer. With a fixed, daily budget, ad costs remain manageable and not out of control. To get the most out of Google AdWords ads, click costs and click-through rates need to be constantly evaluated and optimized to avoid unnecessary ad clicks, which can be a significant waste of time if this activity is not outsourced. In addition, PPC campaigns in the start-up phase of a business can generate the first website visitors and thus potential customers quite quickly, which is not possible even with a website optimized for search engines as quickly.
5) Press releases
Press releases sound kind of like dusty marketing, but you shouldn't underestimate them. Well-written press releases can help small businesses publish their portfolio on hundreds of national and international press channels. Writing press releases should not be confused with writing advertising copy, as press releases are primarily written in a factual and neutral tone, like a newspaper article. There are many press portals, some of which can be used for free, while others charge for the placement of a press release.
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