Did your small business grow last year? What are you planning to do in the coming year to extend or trigger growth? Every business should take time to evaluate their marketing strategy, determining what’s working and identifying areas for change or improvement.
While there are many general small business marketing tips for 2016 that everyone should follow, you can take a more fine-tuned approach based on your industry.
1. Home services
Plumbers, electricians and other small businesses that serve their customers in the realm of home services often have a lot of competition. How do you stand out?
Search engine authority: Generally speaking, your customers give you a call when something is broken or needs maintenance, so it is critical to rank well in search engine results. Build your authority -- and therefore your rankings -- with on-site search engine optimization (SEO), authoritative content about your business and services.
Email marketing: These days, people are bombarded with emails. Despite the inbox-saturation, it is still a great way to remind your potential customers that you exist and can help them out. Every campaign should be sent for a good reason, such as important educational or newsworthy content and / or a promotion or special. And each one should be personalized.
Educational content: “Content is king,” as you’ve probably heard. Not only can good content build your website’s authority in search-engine rankings as we’ve noted, it can also do some selling for you, or at least save you some time educating your customers about your business or services.
2. Fitness
Fitness made up 66 percent of the resolutions made last year. Your plan for fitness marketing in 2016 should be focused on reaching and engaging with your current and potential clients -- both online and in person -- to help them maintain their fitness, beyond their resolutions.
Freebies: Keep your clients on track with their New Year’s resolutions and beyond with free resources, tips and other goodies. If you can, help support their fitness regimen or New Year’s Resolution by offering a special promotion or giveaway to incentivize them to reach their goals -- and incentivize potential clients to sign-up).
Engaging content: We all need a little encouragement, especially when it comes to exercising regularly and avoiding the junk food we can crave. Use your blog and social-media pages to share words and stories of encouragement, stories to motivate or entertain, and those before-and-after pictures that make us all feel like normal, yet awesome people. This encourages your audience and / or clients to engage and form a supportive community.
Reputation / brand management: There are so many different kinds of fitness -- methods and practices. Not only do you need to stand out among those in your niche, you must also compete against other niches due to the market of potential clients who are researching fitness methods they haven’t tried. Get your Yelp and other review profiles in order, respond to reviewers and practice good customer service to try to increase five- and four-star reviews and minimize the one- and two-star ones. With a good online reputation, you can stand out among your competitors.
3. Food and beverage
We all have to eat. There are some quick things you can do to keep your establishment on your potential customers’ minds in 2016 while increasing your foot traffic with traffic through online avenues.
Email marketing: The primary benefit of email marketing for restaurants, bars and cafes is the reminder it provides to potential customers. Don’t oversaturate your contact list with daily or weekly email campaigns. Instead, use a monthly or twice monthly email with a promotion, coupon or special -- a good way to keep your establishment on their mind when they’re hungry or looking for a place to socialize. Grow your list with a website homepage pop-up to gather more contacts. And hey, while you’re at it, include a social follow to increase your audience on your social-media pages as well.
Re-targeting ads: This kind of pay-per-click advertising with Google can pack a powerful punch, even with a small budget ($75 to 150 per month). The way these ads work is to re-target your potential diners by showing them your ads on sites they visit, after they have visited your website. This keeps your restaurant, bar or cafe front-of-mind.
Social-media advertising: The top social-media networks for restaurants are Instagram and Facebook. Use Instagram to share timely photos, and incorporate Facebook’s advertising tools to increase the reach of your posts, photos and videos to customers. Even a $50 per month budget for Facebook ads can go a long way!
Posted By: Tiara Owens
Monday, December 12th 2016 at 11:30AM
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