The tasks on your small business’ “to-do list” are never-ending. Every time you check one off of the list, another one takes its place.
Because you’re forced to wear several different hats each and every business day, you are also forced to learn on the fly with aspects of the business you might not be entirely familiar with.
Marketing plays a huge role in the success of your small business. Done correctly, it can help you see tremendous growth in your first few years.
Here’s how to develop a killer marketing plan that’s balanced with both online and offline marketing tactics.
1. Use Evergreen Content
In the digital marketing industry, content reigns king. The higher the quality of your content, the higher your sales conversions will be.
However, in an online world that constantly asks you to push out new and relevant content, it can be hard to keep up.
For example, you could publish an article today about the new iOS software that will be obsolete after a newer version comes out, possibly as soon as next week.
For that reason, your site desperately needs to optimize what’s commonly referred to as evergreen content.
It’s a vital piece to search engine optimization (SEO) (more on that in a minute) because it helps your content stay relevant.
You only need to revisit your evergreen content annually to refresh it and make sure all statistics and information are still accurate.
2. Always Have Business Cards on Hand
Even in a world of the ever-growing digital space, there will always be a place for using strong offline marketing tactics.
One of the best offline marketing techniques has always been, and will always be business cards.
They encourage you and your employees to go out into the market, shake hands, exchange cards and build a network of relationships.
With every exchange of a business card, you’ve put a face to the name of the company you see in advertisements.
They also prove as a great asset to building your digital marketing strategies.
You can add to your email marketing lists with the contact information on all the business cards you receive.
3. Use Social Media for Prospecting
One of the greatest tools that you as a modern small business has is access to a vast array of social media platforms.
They’re a phenomenal way to build up your follower base both organically and in paid advertisements.
Not to mention, there are so many different platforms to choose from.
You can create a following of current and potential clients on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to name a few.
Depending on what industry your small business is in, you might even find it advantageous to use an up-and-coming platform like TikTok.
Nevertheless, you can design posts, stories, and tweets at directing more people to both your website and your products.
The more attention and effort you place into your social media outlets, the more leads you will generate.
4. Branded Promo Items
Who doesn’t love free stuff?
It doesn’t matter where you get a high-quality t-shirt, pen, etc.
As long as it’s useful in your everyday life, you’ll use it.
Creating branded promo items ensures that you’ll have different avenues of marketing and reaching a broader base of prospects.
Heck, if you give away t-shirts with your company logo on it, you will literally have walking billboards when those customers wear your shirt.
They can also be great for online contests on your social media outlets, handouts at a local sales convention, selling points for converting sales, etc.
Never underestimate the power of a high-quality branded promotional item.
They’re fun for you to use, as well as hand out to worthy prospective clients in your market.
5. Search Engine Optimization
Ah yes, no marketing plan is successful in this day and age without a heavy focus on SEO.
It’s the prioritization of using the content on your website to appeal to Google’s Algorithm and have your pages climb up the ranks to those top search results (the first page of results to any search is gold).
If you’re able to accomplish that, you’ve got it made in the shade.
How can you better your SEO game? It takes a healthy mixture of things such as keyword optimization, internal links, external links, and high-quality content, among others.
SEO is great for building your brand, having an online presence, and furthering the strength of things such as your brand recall.
6. Networking Events
Sometimes, rather than wait for the prospective leads to come to you, you have to go to them.
If you’re looking for ways to support your local community and up your marketing techniques, then attending local networking events can be a great tool.
Find a local chamber of commerce that you can get involved with.
Who knows?
Maybe your business can be a tremendous asset to the chamber’s needs, thus allowing for shameless plugs.
Want to take it a step further?
Become a sponsor of a local networking event to gain access to the highest level of brand exposure and be the talk of the event.
Anytime that you can find ways to get out, meet new people, shake hands, and build business-to-business (B2B) relationships, it’s a great marketing avenue to capitalize on.
Integrate All These Tips Into Your Marketing Plan
Now that you’ve seen all the different online and offline methods for building your marketing plan, it’s time to find what works best for you.
Interested in learning more marketing tactics?
Be sure to read this article on the benefits of video marketing for more information on that technique.
For more inquiries, please feel free to fill out our online contact form and we’ll be delighted to help you further.
